Page 54 of The Love Ambush (The Sullivans #1)
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t still care about you and want to help.”
She throws her arms around me and hugs me so tight. “I love you, Levi Sullivan. I love you so much.”
Her words catch me so entirely by surprise that the air leaves me and my knees go weak. I maneuver us until I’m sitting on the bed. She moves with me, her arms still tight around me, and straddles my lap.
I shift because I want to be looking in her eyes when I tell her how I feel, but she catches my mouth with her own, and it feels so good to kiss her that all thoughts go out of my head.
It’s been way too long since I’ve had this woman in my arms for me to want to do anything but get closer to her.
I slide my hands under her shirt, feeling her warm skin against my palms, and she rocks against me, sending me from worried about her to rock hard and desperate to slide inside her in an instant.
“I want you,” Gentry breathes against my neck. “I want you so bad.”
“I want you too,” I say. “Gentry, I—”
She leaps off my lap like I’m radioactive. “But I have to stop kissing you, because if I keep kissing you, I’ll stay and I need to get home to the kids. I need to be there in case they wake up.”
I get up. “Does this mean you’ve forgiven me for not telling you about your dad being at the wedding?” It might seem obvious, but I need to hear her say it.
She tilts her head to the side with a tiny smirk. “Do you really think I make out with guys I’m still angry with?”
She’s teasing me, and I should probably let that be enough. But it’s not. “I need to be sure. I tried to keep you apprised of everything I was doing over the past week, but I did hold back. I don’t want you to realize later tonight or tomorrow that my behavior was unforgivable.”
“You explained your reasons for keeping information from me, and I understand, Levi. You were right to do it.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I realized how much I love you when I was still mad at you, so I don’t think it’s a feeling I can just turn off if I get mad again.”
“I promise never to keep a secret like that from you again, Gentry. I want to be your partner. I want to have your back.”
“Okay,” she says. “As long as you let me have yours too.”
“Deal,” I say, finally letting the happiness of this moment in fully. “Will you let me go home with you tonight? I don’t want to let you go when I’ve just gotten you back.”
She chews on her bottom lip, her eyes still heated, but also sad. I want her in my arms tonight, and I’m willing to beg.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Is it setting a good example for my boyfriend to sleep over?”
“I’ll sneak out in the morning before Emily and Sophie are up,” I say. “I just don’t want to spend one more night away from the woman I love.”
She smiles, her eyes lighting and more of the sadness in them ebbing away. “The woman you love?”
I wrap my arms around her waist and kiss her sweet lips. “Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention that I’m completely, desperately, head over heels in love with you?”
She melts in my arms. “You did forget to mention that.”
I kiss her again. “Well, Gentry Lendew, I am so in love with you I feel like I’m missing a vital piece of my heart whenever you aren’t with me.
You are the strongest, most giving, most amazing woman I’ve ever met, and I’m so in love with you I’d probably give up everything I have and move to the moon if you asked me to. ”
“Wow,” she says, her smile mischievous. “That’s giving me an awful lot of power.”
“I’m giving you my heart and all of me, because I trust you with it. And I trust you’ll never ask me to move to the moon.”
“You know one of the best things about teenagers?” she asks, kissing me.
“What?”
“They sleep in really, really late.”
I laugh and hug her close. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here.”
We’re in her car and halfway to her house when I remember I haven’t told her everything.
“Noah’s going to pay for your art classes at Maple Ridge, and May Gregory wants an exclusive contract for first dibs on all of your artwork.
I told her you’ve already agreed to give those to Holly, and May reluctantly agreed to second dibs. ”
She sucks in a gasp of surprise so hard she chokes and starts coughing. Thankfully, there’s no one on the road at this time of night. She eases the car onto the shoulder and parks, twisting to face me as she gets her cough settled. “I can’t accept that. It’s too much.”
“It’s no favor from May. She stopped by to ask if she could help out. When I showed her your painting from Yuletide, she begged to show your art. She’s also been looking for someone to paint portraits as part of her wedding photography business, but I told her she’d have to talk to you about that.”
“I could do portraits,” Gentry says thoughtfully. “If she’s interested in that and thinks I’m good enough.” Her eyes light. “It’ll be so good to get back to art, I’ll do anything to make money at it.” She sobers. “But I can’t accept Noah paying for my classes.”
“He said he’ll be saving the world from you as a nurse,” I say and laugh at her annoyed expression. “I didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell me, but I’ve heard rumors Noah’s got a huge trust fund that he makes a habit of using to help people who need it.”
She opens her mouth as if she wants to argue.
“He wants to do it for you because he cares about you. Accept it, Gentry.”
She nods, her eyes glazed. “Okay. If he really wants to do it, I’ll accept it and be so grateful.”
I kiss her for her willingness to accept the gifts people want to give her, and we take a little longer than we planned getting back to her house. At least this time, we don’t get arrested.