Chapter 19 #2
I’m gaping at the empty bookcases. “You built me…book cases?”
He nods. “All your books are in stacks on the floor and I know you don’t like that, they’re too precious to you.”
I choke on a tearful laugh.
“I just wanted to do this for you,” he says, his arms coming around me and holding me back against his chest. “I know you like to organize them differently so I separated them in stacks by author. I can help you. If you want. Well, I want to help you.”
He’s so fucking cute when he’s nervous. “Christian…”
“I can pay you rent,” he says quickly.
I blink and turn in his arms. “What?”
“For staying in your guest room,” Christian clarifies, pushing back his hair in a way that flexes his arms. “I can pay you rent. Or I’ll pay our electric or water bill or something. And I’ll buy the groceries every week.”
I’m gaping and blinking at him. “Are you insane?”
“Lana—”
I scoff. “I’m not going to make you pay me rent, Christian.”
“Then…”
“Christian,” I huff a quiet laugh, “you built me two bookcases. You…You got all this furniture and…How?”
He shrugs and answers quietly, “Same day delivery.”
“Everything you’ve done, Christian. I… It’s all…perfect.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Maybe not to you.”
Don’t be an idiot, Lana Aurora Gomez!
Be an idiot, Lana Aurora Gomez!
This man loves me, and I don’t doubt that.
There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me, and I don’t doubt that either.
These actions, their actions. Actions mean something to me, they always have.
Christian is here, being a better man that he was and entirely sober, and he’s doing these things for me.
He’s doing the things he used to do before we were ruined.
Christian sighs, shifting uncomfortably and waiting for me to say something else.
Or probably trying to figure out what to do or say to me next.
But he stands there in jeans and a white t-shirt that does wonders for his tan skin and his gigantic arms, and I jump.
My arms are thrown around his neck and it takes him a minute, but his arms come around my body.
He buries his face in my neck and one of his hands gets lost in my hair and the other is looped around me so tightly, his fingers curve over my rib cage.
I never stood a chance against him.
He pulls back after I do, and his forehead is on mine. My hands are in his hair and the tip of his nose bumps mine, his oxygen transferring into my lungs between our parted lips.
At first, it’s a brush over his lips. A graze. A light touch. A whisper of a kiss.
“Those things,” I whisper, “the things you’ve been doing, mean something to me, Christian. All of it. Thank you.”
“I’m trying,” he rasps.
“I know,” I say. “I see it. I see you. And you live here now.”
His eyes soften and his body releases all tension. My fingers curl into his hair just a bit tighter and I pull him closer. “Kiss me, Christian.”
“Lana—”
“Kiss me like you’ve got something to prove, Christian.”
There’s a faint growl a half a second before his lips are moving against mine, fitting perfectly and finding the perfect rhythm. His tongue grazes mine and I relinquish all control to him.
I would have never been able to stop loving him, even if I tried. But, I barely tried at all. The truth is, there will never be a moment of my life where I will not love him.
Pulling and pushing, our teeth and tongues clash, and we stumble back. I giggle and he catches me, smiling against my lips before it fades once again into the unbridled passion. This time, when we stumble again, I catch myself on one of the shelves and I fall in love with him all over again.
“I could fuck you against this book case,” I mumble against his lips.
Christian laughs softly, turning so I’m the one pressed against the shelves. “Don’t give me any ideas, baby.”
I moan into his mouth and tug at his hair, my leg hitching up at his hip before he lifts me, both legs around his waist, and presses his hips into mine. I arch, whimpering from both pleasure and lack of it.
“Next time,” I moan, rolling my hips.
“Fuck, Lana,” he growls against my lips, and I missed those. I love those.
Fuck Lana—two words. I’ve always loved the way he moaned them, breathed them, growled them.
Why is he so hot?
My hands fist his shirt at his back. “Christian.” He thrusts his hips. “Oh my god.”
“Lana, wait,” he breathes.
“What’s wrong?” I pant.
He shakes his head, pulling away and gingerly lowering me back onto the floor. “Nothing,” he whispers, pushing hair behind my ear and brushing his thumb up my cheekbone. “Nothing, baby, I just… I have another surprise.”
“Oh?”
Christian looks down between us and takes my hand in his, I look down and watch our fingers lace together. “Come.”
He leads me toward my bedroom, then my ensuite bathroom, and when he pushes open the door, there is a chair in front of the vanity. “What’s this?” I ask.
