Page 45 of Long Road Home

Rebecca had been exactly right earlier.

I’d been a selfish, anxious girl filled with fear instead of all the confidence Tillie tried to instill. She’d worked so damn hard on it and until Rebecca slapped me with truths I never saw earlier, and Jordan reinforced it all now, two things hit me like a slap upside the head.

I wasn’t that girl anymore. I hadn’t been that girl for a long time. Moving to Houston at eighteen, living with Tillie’s sister. Graduating college, starting my own career all while being a single mom to a little boy had forced me to grow up. It had forced me to be strong.

And I still loved Jordan Marx with every single breath I took.

I could barely process everything he was saying about his twenty-first birthday to respond quick enough, but it turned out unnecessary.

Jordan had more to say. With his hand on my face, his thumb swiped my cheek. A delicious, warm shiver slid from my throat straight to the tops of my thighs where a need that had been so unfilled for so long sparked to life.

Oh God. He was turning me on and he still looked like he wanted to rip my head off.

“We’ve got shit to work through Destiny. A dumpster load of garbage we need to purge between us, but I know what’s at the bottom. I know what we had ran deeper than all that and I might be the biggest idiot of all time, the dumbest man in history to walk the Earth, but I still think what we had is worth the effort to see if we can get back there. I need you to believe that this time.”

The ground shook beneath my feet and I swayed, my body shaking with fear and excitement. Had he really said that?

He had.

I’d still barely been able to get a word out and he’d thrown out everything he wanted…and what he wanted wasme.

I licked my lips to wet them. They’d gone as dry as the Sahara. My chest ached from the harsh breaths it took to prevent me from hyperventilating. All of this was too fast. Too soon.

His icy eyes dropped to my lips, and his lips curled up at the edges. I braced my hand on his arm, curling around his forearm.

It was the first time in a decade I reached for him. Where I needed him to steady me and like all those years before, he took that. He bore my weight as my head fell forward, collapsing against his chest, larger than it used to be, just as firm in his resolve to give me everything he knew I needed.

“You hate me,” I muttered. “And you should. And all of this…”

“Is scary as fuck. I know that. And yet I’m still here, throwing myself at your feet asking you not to run this time.”

“Why?” If he hadn’t deserved better a decade ago, he definitely did now. “I’ve done so many things.”

“Yeah. Bad things. We both know it. But tonight, I sat at my kitchen table with my entire fucking family, eating dinner, laughing, grinning, and getting in each other’s faces and it was beautiful. And I wouldn’t have had that without you, so I’m taking it.”

A week ago, I never thought I’d come home. And now I was, and he was so damn strong, so damn incredible. It was too much.

“I don’t know what to say,” I finally admitted.

He had one hand curled around the back of my neck. His other rose and cupped my cheek, lifting me off his chest until I was looking directly at him. So beautiful. So strong. So determined. So confident. Jordan embodied everything I wanted to be, and it was the first time when he looked at me, I knew without a doubt when he saw me…hedidsee those things.

Tears spilled down my cheeks. “I want you to forgive me.”

“I’ll get there.” His assurance was beautiful. No hint of hesitation, no promise he couldn’t give me now. No lie he’d already done so.

“Is this…you mentioned your family. Is all of this because you just want Toby?”

And he’d take me because I came with him. I had no doubt he was a good enough man he could do that, weave me into his life, be a dad. Hell, he could even spend his life with me out of obligation and make it a good one, but that wasn’t fair to any of us either.

“The next time you say something that stupid, Destiny, I’m going to haul you over my lap and spank you for it.”

All that pulsing south of my waist became a full-blown throb. “What?”

“You heard me. Now, I got games to play with my boy. You going to come join us or hang out down here?”

A night alone to hang out in Jordan’s house like I belonged in it? Sounded beautiful.

I still wanted to be with them more.

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