I all but dove to close the space between us. I tackled him to the ground; he went down without a fight. When he was on the floor and I had him beneath me, he struggled a little. Not to get away. To get closer. I took his wrists in my hands and pinned them at the sides of his head. I looked into his eyes. They went from poised and focused, to dreamy. Every hint of tension left his limbs and his jaw. He blinked twice and then turned his head, offering me his throat. Yearning pooled in my mouth and my throat. I swallowed it down and scraped my teeth along his jaw edging my way toward his chin, careful not to inhale close to his scent gland. He turned to face me again. For a long while we looked at each other. He looked so different, but also the same. His hoods were lidded but his eyes were clear. His mouth parted slightly. I lowered my lips onto his. His tongue met mine and he moaned on contact. I kissed him gently. Deeply. I kissed him until I couldn’t tell if the air I breathed belonged to him or to me. When I pulled away, he ran his fingers through my hair. He brushed it out of my face and pinned it back behind my ears so there was nothing obscuring his view.

“I love you, Sully,” he said. His voice was calm and strong, as if he was stating a well-known fact.

“I love you, too, Jules,” I replied with no hesitation.

Tears pricked in my eyes. It was a massive moment. I expected to feel elated, and I did, but more than that, I felt a deep sense of peace wash over me. It felt like some part of me that I hidden so deep inside I’d forgotten all about it, relaxed. Tension I hadn’t even been aware I carried with me, released. I breathed in and out deeply.

He smiled up at me and bared this throat to me again. Heat seeped out of him and sank deep hooks under my skin. I quickly put my hand over his gland. It suppressed its potency a little. Not a lot. The urge to bite down was still overpowering. I ground my jaws hard and tried to collect myself. I kissed him once more on the mouth and quickly worked my way down his body. I dropped hot kisses down the middle of him, veering off course once, then twice, to run my tongue over his dark, peaked nipples. I sucked the hard buds of flesh into my mouth and answered his moan with one of my own.