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“I love you, Joelle. I have from the minute I took you down to the ground next to my truck at the quarries.”
Wha…?
“You took me down?” Joe huffed. “I’ll have you know…”
Wait. What else had Mike said? He…loved her?
“Shit. You love me?”
Mike gave a crooked smile. “Not exactly the response I was looking for, but yeah. I do. I thought maybe the feeling was mutual.”
Screw the hand-holding thing.
Joe smashed her body into Mike’s, forcing his arms around her back before removing her hands from his wrists, raising them to the back of his neck. She yanked him forward and planted a fervent kiss to his lips before backing off an inch. “It is. And I do, too,” she told him with a squeal, but then he took over the kissing…
…and kissing…and kissing…
Joe lost track of time as she tasted her man, knowing he loved her. And this was a whole new kind of lip-locking. She thought she’d gotten close to Mike before, but having their feelings for each other out in the open…
Was this what birthing a baby was like? Events going from mild discomfort, to excruciating pain, to the best damned experience of her life?
If the answer to that was yes, she’d take it.
After an unidentifiable amount of deeply connected smooching, Mike finally raised his head, his eyes softening as he took in her apparent satedness.
“Damn,” he breathed.
“Right?” she asked incredulously. “I fucking love the shit out of you, Mike.” Joe rasped in response, then beamed so widely, she feared her face might crack,
Mike threw his head back and laughed. “Thank God for that. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d told me to take a hike. But sweetheart…”
“Yeah?” she asked. She’d give this man anything.
“We might have to try curbing your language again, just a little bit,” he chortled. “I have kids, you know.”
“I can do that,” Joe agreed easily, snuggling up close, under his chin. As long as Mike loved her, she felt as if she could conquer the world. Something as petty as her renewed swearing habit would be a piece of cake to fix.
“Say it again,” Mike gruffed into her hair, kissing the top of her head.
“What? That I can stop swearing? Flipping right I can. If it means you’ll let me in your house.”
“No. I mean yes,” he grunted. “And my house? You’ll be there alright, because I want you to move in. But I need to hear you say?—”
“I love you.” Joe didn’t hesitate, and punctuated it with a peppering of kisses to his bearded chin. “I. Love. You.” She leaned back when she was finished and quirked an eyebrow. “That’s three for me, and only one for you.”
Mike laughed again as he rubbed noses with her. “You’re going to make a competition out of ‘I love you’?”
“Not if you promise to tell me every few hours for the next month or so. That way I’ll eventually believe it’s real.”
“Oh, it’s real alright,” Mike stated, tightening his hold and backing her up to the nearest tree. “But I’d rather show you than tell you.”
Joe felt every hard inch of the man pressed up against her as her spine hit bark. Her hands went to his posterior, and she ground him closer. But his vest…
She grunted. “Lose the gear, SWAT guy, and you can show me everything.”
Mike went to comply, when?—
“Calese. Get your ass out here. Your five minutes is not only up, you’ve been canoodling for over half an hour.”