Page 121 of Damaged Desires

“I want to make love to you. I want to be able to show you with my body the things I’ve been having trouble saying with my words,” he said quietly. “But I’m not sure you’re ready.”

I drew his hand down to my core before saying, “I’ll always be ready for you.”

He groaned as if I’d tortured him, and we lost ourselves in just the pleasure of touch, the ache of desire, and the fulfillment of love. My tired body came alive at his touch, making me feel like I’d been wrong. Thateverything I’d thought of as reality invading our world was really the dream, and that only this, us together, was the real world.

It was a long, long time before we stopped moving again. Bodies sated in a new way. Different from even when we’d made love at the estate. This was full of relief that we were both alive as well as new promises we were making to each other.

“I love you,” he said. It was the second time he’d said the words, and I jerked my eyes up to his face, my heart filling to the brink, as if it might burst with one more breath or one more word. I’d never heard those words from another man. I’d never wanted them. But now, having them from him was the sweetest touch that had ever reached my soul.

He watched my eyes as he continued, “I couldn’t say the words to you before, not because they weren’t true, but because I wasn’t sure how I could back them up with action when everything felt uncertain.”

When I didn’t say anything, he ran a finger along my cheek, resting on my bottom lip. “I realized it wasn’t just Fiona making me feel that way,” he continued.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Loving you means giving up the version of myself I saw in the mirror. The version I thought I’d be until I died either of old age or at the end of a gun.”

The thought of him dying clenched my heart, making it harder to breathe than the injury on my throat, but facing danger was his life. “I don’t want you to change. I fell in love with you just as you are.”

His lips quirked up a little. “I like it when you say it.”

It wasn’t the full smile that caused my entire body to react. The one that turned a hunky calendar model into a breathtaking man. I wanted to see that full, radiant one, so when he leaned in to kiss me, I turned my head slightly and said, “I kind of like it when you say it as well. I wonder who can say it the most in a twenty-four-hour period?”

And there it was, the smile that stopped my heart.

He said, “Challenge accepted.”

And I laughed before I lost myself to his kisses for a few more minutes.

“I love you,” he said, and I stuck out my tongue. “What I meant before you distracted me with I love yous?”

“That doesn’t count.”

He chuckled. “Focus, Athena.”

“Wait. We’re back to Athena?”

The laughter burst out of him, and he rolled onto his back, arms spread out as the beautiful rumble filled the air, taking the heaviness and the pain and everything we’d been through in the last weeks and flinging it into the air. I joined him, laughing, resting my head on his chest so the reverberation filled my whole body with its joy.

Our eyes met, the smiles so much better than the pain.

“Goddess, let me get this out.”

“I’m not stopping you.I love you.Why would I stop you from saying what’s in your heart whenI love youso much?”

I showed him three fingers. In one swift move, he tossed me over onto my back again and had my arms pinned above my head with one hand while the other covered my mouth. I was still smiling.

“Jesus. This is important. Let me get it out.” He stared down into my face, and the smile that was making him all but glow started to dim. “How would you feel about me turning in my Trident for good?”

My heart bounced like a tennis ball gone berserk as I finally realized what he was talking about—giving up the layer of him that was all SEAL.

“Are you going to let me answer?” I asked, mumbling into the palm that covered my lips.

He removed his hand, staring into my eyes as if trying to read what I would say before it came out of my mouth. “I don’t want you to give up being a SEAL.” Surprise hit his eyes. “At least, not if you’re giving it up for me.”

He’d loosened his grip on my arms, my words settling into him, and I used the slack just like he’d taught me to, sliding away and off the bed. I stood at the side, a smile on my face. He lay where I left him, his grin back.

“That was pretty good,” he said.