Chapter 25 #3
“Just hear me out,” he begs. He twists and takes both of my hands in his own. “If the situation was reversed and you were in my shoes, would you offer the same thing to me?”
I fucking hate this logic game because of course I would. I would give him the shirt off my back if he wanted it, even if he had a dozen shirts in his closet. But I don’t know how to accept a gift like this.
“Can I think about it?” I ask.
He looks upset. “I’ll never deny you time to think, but you’ve spent so many years denying yourself anything good, and I don’t want you to sit here and talk yourself out of it because you think you need to.
” He falls quiet for a moment, then lifts my hands and kisses my knuckles.
“Before I met you, I never touched a cent in my accounts. I didn’t want to.
I didn’t have the motivation to do anything with my life.
I planned to just rot here, and then you came along. ”
My throat feels heavy and thick as I swallow. “I didn’t make it easy on you.”
He laughs. “No. We didn’t make it easy on each other.
But clean slate, remember. And I’m entirely yours, which means everything I have is yours.
And before you start protesting again, it’s not like I worked for it.
It’s all settlements and bullshit. It’s a corporation’s way of trying to buy my silence, as though a bunch of zeroes in my account can make up for what I lost.”
Bowing my head, I take a deep breath and ask the question burning a hole in my chest. “Do you think Liam would hate this idea?”
Leo’s eyes go wide, like he didn’t expect those words.
Then he strokes a thumb over the top of my hand.
“I like to think that he cared about me enough to want me to be happy. Our marriage was over before he died, we just hadn’t made it official yet.
But we didn’t hate each other. We were miserable because we weren’t meant to be.
I want to believe he’d encourage me to do what makes me happy. ”
“And this—taking care of me—makes you happy?”
His eyes meet mine, and he holds my gaze. “Yes, North. My love. My everything.” I let out a shaking breath as he goes on. “You make me happy.”
I can’t help it. I kiss him. I push my tongue into his mouth and rock my hips up against his because I want to get closer, but it’s not physically possible to crawl under his skin and live there.
How can he be this good? This perfect.
“I love you,” I gasp, pulling back for air. My kisses are frantic now, and I shove my hands up his shirt because I need to feel his skin. It’s warm, getting warmer as he rocks against me. “I love you so much.”
“So…is that a yes?” he asks, his voice a little thready with want. He thrusts his cock up against my belly, and I detach one hand so I can shove it behind the waistband of his pants and grip him. He moans loudly, rocking into my palm. “Tell me you like the idea. Tell me you want this life with me.”
I let him go only to fumble with our zippers and buttons, and it’s only moments before I’m gripping us both and stroking hard, fast, a wild slapping of skin filling the room. I grunt when he adjusts himself better, and I feel the heat of my climax rising.
“I want that with you,” I make myself say. Words are so fucking hard right now, but I need him to hear me. “I want everything with you. I love you so fucking much.”
He leans in, kissing me sloppily and messily until we’re doing nothing more than sharing breath. My arm moves faster, his hips circling forward, chasing his climax, and it hits just seconds before mine.
I grunt into his mouth, and he catches the sound, kissing the rest out of me as we both spill, and spill, and spill.
It’s messy, but I don’t care, and he doesn’t seem to either. He collapses against my chest, and I wrap both arms around him, my lips smudging kisses along his forehead.
“We’re really doing this, yeah?”
I hold him tighter. “Yes. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
He stiffens, and I can almost feel a wave of his fear. I can tell it’s a trigger, and I know I need to navigate carefully. “Are you saying you want to—”
“I’m saying,” I interrupt so he doesn’t have to go on, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. It doesn’t matter to me what that looks like for us, as long as you’re not going anywhere,” I murmur. I tilt my head down and nose at his temple.
He relaxes, then tilts his head up to kiss me one more time. “Will you let me help with your mom?”
I want to say no. It’s hard enough accepting that he’s going to fund our life while the both of us figure out what our future together looks like, but I think back to his words earlier. Would I do it if the situation were reversed?
I don’t even need to think about the answer.
“We can help her together.”
“I can live with that,” he answers with a grin.
So can I.
It took us both too long to get here, but I have him now, and now I’m never letting go.