Page 44 of The Truth About Love

“Tell you what again?” My eyes scrunch in confusion.

“What you told me at dinner, Auden. Tell me again.”

Oh.

“The once wasn’t enough for you, baby?” My fingers find hers and slip between them, joining our hands together.

“Don’t play with me right now, quarterback,” she huffs. “Just say it.”

I pull back, wanting a clear view of her eyes so that I can watch the way her pupils dilate as I utter the three words that she’s seemingly desperate to hear.

“I love you.”

Her eyes close and she sucks in a deep breath. I can feel her entire body trembling on my lap, her fingers quivering inside mine. When her eyelids finally open, it’s as if my words have caused her irises to change colour. They’re still that same deep, precious kind of green, but now they’ve been set aglow with millions of flecks of gold.

She moves her hand back up to my face, cupping my cheek and stroking my skin with the pad of her thumb.

“I love you too,” she says finally.

And my whole world shifts on its axis.

I knew already, of course I did, but nothing compares to hearing those words fall from her lips.

The rhapsody of the moment has my body shuddering uncontrollably. I can’t help myself; I pull her back towards me to capture her lips again, kissing her until I’m dizzy and gasping for breath.

“Auden,” she whispers against my lips. “I know you’ve already done so much for me today, but could I ask for one more thing?”

“Anything.”

“Be with me.”

Her meaning doesn’t sink in. Not immediately. Not anywhere near as quickly as it should. I look at her, confused. We’ve been together for months now, so what could she possibly mean?

And then I notice the way she chews frantically at her lip. The impossible size of her pupils. The way she keeps shifting on my lap.

“You mean…” I trail off, terrified to say what I’m thinking, because it would be awful if I was wrong.

But she nods, reading every one of my thoughts, understanding everything that I’m thinking and knowing what I need to hear.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” she says. “Be with me. Be my first, Auden. I want it to be you, if that’s what you want too?”

“What I want too?” I repeat, mystified. “I want everything you’ll give me. But baby, I don’t want to just be your first, I want to be youronly.”

The smile she gives me in return is small and shy. “I want that too.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

I need her to be absolutely one hundred percent certain that this is what she wants, because once it’s done, she can’t take it back. I’d know. I’d give anything for this to be my first time too.

Not because losing my virginity was traumatic or disappointing, but because no one will ever measure up to Summer-Raine. I want her to be my first, my last, my only. Just like I’ll hopefully be for her.

“I’m sure.”

That’s all I need. I stand, keeping my girl cradled tightly against me, and carry her into the bedroom, where I lay her down on the bed as gently as if I was handling the English crown jewels.

Her hair fans out on the pillow, a halo of gold around her head as she looks up at me with an expression I haven’t seen from her before. Her eyes are set ablaze with longing and I know without seeing them that mine look the very same.

I’m buzzing with anticipation. The realisation of what’s about to happen between us, of knowing her in this new way, of touching her where she’s never been touched before is almost too much to bear.

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