Page 172 of Wicked Little Darling

He traced a finger across my right pec, circling my nipple over the hoodie. “You’ve sighed like three hundred times in the past ten minutes.”

“What—how long have you been awake?”

“The past ten minutes,” he said with a little smile. “What’s wrong?”

So he’d heard me whisperI love youlike the lovesick dog I was. I locked my arms around his back as my stomach flipped. “I…can I ask you something?”

Wariness crept into his eyes, but he stayed on top of me, watching me with those green-gold eyes. “Sure. About what?”

I traced a pattern on his back. “About us.”

He hummed, and it vibrated across my chest. “Sounds ominous. What about us?”

“I just…” Where did I start? I sighed—again—and let my head fall back into the grass, staring up at the gently swaying leaves of the willow tree. Reese’s palm on my chest was a hot weight, and Ifocused on that. “When I—when I liked you,” I began, “or when I realized I liked you, had a crush on you, whatever you wanna call it. When I realized that I had feelings for you that I was pretty sure were one-sided, I felt like I had nothing to lose. But now that you—now that I have even the smallest bit of your heart—” Reese’s hand stilled on my chest. “—I’m terrified of losing you. That I’ll do something to drive you away. I just have all these worries that keep popping up, and now I’m freaking out that even just this conversation was too much and you’re gonna thinkI’mtoo m?—”

“Dakota,” Reese said softly, crawling up my body until he was straddling my chest. He splayed his hands on my face and smiled down at me. “Don’t freak out.”

Too late.

I placed my hands over his and stared up into those gorgeous eyes that I wanted to look at forever. “I tried talking to Val and even though he told me everything was fine and I didn’t need to worry, it didn’t help. I love him, but I don’t care what anyone else says or thinks about this. I just needyouto tell me not to worry. That everything will be okay. That what we have is special, that it’s not just something…temporary.”

That you won’t get tired of me soon, that this doesn’t mean half as much to you as it means to me.

Something flashed across his eyes, but it was gone before I could pin it down.

“You don’t have to worry. What we haveisspecial. Everything will be fine, alright? The way I feel about you…” He let his eyes slowly trail across every inch of my face. When they came back to mine, there was a fondness in them that no one had ever looked at me with before. “You have made everything I’ve been through bearable, somehow. I’ve spent every moment of the past ten years feeling like I was being punished forsomething, but now it feels like I’ve been rewarded.Hell of a reward, too.”

For once, he wasn’t lying to me. The fact that he was being so honest so easily reassured me as much as his words.

But I could see in his eyes that there was something he was leaving out. A lie of omission. A truth he was too afraid to tell me.

“And now you have me, too.” He tipped forward and touched his forehead to mine, kissed the tip of my nose, then drew back and brushed his fingers over the marks on my neck. His eyes were filled with a fierce emotion as he stared at the imprints of himself he’d left on my skin.

They were his way of telling me what he was too afraid to say out loud.

These marks on my body were words, everything he wanted to say but wouldn’t. Couldn’t. They were a declaration, a vow, a promise. They were him, pledging himself to me. Giving me the deepest parts of himself. Every part of himself.

They were his love. I’d bet my life on that truth.

“Here. I got you this.”

“Huh? What?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion, like he thought I’d gotten him a scorpion or something.

I pulled the box out from under my bed, and his eyes darted down to it. He frowned, which wasn’t the reaction I was going for, but I set it on the bed next to him and watched him stare at it like there really was a scorpion inside.

“It’s not a scorpion,” I said.

He gave me a confused look. “What? Why the hell would it be a scorpion? Is it actually a scorpion, you weirdo?” He started tostand, like he was going to leave the room, and I grabbed onto his arm and pulled him onto my lap.

I tucked my chin onto his shoulder and laughed. “No, it’s not a goddamn scorpion. Just open it, Reese. There’s nothing living in there that’s going to jump out at you. I’d never get you anything that could hurt you, dummy.” I turned and bit into his neck, holding him against me as he jolted and cried out. His cry turned into a moan when I started to suck on the soft skin of his throat.

He pushed back into my growing erection, that soft little ass moving slowly against me.

Fuck.

I nipped at the spot I’d just sucked on and murmured, “Open it before I come in my pants, you animal.”

His hands were on my thighs, fingers flexing, and he growled when I grabbed his hips and stilled his erotic little movements.