Page 138 of Touch the Sky

Her face is guarded, but at least she’s listening. I pull in a breath through my nose and focus on her, just her. The deeper I breathe, the more my vision tunnels, until I’ve blocked out the rest of the world.

The past doesn’t matter, and neither does the future. Nothing else matters when I’m looking at her.

“You’renot the hard part. It’s not hard to want you, Tess. It’s so easy. It’s one of the easiest things I’ve ever done. I’m falling for you too.”

Her mouth drops open. I want to press my thumb to her bottom lip and then guide her mouth to mine, but I need to finish first.

She needs to hear this.

“I don’t let people in. Not like this. Not to my home.” My voice trembles, but I push on. “But the truth is, I can’t picture my home without you anymore. You belong there. You and Shel. You belong there with me andMamanand the horses and even that asshole donkey.”

She lets out a faint chuckle, her hands flying up to cover her mouth.

“It’s scary,” I admit. “It’s scary to know you could leave. I worked really hard to be okay after my dad left. I don’t want to have to work that hard again, but if you’re going to trust me, I have to trust you too.”

I step forward and hold out both my hands this time, my palms open for her.

“And I do,” I say. “I do. I do.”

I want to keep saying it. I want to repeat it forever. I want to sing it through the mountains until every person in every town for miles and miles can hear how much I want this with her.

I don’t get the chance. She leaps at me, ignoring my offered hands and wrapping her arms around my neck instead.

With the height difference, I end up squished into her boobs. It’s impossible to say anything else now, but I’m not complaining, even when she squeezes me so tight it gets hard to breathe.

“I’d love to talk about running La Grange Rouge with you,” she says. I can hear her beaming even without seeing her face. “As a partner. I think we could make a great team.”

She releases me enough for me to tip my head up. Her eyes are shining, and there’s a huge grin on her face.

“And I want you to take you on a proper date, okay?” she asks. “Everything else is moving fast, but I want to take this part slow.”

My chest is back to bursting with joy. I feel drunk, like the sweet burn of being close to her has turned everything hazy and light.

I glance between her face and her chest while waggling my eyebrows.

“Slow?” I repeat.

She tips her head back and laughs. “I mean, I still want to fuck you senseless at the next possible opportunity.”

My breath catches.

“But I think we could try to have some semblance of a normal progression into a relationship now,” she adds.

I shake my head. “That was a lot of big English words I am way too turned on to understand.”

I give her tits one last longing glance before I step back enough to plant my hands on her waist.

“But slow sounds good,” I agree. “I think slow would be nice.”

She catches one of my hands in hers and lifts it up to press a kiss to my knuckles.

I always thought the whole ‘butterflies’ thing was kind of stupid, but a whole flock of them take off in my stomach at the soft brush of her lips.

“Come sit with me,” she says.

We head to the boulder together. She spreads the blanket back out, and we climb on top to sit with the sides of our thighs pressed together.

The horses are grazing on tufts of yellowed grass, unbothered by the fact that our lives have all changed today.