Page 45 of Anything for You (Veterans of Silver Ridge #7)

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Dorian

W e’d ridden home in a comfortable silence. I’d never been more grateful for her ability to recognize when I’d grown edgy.

There was a difference between wanting to leave and needing to. I’d had too many moments in the past where the departure became an imperative, not a choice. Tonight, I could’ve held out a while longer, and I hated that she might be ending her fun because of me.

This was precisely what I’d feared. I didn’t want to hold her back or influence her, and tonight, despite her protests, it felt like I had.

When we pulled into the driveway, she hopped out of the truck and scampered up the stairs to my front door before I even made it out of the car. I guess she’d meant it when she said she wanted to sit on the couch and snuggle and talk .

My heart flipped at the thought of getting to sit close to her, to hold her and touch her, and maybe please her in some way. Any way. I suspected she thought it was an exaggeration when I told her, “Anything for you,” but it was simply a declaration of reality.

I’d do anything for her.

One hand on her lower back, I unlocked the door. Bear greeted us, eager for company, then rushed to the back door where I let him out.

She excused herself to the bathroom, and I went to the kitchen to wash my hands and get us waters. We’d both had a few bites at the event, so I wasn’t sure if she’d want dinner.

Steps in the hallway drew my attention to her and I nearly tripped over my own feet when I saw her. She stood with bare feet and the too-long legs of my black sweatpants pooling around her ankles. Up top, she wore one of my T-shirts tucked in a way that made it look oddly stylish.

“Come sit with me,” she said, holding out a hand to me.

“You changed.”

She gave me one of her amused smiles.

“I did. Do you want to? Let me take those and I’ll let Bear in while you go.” She took the glasses from my hands, heart-shaped face serene and completely uninhibited.

Thanks to her composure, I didn’t let my nerves get the best of me.

I simply went to my room and shoved away the thrill of seeing her shoes and dress draped over the chair in one corner of the bedroom.

I pulled on gray sweats and shucked my button-up, leaving me in a white undershirt.

If she wanted to have this conversation dressed down, we could.

But why hadn’t she simply gone home to change? Wouldn’t she be more comfortable?

Here came the reminder that I didn’t have experience with women in this context.

I hadn’t been in a relationship since my early twenties, and it might as well have been a lifetime ago.

More than that, I’d never been in one with Dove.

It didn’t actually matter what any other woman would do or might want because the only one I wanted to please was Dove.

So get out there and ask her.

Sometimes, the voice in my head sounded far too much like Kenny’s for my comfort.

Still, with that very basic prompting, I returned to the living room to find her curled up under a blanket, Bear on his bed, and her mind engaged in whatever reverie it’d spun, so much so that she startled when I sat down next to her.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

She waved the apology away, her fingers tipped with a pretty light pink color that made her hands look even more delicate than they were. “No, that was all me. I was just thinking.”

Then she shifted, sliding into my lap and straddling me. She settled there, her weight a delicious anchor to the couch, and she rested her hands on my shoulders. The second she’d moved, my pulse had begun pounding, and now that she’d stopped, I was in no less danger of losing my mind.

“What were you thinking about?” I asked, my voice sounding a bit strangled as I spoke.

She stroked her hands over my shoulders and partway down my arms, then back up. “I was thinking about how to convince you I want to be here.”

My brain was not functioning on all cylinders, considering the way she’d positioned herself and the incredible feeling of her body pressed to mine. “I think I believe you.”

She giggled, but cupped my cheeks for a moment to draw my focus fully to her words. “We need to talk about this.”

After a moment of clearing my mind of the rampaging thoughts, I registered the concern knitting her brow and nodded. “You might need to move.”

She raised one brow. “Not happening. Gotta keep you pinned down for this one.”

Refusing to let my baser instincts run away with things, I nodded. Whatever she needed to say, she had a reason for doing it this way. I wanted to know what it was, and I wanted to do whatever she needed.

