“I deserved it.” He dropped a kiss to the tip of my nose. “I owe you one too. Want to take it now?”
“Nah, I’ll keep it in reserve for later.” Oh, how I’d missed the way his mouth curved when he smiled.
“Come on.” He took my hand and started toward home and our lives. We were stronger now, together, than we could have ever been apart.
****
It wasn’t until our homes came into view that I stopped walking. I didn’t want to go home, I wanted what I’d always wanted—Jordan.
He pulled up short beside me and brought my knuckles to his lips. There was a question in his eyes. I could answer willingly, it was an answer I needed more than anything, maybe even more than he did.
“I don’t want to go home, Jordan.” The breeze rustled in the trees and blew my hair back from my face. It took with it the uncertainty in my voice.
“Then don’t.” He kissed my knuckles once more and started across the ditch that led to his house.
There was an ease to the way he moved that was unusual for a guy with his bulk. But Jordan had always been that way, as if he were constantly aware that he was bigger than most, stronger than most. He didn’t need to pretend to be because he was. The way he moved was one of the sexiest things in the world. There was nothing awkward about it, the way some guys were. Every step was full of purpose and efficiently taken. Yet, he walked without a care in the world.
“Stop.” I breathed the word, so quietly I didn’t think he would hear it.
He did and looked down at me. My stomach was in knots and my heart in my throat. Weeks of fear, anger, and grief all pushed at my chest in a desperate battle to be free. I needed to feel again, even if it meant freeing all those emotions at once. I needed the sun to shine only for me, even if it meant embracing the storm that was my love for Jordan.
Jordan was the man who could give me all those things.
I needed him to understand that I wasn’t something he could toss away on a whim. “I love you, Jordan Slater. Since the first time I saw you, it has been and will always be you.”
“You were, what, six?” He laughed with no animosity.
“Yup, but it was you. Preteen girls have posters of boy bands and actors, I had a poster of a Malibu and a picture of my brother’s best friend hidden in my nightstand.” I kicked at a brown leaf that had already fallen to the ground. “I loved you before I even knew what it meant.”
When he opened his mouth to speak, I stopped him with a shaking outstretched hand. “I need you to listen to me for a minute before we go inside.” I fought back tears that made me feel like a little girl. “I am not weak, I don’t need a lot of things from this life. The one thing I need is for you to love me as much as I love you. If you don’t, if you can’t, none of it really matters.” And if he didn’t, I wasn’t sure how I could go on. I couldn’t live here anymore. I couldn’t watch him go on with someone else.
Jordan slid down to his knees in the grass at my feet. He pressed his face against my stomach so tenderly I didn’t know what to do. I struggled for breath somewhere between embarrassment and adoration. His eyes were softer, different than I’d ever seen them before.
“I’ve never been on my knees for anyone, Raelynn. And I won’t, not for anyone else. I love you. I’m a simple man, I don’t have a lot of words or descriptions. I can’t sugarcoat anything to make it sound better. I love you. Probably more than you realize, but less than I know you deserve. But I will spend every day of the rest of my life trying to prove it to you. Losing Devin cost me a lot, but losing you?” He swallowed hard. “It would cost me everything I am.”
“Get up.” I laughed and cried at the same time. “This is so dumb, I’m so dumb, get up.”
“Give me a minute.” He pressed his face against my stomach and wrapped his arms around my thighs. “Say it again.”
“What?” I swiped the tears with the back of my hand.
“That you love me.”
“I love you, Jordan. Jesus, everyone knows that.”
He moved quickly, standing up and sweeping me into his arms. He carried me back to the house, it was silly, but it made my heart flutter.
We were both flushed and laughing by the time he sat me down on the back deck and pushed open the door behind me. The look in his eyes mirrored the overwhelming sense of adoration that filled me body and soul.
Yet, there was something beneath the surface. Something hotter, that spoke more to my body. An edge, a dangerous promise of what he could give me.
“Love me.” I gasped when his hands slipped beneath my shirt and up the soft skin of my belly.
Jordan responded with a searing kiss that rocked
me to the core. I clung to him, a whimpering mess, while he kissed me senseless. Vaguely, in the back of my mind, I knew when he kicked the door shut. Before I so much as blinked, he was pulling his hoodie and my shirt up over my head and tossing them to the floor in his bedroom.
I had no idea how we got there, nor did I care. “Touch me.” I shivered as I said it, as he parted
from me just long enough to pull his shirt over his head. His clothes, too, were left on the floor.
I stroked my fingertips over the long-healed wounds that littered his chest. Those scars made a man who wasn’t as sure of himself as he wanted everyone to believe but would fight tooth and nail for what he loved. He’d fight for me, had fought for me. We’d both make mistakes. From here on out, we’d make them together.
“I thought you wanted me to touch you?” His hushed voice vibrated through his chest to my fingers. His thumbs brushed over my bra, across the swollen buds that protested against their silk trappings.
“You are.” I gasped and arched, his grin was as maddening as his touch.
Jordan kissed my lips, my cheek, and then lower. Each kiss was more intimate, bringing me closer to the edge of reason. He moved lower with each kiss. I was trembling as he kissed across the rise of my breasts, across the nipples he’d teased, and lower still. He knelt when he reached my stomach and his kisses lingered longer, the heat of his mouth warming me all the way through.
I ran my hands across the short stubble of dark hair that covered his head and still he moved lower, pushing my jeans down to my feet before hooking his thumbs into hem of my panties.