And I’ll give myself what I need too. Her.

She wraps a hand around my bicep and tries to tug me down. “I want you closer.”

I chuckle, scanning over her again. I memorize every inch, catalogue her beauty even as my mind spins wildly with all the ways I want to touch her. “I like the view from here.”

She arches, as if the words alone shoot pleasure through her.

“I love looking at you.” I bend, flicking my tongue against her peaked nipple. Gasping, she jerks beneath me. “Love tasting you.” I press my open mouth to her breast and trail my hand down her body, slipping my fingers beneath the waistband of her panties where she’s already slick. “Touching you.”

“Carter.” My name is a moan on her lips as my fingers dance across her clit. She parts her legs for me, letting me toy and play and touch until her whimpered pleas become louder and more frantic and she’s grabbing a condom from the bedside table and begging for me.

Pushing this morning’s conversations from my mind, I silence her moans with my mouth and we lose ourselves in each other.

“You’re beautiful.” I rake my gaze over her after taking care of the condom. She looks like a goddess in the warm light of the bedside lamp—flushed skin against white sheets in nothing but her satisfied smile—and contentment wraps around me as I climb back into bed with her.

Her pulse flutters wildly at her neck, and I dip my head to press a kiss there. “Your heart’s still racing.”

“You do that to me.”

I groan. “I want to do it again and again.”

Panic flashes across her face. “Carter . . .”

I roll to my back. “No rush. I meant it when I said so last night. You know what I’m offering. All you have to do is decide if you want it.”

She rolls onto me. “The truth is I’m not so sure you’re going to want me. Not the way you mean. You deserve that perfect girl Ethan said you’re looking for.”

I don’t want her. I want you. “What? You’re telling me you’re not perfect?”

She huffs. “Shut it. You know I’m not. And if you think I am, you’re going to be disappointed.”

“I don’t want perfect, Teagan. Perfect is boring.”

“Okay, well, how about a little less screwed up, then?”

“You think I can’t be with a woman who grieved so deeply she had to be dragged from bars?” I watch as she pales and decide to go all in. “Tell me about your ugly insides, Teagan. Tell me about Rich.”

She lowers her body onto mine and curls into my chest, placing her palm flat against my pounding heart. “Sometimes I think Rich wanted me to be with Heath because he knew it was the only way he could get me back. Heath was Rich’s best friend and partner, and he was . . . Heath was a good guy. He didn’t do anything halfway. He loved me fiercely and made me feel like I was the most beautiful woman in the world. He was passionate about his job, about me, and about his friendships. That included Rich, so I never dared ask him to push Rich away.”