“I want to be here with you, Dorian. I worry that nights like tonight make you second-guess that.” She tugged at a thread hanging from the sleeve of my undershirt.

The heat and adrenaline pumping through my veins banked. I didn’t want to have this conversation. Some part of me had hoped maybe we’d just watch a movie and make out a little. Get distracted from the worries that’d been sneaking their way into my dreams and days bit by bit.

“I know you’re saying that and you believe it. That sounds like I think I know what you feel better than you do, and I’m not trying to be like that. But I’m worried I—” I cut off, unsure of how to explain the fear without repeating myself.

She waited, palms resting on my chest.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t been there? How long would you have stayed?”

Her brows dropped into a glare. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

“It doesn’t! Because I was there with you. I wanted to be with you.”

“Sure. But if I hadn’t been there, you would’ve stayed until the end, wouldn’t you? You would’ve helped clean up and spent more time with your friends. You wouldn’t have had to make excuses and leave because I couldn’t handle it.”

Saying the words aloud made me want to shrink into the couch cushions and hide.

I didn’t want this nakedness, this inescapable honesty.

I’d made peace, for the most part, with the way I needed to function in social settings.

I needed as much information ahead of time as possible.

I needed to know a bit about what to expect.

I typically aimed for a certain amount of time, between a half and full hour, before I planned to leave.

And when I planned on it, I didn’t feel so bad because it was always my intention to leave at whatever time I arranged.

Then I could leave, and walking out of the context always felt like shedding a flak vest.

Dove had been studying me, and she had to have seen some of those feelings. They were ugly and embarrassing, the way I regretted her accommodating me.

“Here’s what I need you to understand. If we hadn’t gone together, I might’ve stayed until the end. If we were together and you’d stayed home? I would’ve wanted to get back to you.”

I opened my mouth to explain that this was just another example of why I would end up ruining things for her, but she shook her head in a sharp, singular gesture that halted me before I began.

“If we weren’t dating, weren’t together, yes. I would’ve stayed until then end. But we are dating. We are together. Right?” She shook my shoulders, a tiny smile pricking at her cheeks.

When I nodded, she rewarded me with a full grin that made my heart squeeze.

“Part of what that means to me is that I want to be with you. I like you, Dorian, more than a little, and I’m sorry to break this to you, but I want to be around you all the time. I want to be talking to you and touching you and looking at your handsome face as much as possible.”

Good grief, this woman. “Same.”

Her smile stretched wide, and she leaned in a few inches to touch her lips to mine. Before I could deepen the kiss, she continued.

“I also want you to feel good. And you want that for me, right?”

Her big blue eyes blinking back at me so earnestly as she sat here in my lap felt like some kind of cosmic test. Did she want me to enumerate the many ways I would like to make her feel good? “Yes. Absolutely.”

She bit her lush bottom lip to hide a smile—she could absolutely tell my mind had wandered to more physical subjects.

“When you kiss me and touch me, you pay attention. You want to do what I like. You want to know I’m enjoying it. The same is true with what you feed me. You notice what I scarf down and what I’m slower to eat.”

“Like squash,” I supplied, grateful for a reprieve from her discussing me touching her because I was only a man.

She chuckled. “Exactly. Like horrid, offensive, useless, disgusting squash.”

I laughed at her declaration and took a moment to pull her to me and wrap my arms around her. Why did every second feel like a reward I hadn’t earned? A reality that might be snatched from me at any second?

Leaning back, I saw tears glittering in her eyes, and I just knew. I had to tell her. She was so worried about me, but she needed to understand how I worried about her. She needed to understand this was so much more than attraction or dating .

“I will never feed you squash again.”

“Thank God.”

One tear tracked down her cheek, and I wiped it away with my thumb, holding her close.

“I’m not trying to be difficult with this. But Dove, you have to know that I love you, and I don’t want anything between us to cause you harm. I don’t want you to?—”

“I love you, too. So much.”

Our eyes locked, gazes held for a beat, and then everything building between us ignited.