Page 92 of Eye of the Hurricane
“Why didn’t you say something?” I slide the heel off of her foot and she lets out a breath of relief.
“Because I knew you’d have the perfect thing to say. I knew you’d magically change my mind without even trying.” I throw her heel into the back seat and pull her right foot into my lap.
“You don’t want your mind changed?” I ask, unbuckling the second strap.
“Not right now, no. Regardless of if she’s right or wrong, I have to stay focused until I get this job. It’s been my dream since like forever. I can’t ask you to wait for me,” she admits. I pause what I’m doing and look up to find somber eyes looking back down at me.
“You think asking me to wait a handful of weeks is too much? Kat, honey, I’ve been waiting three fucking years.”
“You haven’t been waiting for me for three years. You’ve just been into me for three years. You were with other people in between.”
“No, honey, I wasn’t.”
“What?” Her eyes go big.
“I haven’t touched another woman since I introducedmyself to you outside of our lecture hall my freshman year,” I admit. Her jaw goes slack.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m really not.” I chuckle. “Turns out once you’ve found the best, no one really does it for you anymore.” She shakes her head like she doesn’t believe me still.
“Let me be more clear. Whether you ask me to wait for you or not, I’ll be waiting for you to be ready for this. Because I can’t think of a single moment any of this has felt fake. It’s felt awfully real to me, Kat, the entire time. And I’ve quite enjoyed it, so when you’re ready to jump I’ll be here with open arms ready to catch you.”
“What if I’m never ready?” she asks.
“I have no doubts you’ll be ready, Kat.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve done my fair share of dating and hooking up, probably your share too. Nothing has ever felt like this. I just can’t imagine a world in which it’s not me and you at the end of it all.”
“It’s not always like this?” she asks and I laugh.
“It’s never like this,” I correct. I finally go back to what I was doing and slide the heel off of her foot, throwing it with the other one. I lift her leg up and kiss her ankle. “Ever.”
Chapter 26
Katherine
I stretchmy arms out and quickly bump into a hard body. Ares’ hard body specifically. It only takes me a few seconds to get my bearings about me. Last night was the wedding… the things he told me in the parking lot… the things we did when we got home.
Shit.
My parents are still here. My parents are still here and Ares is asleep in my bed. I launch myself upright to check the time. It’s 9:30 A.M. Not only are they here, but they’re awake.
I reach over and shake his arm harshly. His eyes shoot open.
“You slept in my bed!” I whisper through gritted teeth.
“Very observant, honey.”
I whack his arm. “Make a bed on the floor.”
His eyebrows pinch together. “It’s the morning. I’m not going back to sleep.”
“Not to sleep, jackass. To pretend like that’s where you slept,” I tell him. I shove a spare blanket and pillow into his arms.
“Seriously?” he asks.
