Page 81 of Anything for You
“Sure. But if I hadn’t been there, you would’ve stayed until the end, wouldn’t you? You would’ve helped clean upand spent more time with your friends. You wouldn’t have had to make excuses and leave because I couldn’t handle it.”
Saying the words aloud made me want to shrink into the couch cushions and hide. I didn’t want this nakedness, this inescapable honesty. I’d made peace, for the most part, with the way I needed to function in social settings. I needed as much information ahead of time as possible. I needed to know a bit about what to expect. I typically aimed for a certain amount of time, between a half and full hour, before I planned to leave. And when I planned on it, I didn’t feel so bad because it was always my intention to leave at whatever time I arranged. Then I could leave, and walking out of the context always felt like shedding a flak vest.
Dove had been studying me, and she had to have seen some of those feelings. They were ugly and embarrassing, the way I regretted her accommodating me.
“Here’s what I need you to understand. If we hadn’t gone together, I might’ve stayed until the end. If we were together and you’d stayed home? I would’ve wanted to get back to you.”
I opened my mouth to explain that this was just another example of why I would end up ruining things for her, but she shook her head in a sharp, singular gesture that halted me before I began.
“If we weren’t dating, weren’t together, yes. I would’ve stayed until then end. But we are dating. We are together. Right?” She shook my shoulders, a tiny smile pricking at her cheeks.
When I nodded, she rewarded me with a full grin that made my heart squeeze.
“Part of what that means to me is that I want to be with you. I like you, Dorian, more than a little, and I’m sorry tobreak this to you, but I want to be around you all the time. I want to be talking to you and touching you and looking at your handsome face as much as possible.”
Good grief, this woman. “Same.”
Her smile stretched wide, and she leaned in a few inches to touch her lips to mine. Before I could deepen the kiss, she continued.
“I also want you to feel good. And you want that for me, right?”
Her big blue eyes blinking back at me so earnestly as she sat here in my lap felt like some kind of cosmic test. Did she want me to enumerate the many ways I would like to make her feel good? “Yes. Absolutely.”
She bit her lush bottom lip to hide a smile—she could absolutely tell my mind had wandered to more physical subjects.
“When you kiss me and touch me, you pay attention. You want to do what I like. You want toknowI’m enjoying it. The same is true with what you feed me. You notice what I scarf down and what I’m slower to eat.”
“Like squash,” I supplied, grateful for a reprieve from her discussing me touching her because I was only a man.
She chuckled. “Exactly. Like horrid, offensive, useless, disgusting squash.”
I laughed at her declaration and took a moment to pull her to me and wrap my arms around her. Why did every second feel like a reward I hadn’t earned? A reality that might be snatched from me at any second?
Leaning back, I saw tears glittering in her eyes, and I just knew. I had to tell her. She was so worried about me, but she needed to understand how I worried about her. She needed to understand this was so much more than attraction or dating.
“I will never feed you squash again.”
“Thank God.”
One tear tracked down her cheek, and I wiped it away with my thumb, holding her close.
“I’m not trying to be difficult with this. But Dove, you have to know that I love you, and I don’t want anything between us to cause you harm. I don’t want you to?—”
“I love you, too. So much.”
Our eyes locked, gazes held for a beat, and then everything building between us ignited.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Dove
To describe a kiss as ravenous might’ve seemed hyperbolic. Until now.
Now I had experienced the absolute destruction and creation that was a ravenous kiss from Dorian Forrester, and I was unwell.
And by that I meant I was deeply mourning the fact that we couldn’t let this kiss unspool into whatever delicious things came next because this man loved me, and I loved him, and we had some important ground to cover before we got down to business.
But holy crap, I was ready for that, too.
