What do you see when you look at me?”
“I see you,” he answered as if it was obvious. “It’s not like I see a place, or a time, or a name: just you. Your essence. Your soul. That’s how I find you every time you come back. I know it’s hard to understand, but your soul calls me…and I’m drawn to it. I couldn’t keep away if I tried.”
Sage raised his hand to my cheek, cupping it gently. I closed my eyes, resting against the warmth of his palm. When I opened them he had moved closer.
I closed the distance between us and kissed him.
I felt dizzy and hot and floaty, like every cliché…but it was true. I couldn’t feel my feet. I finally felt like I was where my soul belonged.
There was only one problem. The gearshift was digging into my side.
“Ow!” I winced.
“You okay?”
“Yeah…it’s just…” I gestured down, feeling like an idiot for ruining the moment.
Sage didn’t seem to mind. He reached down and moved his seat back to its maximum leg room, then held out his hand. I grabbed it and clambered over the center console, clumsily ducking and folding myself until I finally settled onto his lap, straddling his legs. It was the least coordinated act of seduction ever.
“Better?” he asked.
“Better.”
He kissed me, sliding his hands up the back of my shirt. It felt incredible. Without breaking away from his lips, I reached underneath his tee and felt his bare, sleek chest. My breath came faster, caught up in the frenzy of finally letting go and doing what I’d been dying to do from the second I’d seen Sage on the beach.
“Wait,” he said.
He reached down and pulled a lever. I let out a little scream as his seat back dropped all the way and I fell on top of him. I loved the feel of his body under mine. I didn’t want a single part of us not touching.
“Better now?” Sage murmured into my ear. It wasn’t fair of him to ask me a question when he was doing that. I could barely function, never mind put together an answer.
“Much better,” I said. “It’s practically a bed.”
“Is it?” Sage agreed, and in his eyes I saw exactly what that could mean.
“Oh,” I said, suddenly nervous. “But…we can’t. I mean, we don’t have…”
“I do,” he said, leaning down to kiss the hollow where my neck met my shoulder.
“You do?”
I tensed up. Why did he have one? For who?
The corner of Sage’s mouth turned up. “For us, Clea. The drugstore in Rio? I kind of had a feeling…”
He moved his lips back to my neck. He nibbled on my earlobe, and I whimpered.
“Oh,” I managed. “Well…then…”
“I love you, Clea.”
Everything tunneled in, and I heard the words echo in my head. Sage loved me. Me. I didn’t even realize I’d stopped breathing until he said my name, concerned.
“Clea?”
I looked at him and immediately relaxed.
“I love you, too.”
We kissed, and I actually felt myself melting into him as my last coherent thoughts gave way to pure sensation.

Auteur: Hilary Duff