Page 115 of Good Girl's Guide to Love
Linc lets out a breath. “What’s always bothered me was the game she showed up to wearing a Rockwell T-shirt. She knows he hates me, and my feelings are mutual. I’m not saying she has to ride at dawn with me, but that always rubbed me the wrong way.”
“And was she dismissive? That’s what it always felt like to me when I overheard your conversations, and even today from what little I heard as I was walking up. It’s like she didn’t care.”
“She didn’t. But do you think…did she have something to do with all the negative stuff?”
I shrug because I honestly don’t know. “I hope not. The glass-half-full Ainsley wants to say that those are separate and she’s just really bad at her job. But now? Now I don’t know what to believe.”
Linc pulls me back into his embrace, rolling me over with ease as he balances his weight on top of me. “No matter her intentions, I do feel like I need to thank her. Because her suggestion of you and me dating? Best thing to ever happen to me.”
His lips descend on mine, and while I have a gut feeling that this Katie thing isn’t over, I’m done thinking about her tonight.
“Do you think we really would’ve never seen each other again?” I don’t want to give Katie any more brain space, but now that he’s put that out there, the overthinker in me is taking over.
Linc’s smile says it all. “Like I could’ve stayed away.”
He sits up, bringing me with him. My hands immediately circle his neck as he looks at me like I’ve never been looked at before, making my heart swell so much it might burst.
“I love you, Ainsley.”
Holy crap. Did he just say…
“Oh, the shocked face. I missed that look,” he says as he comes in for a quick kiss. “That’s the look you first gave me from the floor of the hospital, and I remember thinking that you were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“You did not.” The man is going to make me blush as I fight back happy tears.
“Oh, but I did,” he says as he pulls me in tighter. “I looked for you after you left. I knew you were…what did you say?—‘Leave, car, go’…but I looked. I needed to see you again.”
Yup. Crying. Tears. Happy tears. And I’m not even ashamed.
“When I saw you that night at karaoke, I couldn’t believe my luck. I didn’t even know your name, but there you were.”
“And then you were my boyfriend.”
“Damn right I was,” he says with a quick kiss. “All that is to say I don’t think I could’ve stayed away from you if I tried. I looked for you that first day, and I know I would’ve looked for you again. You were in my bones from second I met you, Ainsley Banks. Even if we had said our goodbyes that day at my kitchen island, I know that I’d have made as many hospitals visits as I needed to see you again.”
He pauses to gather his words. Which is good. I need a second to gather myself.
My entire life, I’ve dreamed of the moment. The moment when you realize that you’re in love and you’re loved back just as much. I prayed for this. Wondered when it was going to be my turn.
But now it’s here. This man who I literally didn’t see coming, yet changed my entire world.
And it’s all because I did the scary thing.
“I love you, Ainsley Mae,” he continues. “I don’t know much, but I know our story wasn’t supposed to end that day. And if I have my way, it’s not going to end for a very long time.”
“I love you, Linc,” I say before kissing the heck out of this man. I have so much more to say. But more than that, I want to show him how much I love him too. How much he saved me that night. How he showed me a side of myself that I didn’t know existed.
No more hiding. No more being scared.
Just being happy.
Being me.
Being loved.
Reading me like he always can, Linc gently lowers us back to the bed, our lips never leaving each other as I feel him growing hard on top of me. I open my legs, knowing that he doesn’t need to get me ready to take him. My body is always ready.
Plus, all that talk about love? That’s foreplay enough.
