All of the air rushes out of my lungs.This man totally floors me in the best possible way without even trying sometimes.
“Never?”I whisper.
He shakes his head.“Never.I want everything with you.Marriage.Kids.A lifetime of good sex.All of it.And I only want it with you.Who else would put up with me?”
My lips curve up.“Are you calling yourself a handful?”
“Of course I am.I’ve been in love with my best friend for years and only realized it three weeks ago when she smiled at me in her bathroom.You’re the only person I know that would stick by me, put up with me, andstillwant to be with me.”
I freeze.“Say it again ...”I whisper.Now I do move, one foot in front of the other as I walk toward him.
“You’re the only person I know—”
As I come to a stop right in front of him, I slide my hands up to rest on his chest, right over his racing heart, and shake my head.“Before that.”
Luc’s eyes close slowly and I feel the tension leach out of him as he moves his hands to rest on my hips.His fingers reach under the hem of my T-shirt, stroking my skin and making me tremble.
Meeting my gaze again, he dips down and leans his forehead against mine.“I’m in love with my best friend,” he says roughly, and Ifeelthe words like a warm fuzzy blanket wrapping around us both, holding us together.
“So if you know you’re in love with me, and I’m in love with you, why are you so riled up?”
“Am not,” he murmurs, his gaze dropping to where my tongue wets my lips.
I smile.“Are too.”
“Am no—” He stops mid-sentence and jerks his head back with a frown.“You’re mocking me.”
“Would I do that?”I ask, tilting my cheek and arching a brow.
“You’re killing me here, beautiful.”
“We can’t havethatnow.I had plans for you.”
“Plans?”
I nod.“I was coming to see you after you had a sleep.”
“I can sleep when I’m dead.Why were you coming to see me?”
I grin and slide my palms over his shoulders and up into his hair.Then I push up on my toes.“To do this,” I say before I crush my mouth to his, swallowing his long, deep groan.
He soon takes over, his hands cupping my ass.I jump up into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist and deepening the kiss as he carries me to the couch and lowers me onto it, following me down and covering me with his body.
“Fuck.I missed you.Missed this,” he says in between kisses, both of us all hands and fingers, lips and teeth and tongues, holding each other as close as we can get.
“I’m giving you my heart, Luc.Please take care of it.”
He leans up on one arm and looks down at me, his gaze so intensely full of heat and passion and absolute sincerity that it brings tears to my eyes.“Till the day I die, Lonnie.I promise.”He brushes his lips against mine but much to my annoyance, moves back again.“First, I've got something for you.”He reaches down into his pocket and pulls out a ring.My eyes jump wide when I see the most beautiful rose-gold and sapphire ring, the stones in a line across the front.
“It’s not that ...not yet,” he says, reading me like a book.
I breathe a sigh of relief.I’m happy we’re together and we’re on the same page, butthatwould be a whole new book that we're not ready to read yet.
“One day though, I will move this onto your left hand and make you mine forever.That’s a promise.”His eyes bore into mine, and I feel the depth of his love right down into my soul.I nod and bite my lip as he slides the ring onto my right-hand ring finger, lifting it to his mouth and placing a gentle kiss there, still watching me as he does it.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Just like my girl.”