Chapter Ten #3
Hell, I’ll give her anything she wants from now until the end of time.
Although I already put my past behind me enough to move on, I didn’t realize just how much I love her until the second I heard her scream.
Coming around the corner and seeing Colton holding a knife to her throat shocked me into complete acceptance.
I love her completely and absolutely.
If anything happens to her, if I lost her, I wouldn’t want to go on. Why in God’s name did I believe what we have is short-term and meant to end? She is a part of me, and I don’t want to let her go.
I pick up the ice I put into a zipped bag and head back into the bedroom only to find her wearing a pair of sweat pants and a shirt, hobbling between my closet and the suitcase she’s opened on the bed. The ice in my hands spreads through my veins.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I place the bag of ice onto the dresser by the bed.
She turns her head and meets my gaze, her green eyes sad. “We agreed when Colton was caught, our time together would come to an end. I’m not going to stay here and prolong the inevitable.” She runs her tongue over her lips and I want nothing more but to kiss her, but we need to talk first.
“Faith—”
“Wait.” She places a stack of work tee shirts into the luggage. “I need to tell you something first. I want you to know that this isn’t what I want.”
Thank God for that, I think, but she continues talking.
“If it were up to me, we’d stay together and see where things led. But you made it clear we had an expiration date, and because I love you, I’m giving you what you want.”
Jesus, my head is spinning. Even if I thought things between us should end—eventually—I never wanted her to leave so quickly. But at this point, I don’t want her to go at all.
“Let me get this straight. You love me but you’re leaving,” I say, summarizing her words, my heart thumping hard in my chest at the words she so casually tosses out. But I’ll get to that later.
She blinks. “Yes. Because it’s what you want.”
“No.” I stride over, zip up the suitcase, and throw it onto the floor.
“Jason!”
“You’re not going anywhere. First, you’re going to lay that cute ass down and ice that ankle because I can see it swelling more with every minute you stand on it.”
She narrows her gaze at my rude command but it works. She sits on the mattress and stretches out her legs. “Give it to me,” she mutters, opening her hand for the ice pack.
I hand her the bag and she gingerly places it on her swollen ankle.
“My ass isn’t cute,” she says under her breath.
“You’re right. It isn’t. It’s sexy as hell. Now, where were we? Right. You leaving because of what you think I want.”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “What you said you wanted.”
I settle beside her on the bed, easing my ass next to her thigh, forcing her to move over and make room for me to sit. “I was wrong.”
Her eyes open wide.
“You’d better savor those words, because I can’t promise you’ll ever hear them again.”
She coughs, clearly covering a laugh. “Wrong about what, exactly?”
I lean close, cupping her face in my hand. “Wrong to think that if I ended things with you, it would be easier. Tonight, even before Colton grabbed you, I realized that I love you.”
She gasps. “You do?”
I place my fingers over her lips. “My turn, remember?”
She nods and leans into me. “Go on.”
“I discovered that what we shared, living together, spending hours together and not getting on each other’s nerves, counting on each other, was special.
It was the very thing I’d been running away from most of my life.
And the only reason I was able to accept that Levi would want me to live my life, that I could open myself up to love, was because I found you. ”
“You love me?” she asks, her shock so real it hurts me to hear.
“Yeah. And I’m seeing that I’ve done a pretty shitty job of showing you.”
She shakes her head. “No. You’ve shown me every day. It’s just that you were so sure you didn’t want the same things that I do, and I need to know we’re on the same page.”
I narrow my gaze. “How so?”
“I want it all, Jason. A house, babies, a dog, my job, your job, us coming home to each other at the end of the day. But you said you don’t want kids. And…”
“Shit,” I say more to myself than to her.
“What?”
I draw a deep breath. “I was wrong. Again.” To my surprise, I can look down the road and see all those things my family has, and I desire them for myself. “I want it all, too. I want kids, sweetness. And a house. I’ll even take a white picket fence, as long as it’s with you.”
A tear falls from her eye, and I wipe it away with my finger. “I never want you to cry because of me.”
“It’s relief. When I pulled out that suitcase, I really thought I was leaving. I promised myself I wasn’t going to tell you how I felt, that I would make it easy for you, but I couldn’t go without you knowing how much I love you.”
“You’re brave and strong … and you’re mine.” I pick up the ice pack and place it onto the nightstand. “Now I’m going to make love to you and show you how I seal the deal.”
I slowly and carefully strip her of her clothes until she lays naked on the bed, her damp hair a golden halo around her head. She watches me with wide eyes as I undress myself, her gaze coming to rest on my thick, straining cock.
Coming over her, I don’t waste any time. I slide a finger through her slick sex, and finding her wet for me, I position myself at her entrance.
“I just need to be inside you.” Foreplay can wait for another time. “I just want to make you mine.”
She chuckles beneath me. “Silly man. I’ve always been yours,” she says as I begin to slide myself into her.
Her tight walls spasm around me and I groan, thrusting all the way home, until I’m as deep as I can get, until we are as close as we can possibly be.
And when I begin to move, rocking into her, taking her slowly, I feel every slick glide and every flutter of her sweet pussy. I’m not going to last. It’s going to be the quickest yet most intense orgasm of my life. And I’m taking her along for the ride.
I come at the same time she cries out my name, and the emotions that sweep through me are potent. Because I’m with the woman I love and I’ve finally opened myself to believe in forever.