“You said I needed a haircut,” he says softly. “I know you don’t like it when it’s too short so…”
I try to swallow through the lump in my throat but choke on the burning ball of tears pushing their way out of me. “Christian, I—”
His hand releases mine and he sits in the chair. I blink to clear away my eyes and slowly come behind him in the chair. He’s laid out scissors, a hair clipper, a comb, hair clip, a spray bottle, and a towel.
And this, somehow, is just the cherry on top.
I have him back for good.
“Cut it however you want.”
I stand behind him and drape the towel around him, clipping it with one of the clips on the vanity.
I grab the spray bottle and wet his hair, raking my fingers through his hair.
In the mirror, when I look up, I catch him watching me with those coffee eyes, soft with the tiniest smile at the corner of his lips.
I love him.
“I like your hair a bit shorter around here,” I say quietly, scratching the sides of his head gently. “I like it long enough for me to play with and pull.”
He huffs a laugh that makes me smile.
“Do what you want with it.”
I spray his hair before I grab the comb and the scissors, and cut it the way I’ve done a few times in the past. I remain concentrated measuring his hair between my fingers, but every so often I catch his eyes in the mirror, and they never stray away from me.
I cut his hair in comfortable silence, feeling safe with him here.
When I’m focused on a particular area, his hand reaches back and holds my thigh or calf.
When I stand between his open legs to get the top of his head, his hands hold onto the outsides of my thighs and his eyes fall closed.
With every move I make, he’s touching me, even as I finish.
As I run my fingers through his hair and he drops his head back against my stomach. He inhales deeply and exhales through his nose. His eyes flutter open, looking right up into mine. “Better?”
“Better,” I breathe.
Christian wets his bottom lip and his eyes flit to my lips. I massage his scalp for a few seconds before I walk around the chair, and straddle him. He picks up his head and his hands are immediately on my waist, and I pretend I’m doing this to brush out his damp hair with my fingers.
I thread my fingers through the hair at the sides of his head, measuring but also not really. I’ll fix it later. “I miss your stubble.”
His fingers around my waist tighten just barely. “I thought you didn’t like it,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”
“When did I say that?”
He shrugs. “I just assumed when you said caveman.”
“You assumed wrong,” I laugh quietly. “I need to cut some more at the sides with the clippers.”
“Whatever you want.”
“And if I shave it all off?”
“Then I’ll like it because you did it.”
I chuckle, shaking my head and letting my fingers roam to the nape of his neck. “Just let the stubble grow back okay? I like it when you have it short.”
“It’ll be back by morning.”
I laugh and catch his satisfied grin. “You are…”
“I’m what?” Christian breathes like he needs some sort of reassurance, and my smile fades, my lips remaining parted. “Tell me.”
“You are…”
hot
wonderful
the love of my life
unbelievable
incredible
you
There are so many ways I can finish that sentence…
“You are…perfect, Christian Calloway,” I breathe. “And a better man than you think.”
Christian frowns, his eyes falling away from my face. Then he shakes his head ever so slightly. “I’m not.”
“You are,” I say, lifting his chin with my hand holding his jaw. “You are.”
“I’d die for you, Lana.”
I smile weakly. “If you’re staying… Christian, if you’re staying—”
“I am staying.”
“I know,” I say. “But you have to know I can’t give you…all of that. I can’t offer you extravagant things. I can’t buy you expensive gifts—”
“Why would you think I want any of that?”
I lift a shoulder. “Because…you have all of those things.”
“Lana…” He shakes his head and sits up straighter, holding me on his lap. “I want to buy you expensive things. Give you extravagant things. I want to give you things I couldn’t before and I wish you’d let me. Like those shoes.”
“What about them?”
“They’re in your closest, in their boxes.”
“They are expensive shoes, I don’t want to ruin them.”
“I want you to wear them though.”
I nod.
The most amount of money I ever had was from the check his mother cut me.
The leave-my-son-alone check. The one I used to put the downpayment on this beautiful house I own, and the beautiful business I own too.
I never want to see all those zeros in my account again—or at least for a long time. I wouldn’t know what to do with it.
“The summer carnival is coming up this weekend,” Christian says, his hands moving up and down my thighs. “Can I take you?”
My hips shift unconsciously, accidentally grinding over him, and it pulls a sharp, frustrated breath out of me. I hold onto his hair. “As a date?”
His breath hitches. “We did it all the time.”
My cheeks go all pink, and I know because I can feel the blood rushing everywhere. “I remember.”
“Be my date.”
I arch a brow, teasing. “Are you asking or telling?”