Page 139 of Melt for You (Slow Burn 2)
“Portia, I’m so sorry—can I call you back in five minutes? I’m having trouble with the connection. I’m going to get on a landline.” Without waiting for her to answer, I hang up. Then I sit staring at Cam’s broad back until he turns around and looks at me.
When he sees the expression on my face, he breaks into a grin. “Oh, no. She’s thinkin’. I can smell the smoke from all the way over here.”
In a small voice, I ask, “You talked to my parents about marrying me?”
“I know,” he says, becoming serious. “It’s a little ridiculous considerin’ your advanced age, but I when we tell our kids the story about how we fell in love, got married, and lived happily ever after, I wanna be able to say I asked your father for permission. Even though I really just told him I’d be marryin’ his daughter, not asked, but that can be our little secret.”
Kids. My heart races like a thoroughbred heading into the home stretch at Churchill Downs. I breathe loudly through my mouth, like I do when I have a cold. “But I’ve . . . I’ve only been here for six weeks.”
Holding two tea bags he got from the cupboard, he saunters over to the stove. “Yep. And how many times during those six weeks have you told me how much you love it here?”
When I don’t answer because I’m too busy hyperventilating through my mouth and wondering if instead of a heart attack I’m suffering a stroke, he continues the conversation without me.
“You love my flat. You love the city. You love workin’ from home. You love Nanny O’Shea. You love the food—except for haggis—and the people, and the weather, and my mates on the Devils, and sittin’ in the stands, watchin’ me play. You love that Mr. Bingley has a girlfriend.”
He gestures to the cat bed under the dining room table, where Mr. Bingley contentedly snoozes with a sleek black cat half his size named Cleo. Cam adopted her from a shelter when I first arrived because he thought it was time for Mr. Bingley to give up his bachelorhood. The two cats have been inseparable ever since. Even in sleep, they’re curled around each other, one dark and one light, yin and yang.
“In fact,” he pretends to think, tapping his chin with the tea bag, “I think the only thing you haven’t yet said you love . . . is me.”
He holds my gaze for a few beats, then turns the gas on under the kettle on the stove, gets two mugs from another cupboard, sets them on the counter, and drops the tea bags into them. Then he folds his arms over his chest, leans against the counter, and stares at me.
Me, sitting on the sofa, concentrating all my energy on staying upright. “I . . . I . . .”
Cam arches his brows. He cups a hand around one ear. “Sorry, what was that? Were you trying to say somethin’, lass?”
I stand unsteadily, feeling my pulse in my whole body. Then I slowly make my way over to where Cam is standing in the kitchen. It seems as if I’m floating toward him, my feet barely skimming the ground. When I reach him, he takes me in his arms and gazes down at me with a secret little smile, his eyes half-lidded and hot.
“Go ahead,” he prompts. “Tell me how you were in love with me from the start, only you mistook that funny feelin’ in your stomach for gas. Tell me how I knocked you off your feet from the first moment I opened my mouth and you heard my incredibly sexy voice. Tell me how no other man on earth looks as good in a kilt as I do or makes you laugh like I do.” His voice drops. “Or makes you scream like I do. Go on, lass. Tell me.”
I’m trembling all over, my heart fluttering frantically like a trapped hummingbird inside my chest. “Yes,” I whisper, gazing up into his eyes. “Yes to all that.”
His secret smile deepens. He threads his fingers into my hair and combs them through, watching the strands flow over his hand. Then he gently tugs on a lock to bring me closer. “Now tell me how happy I make you.”
“Stupidly happy. Amazingly happy. Yes.”
He leans in and brushes his lips against my cheek. “And how you want to spend the rest of your life just like this.” He gives me a quick, hard squeeze. “In my arms.”
My throat is closing in on itself. My voice breaks when I say, “Yes.”
Cam presses the softest of kisses on my neck, then looks deep into my eyes. In a husky whisper, he says, “Now tell me you love me, lass. And make it good, ’cause you’ve made me wait too long.”
I exhale a shaky breath, gather myself, and do as he commands.
“I love you the way I love the smell of old books. I love you the way I love a hot bath on a cold day. I love you the way I love sonnets and ice cream and a swimsuit that doesn’t make me look like I’m made of burrata. I love you the way I love the sun on my face in winter. The way I love a favorite song playing on the radio when I’m driving home from the beach on a summer day.”
He swallows, his eyes shining with emotion. I go up on my toes and press a soft kiss to his lips.
Against his mouth, I murmur, “I love you like I love starry nights, and really crunchy pickles, and discovering an amazing new author, and Sunday mornings in bed with the paper and chocolate croissants. Like I love the way the air smells after it rains. Like I love to laugh.”
He drops his face to my neck and presses it there, tightening his arms around me, so I whisper the last part right into his ear.
“But actually I love you more than all those things combined, Cameron McGregor. I love you like I never knew I could love anything. You’re more important to me than air itself, and I don’t ever want to spend a day without you. Because you believed in me, this little ugly duckling finally became a swan.”
A delicate shudder runs through his chest. He inhales deeply, squeezing me so tight I feel every single wild beat of his heart.
“You were always a swan, you bloody idiot,” he says in a strangled voice.
I tilt my head back and laugh, though my eyes are filled with tears. They’re happy tears, however. Happy-ever-after tears. “Whatever I am, prancer, I’m yours. Now kiss me before you say something stupid and ruin the moment.”
