Page 34 of Fighting For Light
I let go of her hand and move to sit behind her so my legs frame her in. For some reason, I want her close. Touching her like this feels so damn good, I’ll never get tired of it.
“I don’t know, gem, but I’ll call my lawyer, and we’ll get you full custody. I’m not taking any chances,” I tell her, resting my chin on her shoulder.
“Okay, thank you because I couldn’t have afforded that on my own,” she says. I wrap my arms around her and slide my hand over her stomach. I’m not going to lie to myself. I want to call that kid mine in every way, shape, and form, including legally. Regardless, that has to be Cordelia’s choice. We have to be on the same page, and I realized on our way here, we aren’t there yet.
We have a long road ahead of us. We may love each other, but this is not an average start to a relationship. We don’t only have to be on the same page. We need to be on the same exact word.I’ve never had a girlfriend before. Circumstances forced Cordi and me to skip over that process. She’s going to be my wife, and I want there to be no questions between us. I’m not scared of what we could be. I’m not afraid to love her. I’m afraid of what I can’t control. But all we have is right now. Blood doesn’t matter to me, it never has because blood,family, has proven to have no meaning to the one that it should.
“This is all happening so fast,” she whispers, leaning into my chest. It’s not too hot out, and the light breeze is comfortable. Her hair blows a little in the wind, and her light honey scent floats into my nose.
Tucking my nose into her neck, I take a deep breath and say, “Time waits for no man.”
Her hand squeezes mine. “I wish we could at least pause it right now,” she mutters.
“We have time, gem. Probably not as much as you wish, but I want us to get to know each other better in this way.”
“You’re right. I know what I want in my heart, but I’m impulsive, Kai. I don’t have the luxury of being impulsive anymore.”
My heart drops, and I stare out at the moving ocean that never ceases its push and pull over the shore. “Does that mean you said yes to me on impulse?” I ask her.
She tenses a little, and I try not to let it bother me. “No,” she says so quietly I barely hear her over the waves.
“Why does it feel like that’s a yes?”
She shrugs in my arms and leans her head back on my shoulder. “Because I suddenly don’t know what the right thing is anymore. This is not how we imagined things going between us, and I can’t help but worry if maybe we’re jumping in head first without looking at where we’re landing. I don’t want to be like my parents.”
I kiss her cheek and sigh. “I know exactly where I’m landing, gem, and that’s with you if you’ll still have me.” She doesn’t say anything and toys with my fingers on her stomach. “I want to date you, Cordelia Quinn. I want to take you out for nice dinners, take you shopping, and go on adventures with you... love you in all the ways I have thought about but could never act on.”
She giggles. “I don’t think I’ll be able to do the adventures you’re probably thinking of.”
“You can’t go skydiving?” I ask her jokingly.
“No, actually, I can do that, but I can’t go free climbing at Yosemite,” she says sarcastically.
“Hmm, good to know. I’ll get our jump time scheduled, then.”
She shakes her head, and the moonlight illuminates half of her face, highlighting the curve of her nose and the dip right above her lips. “A date sounds really good.”
I rub sand off the hand I had behind me and bring it around to hug her. “Good, because I wasn’t really going to give you a choice.”
She laughs. “It’s a good thing I’ve known you for a while because the caveman act would have made me run the other way.”
I throw my head back and laugh into the sky. “You forget I knowyou, gem, and that is one hundred percent wrong. I know the kind of guys you have a thing for.”
She gasps. “What does that mean? Were you watching me, daredevil?”
I shrug. “I couldn’t have you the way I wanted you, so I kept an eye on you from a distance.”
“Oh,” she says, her tone hinting at surprise.
“You seem to like that word a lot. I wonder if I could make you say it for another reason.” I slide my hand down to the button on her jeans, and she grips my hand.
“Now who’s doing the teasing?” she quips.
“Don’t be a brat,” I say, nipping her jaw.
“Maybe you should kiss me first and then tell me why I’m being such a brat,” she says, whispering the last words. My body tingles at the thought, and I tighten my arms, flipping us so she’s under me and lying in the sand. Careful of her stomach, I hold myself above her, tasting her neck and working my way up to her jaw, then her cheek. “Mmm, I should be a brat more often.” I bite her ear, and she squeaks.
“Brats are bad girls, gem. Do you like being bad?”
