“Careful,” I teased. “You don’t want to veer into the L-word territory.” Could he feel just then how much I needed him to say it?

“Don’t I?” he asked, looking up the length of my body at me. “Did you not hear me say that I love you every time I spoke into your skin just now?”

I smiled, opening my mouth to crack a joke before I realized he wasn’t teasing. And he had. He’d whispered I love you over and over on the floor, with reverence.

“Oh.”

His smile was unreal: teasing and mischievous. “Did you need it spoken directly into your ear?”

I bit my lip, shrugging down at him. “I like where your mouth is right now, but I have to admit I wouldn’t exactly mind hearing you say that a little closer . . .”

He kissed up my body, his lips wet from me, hands squeezing, teeth grazing. Every single touch echoed the words.

He was so long, enormous above, blocking out everything else and the safety I felt beneath Niall was unlike anything. He’d seen me at my craziest and my most grounded—both states had been caused by my feelings for him. In the months I loved him from afar and the four short weeks I loved him up close, he’d become more than lover; he was my new best friend.

“I always felt like the only person in my life who didn’t know his own mind from the moment he was born. My siblings—they came out knowing exactly who they were. Not me. But I do with you. I want to trust that. Need to, rather. So yes, it only took a month after we officially met in the elevator”—he smiled down at me—“and I ruined it stupidly and you ran away from me perhaps even more stupidly . . . but here we are. And I love you.”

I felt goose b.u.mps spread along my arms.

“I love you,” he repeated in a whisper and kissed my ear lobe. “I adore you.”

I unfastened his belt, and he helped me push his pants down his hips far enough for him to kick them off the end of the bed. I didn’t want to wait anymore; I had this flushed aching need to be with him, filled of him. Wherever it touched mine, his skin was warm and smooth, the soft hair on his legs brushed against my thighs, his chest pressed against my b.r.e.a.s.t.s as he climbed over me.

“You feel so good,” I whispered.

“I know. This . . .” He shook his head. “I feel like I didn’t pay enough attention the first time we were intimate like this,” he admitted, kissing me. “I was too focused on not freaking out. I want to feel every second.”

I reached between us, stroking him and watching his face. His mouth opened, eyes grew heavy.

“You’re still on birth control?” he asked, bending to kiss my neck.

“Yes.”

“And you haven’t . . .” He paused, his breath catching as he met my eyes. “You haven’t been with . . . ?”

My heart jerked to a stop. “I’ve barely left my apartment except for work. Is that a serious question?”

“No,” he admitted. “I guess I just wanted to hear it. I’ve been a mess, Ruby. Thinking of you seeing someone else while we were apart . . . it was horribly painful.”

He hovered above me, blocking out all of the light in the room so the only thing I could see or feel or smell was his skin.

“I thought you might make love to Portia that night,” I told him. And why was this conversation so much easier when I could feel the warm, thick slide of him over me, just an inch from where he could slip inside? “I left your office and it was the only thing I could imagine, that you would be with her that night. I don’t think I’ve ever cried that hard.”

“Ruby—”

“It just took me a while to be able to get it out of my head. To not be mad, or feel betrayed. To not worry that every time I was with you I would need you to rea.s.sure me.”

He opened his mouth but I stopped his words with a finger to his lips. “I don’t need you to rea.s.sure me. You had a lot of history with her, and practically no history with me. I want to move on from that night.”

His voice came out thin and tight: “I wish I’d never gone there.”

“Me, too.”

He winced and bent to press his face to my neck. “Ruby, f.u.c.k, sorry . . . I know we’re talking . . . but I’m going to come if you don’t stop stroking my c.o.c.k.”

I let go of him immediately, barking out a laugh. “Oh my G.o.d! Niall! I’ve been being all serious and expecting you to listen while I’m giving you a hand job and rubbing you all over my—”

He cut me off with a kiss that didn’t even start sweet at all. It was immediately deep, searching and the movement of his hips causing him to slide up and over my c.l.i.t told me that the conversation was done.