Page 60 of Conflagration
“How about we get out of here?” he whispers suggestively in a low growl as he rains kisses up my neck and along the length of my jaw.
My skin tingles and dizzying sensations nearly drive me to distraction as his lips continue their generous onslaught. Just as I’m about to agree, the microphone crackles, the emcee announces the first dance, and I’m brought back to reality.
With a heavy sigh, I turn and link my arms around his neck. “As amazing as that sounds, I think your mom would hunt us down and kill us if we left before the happy couple.”
His eyes twinkle as his lips tilt into a seductive smile. “I’m not scared of her,” he insists.
“You might not be, but I’d prefer to be uninterrupted. You’ll just have to wait a little while longer,” I tell him, leaning up on my tiptoes to place a kiss on his lips. “I promise it’ll be worth the wait. Plus, you owe me a dance.”
“You know, my knee’s starting to ache. I think I need to sit down,” he says, and I playfully shove him.
“Nope. No way. You’re not getting out of it. I’ve been waiting all night to dance with you.” I take his hand, drag him across the lawn to his parents table, and push him down into a chair. “There. Rest your bum knee while they do the first dance and then the dances with Wade and your mom.”
“Fine,” he huffs, but he cracks a smile as he pulls me into his lap, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Hey, what were you and Shane talking about so intensely earlier?”
I wince, having hoped he hadn’t seen that. Deciding honesty is the best route, I shrug. “He knew about my previous engagement, and well, he was a little curious as to how I was engaged to you so soon after that.”
“Shit,” he mutters, running his fingers along the small of my back.
“It’s fine, Branson. I gave him just enough info to placate him. He doesn’t know this is fake—” I’m cut off when his fingers still, a scowl forming on his face. “Was fake,” I amend as I look around to make sure no one can hear us.
His hand slides up until it reaches the base of my neck. He pulls me in close until our foreheads are nearly touching, his dark eyes boring into mine. “Never call this fake again. You hear me?”
I love you.
My heart’s beating wildly, and the words are on the tip of my tongue.Just say it, my brain is practically screaming, but I can’t. Not yet. I lean in, pressing my forehead to his, closing my eyes. I nod, and he pulls back from me, his hand coming around to cup my jaw.
“Ariana, look at me,” he insists, and my eyes open slowly to see his watching me intently. “This is real.”
I nod again, swallowing hard.
“Say it. I need to hear you say it out loud. So I know you believe it.”
“It’s never felt more real in my life,” I breathe, and his lips tilt up.
“Baby, it never will be more real than this,” he responds before pulling me into a heart-wrenching, soul-crushing, passionate kiss, but I can’t stop replaying his words in my head.
“Never more real than this.”
And that’s what terrifies me the most. That this is as good as it gets.
I know that will never be enough.
I’M A liar. A goddamn liar and also a coward. When I tell Ariana that it’ll never be more real, I know it’s not true. It won’t be ultimately real until I lay it out for her. Until I admit that I love her. Until I can formulate the words to let her know just how crazy she makes me, how she’s tilted my world on its axis, how she’s changed my life completely. How she’s changed me. How, until now, I had no fucking clue what the word love even meant. Hell, I’m not sure I even understand it now. I just know how I feel.
It’s something I’ve never experienced in my thirty-three years, but as I think back on the night I met her, the night I told her that I wanted what Knox has, I realize that I have that. I don’t need a mirror to know that my face lights up when she enters the room. My heart itself feels lighter just because she’s near.Ifeel lighter. And at the same time, I feel fulfilled. Like I’ve been this puzzle that’s been impossible to complete for the past decade because there was a missing piece.
She’s my missing piece.
She’s what makes me whole.
As cliché as it sounds, Ariana Covington completes me.
She’s everything I don’t think I deserve, but I’m selfish enough to want her anyway. To need her. And in her own way, I think she needs me. My edges may be frayed, and I may be flawed, but I think I could be the piece that completes her puzzle, too.
So how do I tell her? How do I make her believe she’s it for me?
Man the fuck up and just say it.
