Ash Rising (DEAd Series) by Melissa Fox

you said the night of our first date, how I went home with random women, stuck with me. You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever been with. I wanted to take things slow, to let everything build first—how I felt about you, maybe what you felt for me—instead of just fucking around.” He shook his head again. “Tried to show you how much I want you, but looks like I’ve done the exact opposite. The last damn thing I intended.”
    “I thought maybe… I thought maybe you didn’t want me like that. I mean, you do everything else all the time—you know, with your hands, your mouth.” She blushed a hot, rich red. “But you won’t have sex with me.”
    “Oh, Lizzie. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I tried to show you I want you—all of you, not just your body, not just sex—but I fucked up, huh?” Somehow, they’d both been at odds while coveting the same thing. “I’ll say it straight out, then. If I don’t have you soon, I’ll probably explode.”
    “Me, too,” she told him, and he couldn’t hold back a relieved laugh.
    Cupping her face, he lowered his mouth and kissed her, just lips, gentle touches, soft glides. He gave to her, he who never had anything to give. But Liz… He’d give her everything.
    “Liz.” He r name whispered on a shaky breath, and he rested his forehead against hers as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, Lizzie. Sorry I’m such an idiot.”
    “Let’s go home.” She pushed wild strands of his hair off his face. “Take me home.”
    “Are you sure?” For the first time, he meant the question and didn’t use it to taunt or tease.
    “Yes.” She leaned up on tiptoe to press a firm, open-mouthed kiss to his willing lips. “I am.”
    He took her back to his apartment and his bed, let her look her fill as he bared his flesh, muscle, and bone. Full to bursting in his own skin, he battled unfamiliar, rioting emotions, all because of her, a tiny, blue-eyed, curly-headed girl. Playing games never entered his mind, no sense of one-upmanship or superiority as he crawled across the bed to where she waited. No cocky detachment, only a desperation that she find him pleasing, that he could make her body sing. He removed each article of her clothing and revered the flesh he exposed with kisses, licks, and nibbles, and then moans, whispers, and soft, slow breaths.
    He entered her finally, when she sobbed and shook, when he trembled and teetered on the edge of control—and he thought his control limitless. He opened his heart as he made love to her, and she slipped inside, not realizing the consequence of the occasion. He moved with her to orgasm, soaring to heights he’d never reached, he who was a hedonist of the highest order. When reality became a part of their awareness again, he held her, feeling no urge to leave or let go. The outside world wouldn’t intrude on the miracle he’d found in the small bed in the old room, inside the ancient, run-down building. He’d found his heart, and he held it in his arms.
    “I love you, Ash,” she murmured.
    His eyes blinked open, then blinked again. He’d heard I love you many times and from many different women, but none of them meant the words. This time, he actually wanted the girl in his bed to mean them. Badly.
    “Yeah?” Blood surged through his chest and shot right down to his cock. He wrestled the urge to pound his chest and shout from the rooftops.
    “Mm. I do.” She snuggled into his arms, her back nestled comfortably against his front, and turned her head to place a gentle kiss on the swell of his biceps. “I love you.”
    For the first ti me in his life, he fell in love. His heart stopped, gut swooped and clenched, and when the unsteady beat resumed, he was entirely different. He loved her. He deserved his fate—that when he honestly fell in love, he was surrounded and controlled by deception. He wanted to tell her she was everything, but he couldn’t. Not while so many lies stood between them. Not while those lies