Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“But you know what I want.”
“Tell me,” he rasped, seemingly overwhelmed.
“What’s this about?” I asked him gently. “Are you havin’ second thoughts?”
“No, not at all. It just seems like I made the decision for you, like I feel I do a lot of things, and then there was so much going on, keeping us from talking more.”
“Darlin’, we’ve talked.”
“But not enough, and also, I make these statements, and I don’t want you to go along. I want you to want…me. To want this, with us.”
I chuckled.
“I hate you,” he grumbled.
“The problem with you is that you love your words so much, you think that’s all that matters. You think if I don’t say everythin’ right back to you like you said it to me, that somehow, I don’t want the same things, but that’s not true at all.”
“No, I—”
“Stop talkin’ now. Come here.”
He crawled down the couch to me, and I put a throw pillow in my lap so he could rest his head there.
“You have a lot to say.”
“Yes.”
“And you make plans, and I know why,” I assured him.
He turned his head so he could look up at me.
“If you make plans,” I continued, “if there’s always somethin’ to do, to follow, then you—or we, in this case—will stay on track.”
“I don’t want to fail you. I’ve failed a lot of people.”
“You mean the women you’ve dated.”
He nodded.
I smiled down at him. “You haven’t failed anyone. We all tease you, but your datin’ life is only amusin’ because your heart was never in it.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he agreed, staring up into my eyes.
“But now it is.”
“Yes,” he husked. “Now it is.”
“I don’t go along because you’ve beaten me into submission.” I lifted my knees so he had to get up and face me. “I agree and go along because I’m in love with you.”
He nodded quickly.
I moved then, into his lap, straddling his thighs, smiling before I took his face in my hands, leaned in and claimed the man’s mouth in a ravenous kiss. All day long, all I’d wanted was to stay in bed with him and kiss him, and yes, I wanted a lot more, but the idea of simply holding him, and lying with him, and talking to him about nothing remotely important…this was what I really wanted. I had figured it out when I kissed him the first time, and I realized I needed to tell him now.
“Hey,” I said, easing back, breaking the kiss. “I need to say somethin’.”
“Now?” he croaked out. “Right this second?”
“Yeah.”
“You kissed me like—do you know how you kissed me?”
I grinned at him. “Like I want you, which I do.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m in love with you too, just so we’re clear.”
“Well, I wanted to tell you that when I kiss you, I can feel it in my chest, how happy I am. And havin’ you here, with me, to hug and hold…that’s a gift. Bein’ your person, the one you call when you need to talk, or when you want to listen, or for no other reason than to check in…I’m here for all that.”
His smile made his eyes warm, and that, accompanied by his soft sigh—if I hadn’t been in love before, that right there would have tied me up with a bow. I was all the way gone for Langston Ross.
“I feel the same. Tell me you trust that.”
“I do. And I’ve been yours since that first day when you held me in the rain, but even more, I dreamed of this right here, us bein’ together.”
“So have I.”
“And knowin’ that the hard part is over because I’ve got you, and you’ve got me, and really…how amazin’ is that?”
“So very amazing,” he said, taking my face in his hands. “And this is only the beginning.”
I kissed him in agreement.