I shook my head. “If you didn’t buy wrapping paper, you could have just thrown a blanket over whatever itis.”
“Hush.” A little more fiddling. “Okay.” He stood in front of me again, and linked our hands together. “Open youreyes.”
I opened myeyes.
Stars.
Hundreds of paper stars hung from the ceiling, fluttering on thin strings of tinsel and winkinglights.
Silver and gold, blue and white, red and green, the stars were a constellation of wonder, a childhood memory, a wish cometrue.
Because across every star was written three words in Ryder’s bold, sharphandwriting.
I loveyou.
He’d written it in the stars.Literally.
This.This.What we had right now, this connection, this need, this warmth, this love wasenough.
Would always be enough, words or nowords.
Tears gathered behind my eyes, and I pressed my hand to my mouth on a small, incredulouslaugh.
“You did this?” Iasked.
“Idid.”
“Forme?”
“Foryou.”
“All of it?” My voice came out small and a littleshaky.
“You don’t likeit?
I shook my head, because I couldn’t find words under all of the emotions inside me. But then I caught the worry in hiseyes.
“No!” I said, “I mean yes. I do! It’s...it’s amazing.Perfect.”
He cradled my face with his free hand. His eyes were the color of sunlight through deep green waters, his smile soft, his body strong and sheltering and familiar andinviting.
“Delaney.” My name fell from his mouth like a caress. “I loveyou.”
My breath caught on another laugh and this time I couldn’t stop thetears.
“I love you too.” Isniffled.
He smiled, and drew me into him, stepped into me, pulling our bodies together as if we were two parts of one whole, complete on our own, but so much moretogether.
His thumb brushed my lower lip, his eyes focused on my mouth as he bent, just slightly, and lowered hishead.
I stretched up, just slightly, our breaths mingling, our lips finally touching, sliding into that soft rhythm of give and take, of taste and sensation and joy, and promise, and yes,love.
I savored him, the quiet catch of his breath, the shifting of his wide shoulders as he erased every millimeter of distance between us that hecould.
Nothing had changed with those three littlewords.
Everything had changed with those three littlewords.
