Page 214 of Tangled Like Us

JANE COBALT

I’m frozen,hands cupped over my parted lips. Tears filling my eyes, the kind stirred from a skipping heart and stolen breath.

I stand on the foot of the staircase. Staring at the closed adjoining door that Thatcher left through. I could hear everything when their voices grew louder.

He was willing to quit for me. So we could be together.

He’s sacrificed so much of what he loves. All for me. And I’ve never had someone make so many endless declarations. I feel them swelling up inside me.

He’s still a bodyguard. I didn’t take that from him. He kept something, and that breathes sunlight into my lungs.

The door blows open.

Thatcher instantly lays his eyes on me, and we take sharp breaths. “Jane,” he says huskily, soaking in my overcome expression. “You heard?”

I drop my hands off my mouth. My heart racing, nearly floating out of me. “I heard,” I confirm.

He comes straight for me.

And I can’t shut up.

“I heard…all of what you said, and I… I think you’re… I find you…” I watch his unwavering stride—not faltering, not hesitating—his strong eyes already clutching me before his hands do.

Swiftly, Thatcher lifts me against his chest, a gasp breaking apart my lips. My legs instinctively wrap around his waist while he holds me. While I clasp his hard, scruffy jaw between two palms. Staring deep into his yearning and affection.

His mouth brushes mine, longing in the air between our lips, and we kiss with unraveling passion.

He carries me up the narrow stairs, and when we get to my room, he kicks the door closed. Our lips haven’t parted. Each kiss like a blazing promise—this will happen again tomorrow. And the day after that. And after that.

No one is telling us this has to end.

We only break apart when my back hits the bedpost. Lips swollen and red, breathing heavy, and heartbeat sputtering a mile a minute.

Cats dart past his heels, and my animal-print drapes blow in a gentle breeze. Window cracked, blinds open and light shining through.

I speak, words tumbling out of my mouth at rapid pace. “I’m feeling so many things at once… and it’s so overwhelming.” Our eyes graze each other, and I just think aloud, “Will you stay with me here in my room?”

“Right now?” He brushes a piece of hair off my lips.

Heat flushes my cheeks. “I meant longer. You won’t be able to live in security’s townhouse if you’re not my bodyguard. But you can stay in mine, here with me—you can say no. I just thought it’d be easier and with the suspect not caught, the one who broke-in…” I trail off because he’s already nodding. He’s been nodding for a while.

Maybe since I first explained.

“I want to live with you,” he says strongly against my lips.

I dizzy. “And you want to be my boyfriend,” I say out loud, my lips lifting into an overwhelmed smile. “My real boyfriend.”

“You want to have a boyfriend.” He says what is true. I’m no longer closed off from the idea of a relationship. My heart is open for him to hold.

And to protect.

Breathless, I whisper, “Only if that boyfriend is you.”

His hand encases my cheek. “I love you, Jane.”

My lungs swell with deeper emotions.

He cradles my gaze. “You don’t have to say it back. I know it may take time for you because of your feelings about love—”