Page 72 of Made for You
He squeezed lightly, then released me and took up his fork to spear a slice of the blackberry pie. “You don’t have to. I can just see your mind running, and I’m here if you want to process externally.”
I sighed. “I’d planned to drink this wine and do a puzzle and try to ignore my feelings, but if you’re going to make me confront them, I guess I can.”
His mouth twitched, clearly sensing the humor in my words. “Like I said, I’m here for whatever you need.”
It was the earnest way he said it that plucked at the heartstrings already pulled taut in my chest. Where in the past I would’ve hoarded my feelings, maybe buried them and only taken them out to examine when I was feeling particularly capable of handling heartache, I wanted to share this. I wanted someone here with me, even if it meant him seeing me fall apart.
And if that didn’t show me what Gram had said was true, I didn’t know what would.
I steeled myself with a slow inhale, refusing to let the restless bounce of my knee or the clammy palms that’d appeared out of nowhere stop me. “I’m good, I think. Sad, but not devastated. It feels like sore muscles or a bruise, maybe. Like I know it’ll get better, but it’ll take time.”
He listened with an open expression that said I could keep going—that he was in no rush for me to package up these feelings and tuck them away if I didn’t want to. But the realization plaguing me all evening as I paced around the empty-feeling house was less that I missed Gram and more that I missedhim.We hadn’t seen much of each other lately—not nearly as much as I would’ve liked, and I felt the intense truth of my feelings for him rising in me with every minute that’d passed.
“I know she’ll be happy there. And I—” I cleared my throat, willing myself to be brave.I can do this.I could.
Right?
Or, if not completely. If not all the way, I had to try.
“I think I’ll be happy here. I know I can see her whenever I want. I know we’ll still do things together—she’ll even still come here to the house, if she wants. I think what has me so wrapped around myself is actually less about Gram’s moving out and more about my feelings for you.”
All movement in the room ceased, though I couldn’t have said what had been moving prior to that moment. Maybe the heater buzzing upstairs or his chest rising and falling with barely detectable motion. The intensity of Bruce’s gaze on my face multiplied exponentially. It extrapolated out to the farthest reaches of measurable possibility until it mirrored infinity and I suspected something akin to what reflected on my face, too.
“And what are they?” he asked, voice low and unmistakably hopeful.
I took a wobbly breath, my entire body alight with adrenaline so violent, my hands shook. “They are… substantial.”
His face split open with a gorgeous smile and a laugh. Then his arm shot out, fingers slipping into the hair at the back of my head to urge me forward. He pressed a searing kiss to my lips, then released me, his eyes practically sparkling back at me. “That’s good news.”
“Is it?” Even these words seemed to tremble. So much of me shuddered in the wake of my confession. It was all I could manage, and there was a kind of inverse effect—the words had run out of me, but now I waited. A vacuous hole waited to widen or shrink, all depending onhim.And what a truly gargantuan amount of power I’d given him.
“Yes, Nik. Because my feelings for you are life-changing. They have already changed things for me. I don’t want to rush you, but I do want you to know I am ready to talk about this, ready to tell you whatever you want to know, when you’re ready.”
Pulling him to me, I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him close. He was so solid and warm and wonderful, all of him gently handling those bruises and aches from the day. But as we sat there holding each other, some of the hurting places eased off and it was like some part of me took a breath. That hole shrank, and shrank, and though it didn’t disappear, the edge of terror did, at least for now.
“Thank you,” I finally said, whispering into the long column of his neck. I pressed a kiss to the base of his throat, chasing after the words like I could write them into his skin.
His chest rose, and his fingers flexed where they rested on my back. I kissed him again, along his collarbone, dipping to the top of his tattoo, then up his neck. I followed the sharp cut of his jaw, savoring the warm, masculine scent of him and the bite of his five o’clock shadow against the soft skin of my lips.
“Nik,” he said on an exhale, like a question or a plea. Either one sent a heady shot of desire and need throughout me.
I wasn’t ready for the bold confession I needed to make with words—that someone more adept at feeling would say. But I could try to show him. I desperately wanted to show him how I felt. So I pulled back and answered what I thought he’d asked with my own question.
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
Bruce
She needn’t have asked, but I loved that she did.
I loved that she’d been sitting here sipping wine and doing a puzzle instead of watching TV. I loved that she wanted me to know she felt something big for me but wasn’t quite ready to say whatever that was, exactly.
And I definitely loved that she wanted me to stay.
Instead of responding with words at first, I took her lead and knit our fingers together, delighting in her short, neat fingernails and the soft skin of her palm. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”
She grinned and laughed, like the cheesy yet truthful line both charmed her and made her want to roll her eyes. I joined her, enjoying the lightness of the moment despite a lot of heaviness that came before—both this moment and earlier in the day. The last few weeks, in truth.
