Page 118 of Only Between Us

“I dare you.”

“What’s your first-favorite thing that I do?”

“I love that you trust me enough to complain about your day. I know how uncomfortable it is, especially complaining about something that meant a lot to your dad. But it makes me feel as important to you as you are to me. And that feels really, really good.”

The breeze pushes strands of hair over her cheek. She sits patiently as I brush them away. Then she damn near gives me a heart attack as she shuffles onto her knees along the cliffside.

I fist her T-shirt. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Coming over.” She shifts around so that she straddles me, with her back to the bay.

I clutch her against me and inch away from the edge of the cliff. “So fucking unsafe, Siena.”

“No, it’s not. It’s the safest spot there is.”

Her arms circle my neck. She sits in my lap without a fear in the world. I think I’m doing that floating, fairy dust thing again. If I look down, we might be inches off the ground.

“Brooks, youareimportant to me. I need you to know that, without question. You and Pete are the best part of my day. I sit in that shop just dying to come home to you. Wondering how the hell I survived it before, not having you to look forward to after such a lifeless day.”

I love you.

The thought pops into my head, loud and clear. Oddly unexpected, seeing as I’m attuned enough with my own feelings to know I’ve been falling for her for weeks. I guess all that was missing was the final shove over the edge. To hear her vocalize that I mean something to her, despite her guard and the limits she’s set on our relationship.

She doesn’t show her love with those three words, but she tells me in plenty of other ways. Maybe it won’t be an easy, straight line to our forever. But we’ll get that forever. I’ve never seen it as clearly as I do now.

I’ll wait as long as it takes for her to realize it, too.

I am so damn in love with her, and the day I catch a single sign that she’d be ready to hear me say so, I’ll shout it from this cliffside. Get it written in the sky. For now, I lift my chin and kiss her—telling her with every lick of my tongue, nip to her lip. Pretending that each one of her soft moans is her saying it back.

Siena trails kisses along my jaw and down my neck before settingher forehead on my shoulder. “Can I admit something? I’ve been expecting you to try to talk me into quitting the shop.”

“I’ve been tempted. But I can’t tell you what to do with your life. Least of all with something as important as this.”

“Then give me a small nugget of wisdom. I could really use it today.”

I stare at the sky beyond her. The sun is beginning to set, and orange swirls above the far treeline. “You talk about the shop the way I talked about coaching. I was so close to where I wanted to be. Just a few feet on the wrong side of the sideline.”

“Yeah.” She nods earnestly, cheek brushing my neck. “That’s it exactly. I’m a few feet on the wrong side of the boardwalk. How’d you get over feeling that way?”

“I quit. In fairness to you, I didn’t have family obligations anchoring me to land.”

“Pun intended?”

“Yeah. Pretty proud of that one.” I squeeze her. “Siena, if this is about the second mortgage… I would love to help you, if you let me.”

She pulls back to look me in the eye. “Thank you—truly. But money isn’t all it’s about, and I need to deal with this one on my own.”

“Will you tag me in when you need it?”

“You’ll be my first call.” She presses a long kiss on my neck. “Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

I gasp. “Siena actually wants to be cuddled to sleep?” A week and a half into living together, and we’ve never woken up in the same bed. We’ll fuck in my room and then she’ll tiptoe away after just a couple minutes of spooning. But, for whatever reason, she never closes my door on the way out. Never closes her door, either. “Next, she’ll finally admit that she swerved the wrong way on purpose to kiss me on our first date.”

She throws back her head in a laugh. “You arenevergoing to let that go, are you?”

“Not until you admit it.”

“Except there’s nothing to admit. Eitheryoukissedme, or you have an alarming inability to distinguish between left and right.”