It took Preston an embarrassingly long time to realize Ashley had in fact walked out on him, that she wasn’t coming back. That the words he’d so stupidly chosen to use had angered her so thoroughly that she apparently hadn’t even felt the pain of her ankle as she’d stomped her way out of the room, her crutch a useless prop in her loose grip.

Then his brain caught up with his runaway mouth, and he cursed, jumped out of bed, and yanked on some clothes, racing after her with his tail between his legs.

He’d meant to tell her a little bit about what was currently in his heart, and instead he’d messed everything up.

She had a weak ankle, so she’d only made it as far as her room door when he almost caught up with her, but she ignored him when he called, “Ash!” before the elevator doors had even opened enough to let him out. She dug around in her bag in an agitated fashion and pointedly didn’t turn to look at him. “Ashley, come on!” He burst out of the elevator and hurried down the corridor, reaching her just as she unlocked the door.

“I don’t need to hear anything else from you tonight, Preston,” she said, limping through the doorway. He stuck his foot out to stop her from shutting the door on him—a dick move, but he was desperate here.

“Look, you can tell me to leave—”

“Yes please.”

“—but let me just explain,” he said, trying to show his heartfelt desperation on his face.

She stared at him, sighed, and muttered with immense irritation, “Two minutes.”

It took all of his strength to mask his relief. “That’s all I need.”

“Okay, but I’ve got to sit down. This ankle…”

He followed her into the room and waited until she took a seat on the edge of the bed, then he paced back and forth in front of the TV unit, feeling her impatient gaze on him like a blaze.

With a deep breath, he said all at once, “I don’t feel like I’m good enough for you. I never have.” He didn’t dare look at her yet, but continued pacing, hands jerking about to highlight his words, his agitation. He wasn’t used to explaining his feelings—never really had cause to in the past. But he had cause now, and he would find a way to make her understand what he’d been trying to tell her.

He wasn’t going to achieve that by pacing and talking to the walls, so with a burst of courage, he crouched in front of her and looked into her face. She stared back at him impassively, but he saw that glint in her eye, something that told him she really wanted him to say the right thing here.

“My world is very superficial,” he said softly, “and you…you’re so real.” Her only reaction to that was a slow blink, and he continued, undeterred. “What can I offer you? Money? Pretty sure that’s the last thing on your mind.”

That earned him a faint smile, a hint of acknowledgement.

“I never saw myself as a long-term-relationship kind of guy. I’d never met anyone who made me want to settle down. That all changed when I met you,” he said, taking a risk by reaching out and laying a hand over hers in her lap. She didn’t shake him off this time. “You make me want to grow up, Ashley. To be a better man. To step out into the real world and face whatever life wants to give me. If you don’t want a man with money, well, you make me want to give it all away.”

She breathed out a quiet laugh. “Slow down,” she said, barely more than a whisper, and he smiled at her a moment before sobering.

“When we lost you on the slopes,” he said, chest tightening, “I realized something. I don’t want to live without you. I don’t want to go a single day without seeing your face, hearing your voice…” The impassivity of her expression had filtered away, leaving behind a rawness that made him swallow, made his chest and stomach and gut expand with emotion. Made him want to tell her, the one thing he’d been trying to pretend wasn’t real, but he knew it was—he couldn’t deny it now, sitting here, with his heart beating for her. “The way you look at me,” he said shakily, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, “the way you make me feel… Ashley, look, I’m gonna say it—”

Her eyes widened. “Preston—”

“I know it’s too early for this, and I know you don’t feel the same—yet—but I have to say it. I can’t keep it to myself anymore, not after nearly losing you yesterday.”

She shook her head and turned her hand over to squeeze his, as if warning him. “You don’t mean this.”

“I do. Ashley, I do.” He reached up, cupped her cheek in his palm, and it was as if everything in the world went still and quiet for a moment. Ashley stopped breathing, staring at him, and all Preston could hear was the thunderous beat of his heart ringing in his ears. It took him two tries to say it: “I…I love you, Ash.”

Both of her cheeks flooded with color, her hand stiffening around his, her eyes widening even further as she stared at him, scrutinized him. And then she must’ve seen it—whatever it was she needed to see in his face. And she let out the tiniest, most delicate gasp he’d ever heard.

“You actually do,” she breathed, sounding entirely in awe.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

She swallowed, opened her mouth, then closed it. Then said, “I don’t know what to say. I—”

“Don’t say anything,” he said, because he didn’t need it. He didn’t tell her all of this just to hear some kind of sentiment in return. He said it because he needed her to know, and for now that was enough. Except: “Just…don’t push me away anym—”

The rest of his words got lost in her kiss.

She brought him onto the bed with her and said, “Show me,” in a breathy voice full of wonder, and he didn’t need to ask what she meant, had no reason to delay giving her exactly what she needed.

He stripped her bare and then himself, spread her out until she lay naked and trembling before him, and he worshipped her in the minutes that followed, kissed the flush into her skin from ankle to throat, mapped his fingers across each glorious inch of skin, and he didn’t have a condom but it didn’t matter. He could show her anyway, show her with tongue and fingers, and when he parted her thighs wide and buried his face in her pussy, she cried out and clamped her hands into his hair.

He brought her to the edge with his tongue and his lips and then he moved up her body, kissing the taste of herself into her mouth and taking her hand, wrapping it around his throbbing cock, and then pushing two fingers inside her, watching her arch up to meet him.

With a few strokes and thrusts and bitten-off moans, they tumbled over the edge together, desperate and gasping, and in that moment of pure, all-consuming climax, he thought I love you, I’ll always love you, but he didn’t say it, couldn’t say it, his voice stolen by bliss and his whimpers spilling into her mouth. But she understood it, and her eyes glittered with emotion when he pulled back to look at the perfect face of the woman he loved. The woman he planned to love forever.