Page 89 of The Girlfriend Agreement (Conwick U #1)

He sniffs. “They were. Let’s sit down for a bit.”

Damian leads me under the pergola, and gently tugs me down beside him onto the lone bench beneath it.

The wood is cool against the exposed backs of my thighs, sending a shiver crawling over my skin, but the beauty of this place—of this moment—eclipses any discomfort, pushing it to the back of my mind.

I glance at Damian, drawn to the way the golden glow of a nearby lamppost flickers over his face, illuminating the sharp angles of his jaw and the warm honey in his eyes.

He meets my gaze, his lips curving into a smile—charming, devious, utterly devastating.

The kind of smile that promises trouble.

The kind that makes my pulse stutter and my breath catch before I even know what he’s thinking.

“So, I got you something. For Christmas.”

My heart kicks against my rib cage—a reflex, sudden and instinctive. Surprises unsettle me. The not knowing, the expectation, the possibility of reacting the wrong way. I don’t hate them, exactly, but they make me nervous.

“I got you something, too,” I say, shifting awkwardly on the bench, “but I didn’t bring it with me.”

That mirthful smile deepens, and he arches a brow. “Oh, color me intrigued. What is it?” he asks. “I don’t mind spoilers.”

Since the start of December, I debated whether I should get Damian something for Christmas.

I wasn’t sure if it was too early for gifts—too soon in our relationship to take that step.

But then, when mindlessly browsing the internet the other week while in peak procrastination mode, I saw it: the perfect present.

Although I had been looking forward to seeing his face when he opens it, I can’t resist telling him—not when he’s staring at me so eagerly. I’m as bad at keeping secrets as I am at lying.

“A Twilight T-shirt,” I answer proudly, “with the words, ‘This is the skin of a killer, Bella,’ and Robert Pattinson’s face covered in rhinestones.”

Damian’s jaw seems to unhinge from his whole damn head as he gasps, “Magnificent.”

I shrug. “I felt you needed a nerdy T-shirt of your own.”

He cackles then, throwing his head back and laughing so loudly it echoes in the quiet of night around us.

“Absolutely. Oh, my god, I can’t wait to see it.

” His eyes lock on my face again as he snaps the fingers of the hand not currently entwined in mine.

“And then we can wear our nerdy T-shirts together. Adorable.”

I don’t know why, but the mental picture of that makes me blush.

Maybe it’s because Damian has fucked me seven ways from Sunday in several of my own nerdy T-shirts, or maybe it’s the way he owns his interests so shamelessly, ready to proclaim them to the world without a single care for what anyone thinks of him.

His confidence isn’t just attractive, it’s intoxicating , and it triggers something primal within me. Something that makes me contemplate risking frostbite to straddle him right here on this bench.

“You better not be shitting me about that T-shirt,” he warns, his eyes narrowing into skeptical slits, “because I’m very excited about it.”

“I promise, I’m not shitting you,” I assure him. “I can give it to you when you bring me home.”

His face softens, and that broad smile returns. “Excellent. I can’t wait to wear it. But in the meantime…” Keeping his eyes on mine, he reaches inside his coat pocket. “Let’s focus on something you can wear.”

When he retracts his hand a few seconds later, I notice he’s holding a small rectangular box fastened shut with a sparkly red and green ribbon.

“Here,” he says, his cheeks flushing pink under the lamp light as he offers it to me, and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears as I slowly reach out my own hand to take it.

I can’t hide the trembling of my fingers as I untie the ribbon, or the faltering cadence of my breaths as I anticipate what I’ll find inside. My mouth is dry as I pop off the lid and place it on the bench seat beside me.

Neatly folded black tissue paper greets me from inside the uncovered box, and when I peel it back, a slim golden object lies in wait on a bed of red satin.

Holding my breath, I gently pluck the cylindrical object free and hold it up to the light.

As I shift my wrist, turning the strange cylinder to examine it, I note that it resembles a pill, but it’s much larger, roughly the length and girth of my thumb.

It even has the indent around the middle where a pill would snap in half, but this clearly wasn’t meant to be swallowed.

“Is this…a butt plug ?” I practically screech. I round a furious glower on Damian. “I swear to god, if by wear it, you mean shove it up my?—”

“The gift is inside it!” he blurts out defensively, and I can tell he’s trying his hardest to bite back a laugh.

“Though, I would love to hear what you think about butt plugs at a later date. For now, however…” His fingers find mine, guiding them until I’m holding the small golden container in both of my hands. “It unscrews.”

A quiet click pierces the air between us, the sound so soft I barely catch it, and I peer down at the pill that isn’t really a pill as it separates into two halves.

When I pull them fully apart, that’s when I register the difference in weight.

Resting the empty top half down on the bench, I extend my right hand and tip the not-empty bottom section upright, a gasp parting my lips when a golden necklace tumbles out onto my waiting palm.

There are two chains: the shorter one is in a Figaro style while the other, only slightly longer, is a continuous rope dotted with dainty gold-encrusted pearls.

Both chains are thin, delicate, but it’s the pendants affixed to them that hold my gaze —the bold, golden pi symbol and the single green gemstone suspended above it.

“An emerald?” I breathe, the question burning my throat. Or maybe it’s the impending onslaught of tears I’m feeling. “Any significance there?”

“Your eyes,” he says as if it’s the most obvious answer in the world, and there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips I’ve never seen before. A smile that seems to radiate not just with like…but with love. “The emerald,” he clarifies. “It reminded me of your eyes. May I?”

He jerks his chin to the necklace still held aloft in my hand, and I nod, turning my back to him so he can help me put it on.

His fingertips skim my shoulders, then the back of my neck, as he fastens the single clasp where the two chains join at my nape.

And as the pendants settle against my chest, I gaze down in wonder, silently vowing to never take it off.

A shudder races through me when Damian kisses the spot just behind my left ear. “Do you like it?” he whispers, and I give a shaky nod, my entire body trembling.

“I…I love it,” I murmur, shifting on the bench to face him again. “Thank you.” But those words feel insufficient. They don’t say enough. They don’t express how much this gift truly means to me. How much he has come to mean to me.

They don’t tell him what I really want to say.

I love you, I think, wishing I had the courage to say it aloud.

“Feliz Navidad, pi lover,” Damian croons, smiling up at me as he bends down to kiss the back of my hand.

Suddenly, I’m transported back to that day in Touro Park—the day that started everything—and all at once, the pill box makes sense.

I want to laugh. I want to comment on how far we’ve come since that fateful day when he misread my email address as pill lover instead of pi , and I was convinced the universe was playing an elaborate joke on me.

But I can’t. Because I realize now it wasn’t messing with me at all.

It was bringing me exactly what I needed. I just didn’t know it yet.

So, although I want to, I don’t laugh. Instead, I just stare at him—at this frustrating, sarcastic, sexy, unexpectedly ambitious man I love—and my heart is racing so quickly I am breathless when I whisper back, “Merry Christmas, fuckboy.”