Page 134 of Wildest Dreams

My smirk widens as I deadpan, “Didn’t you now.”

She blinks up at me, unsure, assessing, and then in the next second her cheeks are burning scarlet.

She glances hastily over her shoulder – checking that the guys aren’t looking – and then she spins back around to give me a rough slap across the pecs.

I grunt quietly, grinning like an idiot.

“Knew it,” I rumble.

“How thehelldid you know?”

“Caught a glance of something khaki in your bags two months ago,” I smile.

I knew it the second that I saw it. When I was helping Aisling carry her bags into the lake house, I could have sworn that I saw the khaki cap I used to wear religiously. Then, after we hooked up, it never made its way back to me.

No way did I imagine that she’d keep it but it feels really fucking good knowing that she did.

I lower my voice. “And until recently,” I murmur, looking pointedly at her panty-region, “I’m pretty sure you didn’t have anything khaki of your own.”

She gasps, indignant, and scowls up at me.

“You weren’t supposed to know that I’d kept it,” she whispers, glowering straight into the centre of my pecs. Then she shoots me a look and says, “You shouldn’t have been snooping. Snooper.”

“Hey, I wasn’t snoopin’,” I drawl, laughing quietly at her expression. “You didn’t zip your bags up and something familiarcaught my eye.”

I check that no-one is looking and hunch down to whisper against her ear.

“Little thief,” I rumble quietly.

A shiver ripples through her body and she gasps, shoving me back.

“Am I wrong?” I ask roughly, moving so close that her chin is almost resting against my chest. “Or did you save a little souvenir even though you supposedly ‘hated’ me?”

“What was I supposed to do?” she whispers. “Throw it out?”

I grin down at her because, if you hated someone, that’s exactly what you would do.

She reads my thoughts as we look into each other’s eyes and then she folds her arms over her chest, breathing out a huff.

“I just… I liked it, okay? Your cap, I mean. When you left it I… I tried it on. It fits me just right.”

I rub my palm over my smirk and murmur, “I know something else of mine that fits you just right.”

Aisling’s knees give way and I laugh quietly as I wrap my palms around her biceps, stabilising her.

When she risks another glance up at me my heart clenches, warm and tight.

“You can deny it all you want, but I love the fact that you kept it, Aisling. That you wanted to use it.” I lower my voice and murmur, “And honestly? I like it because you keeping that cap tells me everything that I need to know. That despite all the shit that happened, deep down, you liked me. Through it all.”

She looks up at me with those big beautiful eyes and doesn’t deny a thing.

It’s all the confirmation that I need.

She’s always been mine.

“Do I get to keep it?” she asks, less frowny now but still unsure.

I nod down at her and my heart clenches.

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