Page 17 of The Contractor's Rose
Ifeltit—in every nervous breath, every hesitant touch, every quiet, involuntary moan that had fallen from her lips when I so much as grazed her skin.
God.
I didn’t deserve her.
Didn’t deserve the trust in her eyes or the way she looked at me like I wasn’t a broken man who’d failed as a husband, as a father. A man with more regrets than good memories.
But I wanted her anyway—selfishly, dangerously, desperately.
“Rose,” I said, the name falling from my lips like prayer. Because I couldn’t stop calling her that now. Couldn’t go back toRosie.That name didn’t belong to this version of her—the woman sitting in my truck, flushed and breathless and tasting like heaven. “You okay?”
She nodded, fast. “Yeah. Yeah, just …”
“Just?”
Her eyes dropped for a second, flicking to her hands like she needed grounding. Then she looked back at me with a softness that damn near knocked the breath from my chest. “You kiss like you mean it.”
I laughed once, rough and low, my voice ragged around the edges. “I guess I do.” Her brows lifted slightly, vulnerability rising like a tide in her gaze. “Is that … okay?”
“It’s okay,” she said, small and unsure.
“Do you want this to stop?”
She didn’t answer right away.
Instead, she reached out, fingers brushing the edge of my jaw like she was checking to make sure I was real. “I don’t want you to stop,” she sighed.
I leaned in again, resting my forehead against hers. Our breaths mingled in the small space between us. Her skin was warm. Her scent was everywhere—vanilla, a little earthy from the rain, and now tinged with me.
“You’re killing me, sweetheart,” I muttered.
“I hope not,” she said with a nervous laugh. “I’m kind of hoping for the opposite.”
My breath caught.
The words hit deeper than she knew, because this wasn’t a game to her. She wanted this.Me.Not just the fantasy of an older man or the thrill of a forbidden hookup. No, she wantedme, Gavin Miller. The man behind the scars and calluses. The one who’d buried a wife. The one who didn’t always say the right thing or feel like enough.
And I knew, in that moment, I’d burn the whole damn world to keep her safe. To be worthy of her.
I kissed her again, slower this time. No hunger, no rush.Just a soft press of lips—an unspoken promise. A vow sealed with breath and skin.
Then I pulled back before I lost every shred of self-control. Before I buried my hands under that damn dress and took more than she was ready to give.
“Are you still hungry?” I asked, nodding toward the forgotten containers on the dash. My voice came out thick with the lust I was trying to swallow back.
She blinked, like she’d forgotten we even had food. Then she smiled—real and warm and so damnherself.“Starving.”
“Good,” I muttered, grabbing her food and handing it over. “Because if I keep kissing you like that without a break, we’re gonna end up steaming up these windows like a couple of teenagers.”
Her laugh was quiet but honest.
And in that moment, I realized that no matter how twisted or fucked up this felt, she wasn’t scared.
And I was done pretending I was.
TEN
GAVIN
