“I can’t stay away from you, Ruby,” he grated, looking as tortured as I felt. “I’ve tried all my life and I’ve never been able to keep my distance.”
“Then stop trying,” the lonely demon inside me whispered. “Stop staying away.”
He flinched, his hands dropping to his sides. “If you let me in, I’m going to stay there.”
I tilted my chin defiantly, daring him to follow through. “Maybe it’s not up to you. Maybe, I won’t let you go.
He crossed the space between us and wrapped me up in his arms, encasing me in his strength and warmth and at least a decade of longing. “Your son might belong to my brother, Ruby, but you’ve always belonged to me. You’re mine.”
His mouth crashed against mine in a flurry of longing and desire and a thousand unspoken words. I kissed him back, feeling the lost pieces inside of me finally finding a home.
It wasn’t just this town I belonged to, it was this man. It had always been this man.
His mouth moved against mine, a hungry devouring of lips and tongues. Our tongues tangled together—fighting, warring, working together to find the most delicious kisses that had ever existed in all of time.
He gentled his embrace, so his hands could move over my body, taking my hips and tugging them against him, palming my breasts, picking up right where we left off. I let him, I loved him for it. I wasn’t in the mood for careful kisses or tentative touches.
I wanted him. All of him.
His hand landed on my thigh, pushing my dress up to my waist, finding the hem of my tiny underwear and pushing them down to my knees.
“Is this okay?” he asked belatedly, as if he just realized he should ask.
“Yes,” I gasped. “Oh, god, yes.”
His fingers danced along my hip, heading to the place I wanted them to touch me most. “And you’re, uh, clean?”
“Yes,” I repeated, getting a little desperate. “I haven’t had sex since the last time I was tested, and I was clean. Er, you?”
He nodded, his forehead pressed against mine. “I got tested when I got back here and I’m clean.”
“There hasn’t been anyone since—”
“Not since I’ve been home,” he promised.
That was enough for both of us. Our mouths found each other again, my teeth grazing over his bottom lip and sucking it into my mouth. His tongue pushed into mine, licking, sucking, taking what he wanted.
Two of his fingers slid inside me, finding places that sent my senses soaring. I clutched his shoulders to keep my balance and dropped my forehead to his chest. I whimpered against him, feeling blinded and tingly with pleasure.
I tugged at his shirt, needing it off, needing more of him. His belt came next. Then the button of his pants.Pop.
He slowed us down, removing his fingers from inside me and cradling my face with his other hand. His touch was achingly sweet, the physical reality of the smiles I loved so much from him.
He held my gaze, his green eyes the brightest I’d ever seen them. “I love you, Ruby Dawson. I can’t remember not loving you. I don’t know how to live this life without loving you. You’re it for me, Ruby. Beginning, middle, end. I want to be so much more than your friend. I want to be your everything.”
My chin trembled, and I tried desperately to hold back the tears pushing at the corners of my eyes. But it was a hopeless cause. Apparently, this man was going to take all the crying tonight.
Thank God for waterproof mascara.
“You are,” I hiccupped, knowing it was true. Knowing it had been true for a very long time. “I love you too, Levi. I don’t know when it started. I can’t remember the day or the moment or when exactly it was that I gave you my heart, but I know you’ve had it for a long time. For as long as I can remember. It’s yours to keep. Forever. For always.”
“For always,” he repeated.
He kissed me again, his lips stealing the last of my words from my mouth and claiming them as his. Picking me up by my legs, he lifted me so I could wrap them around his waist. He carried me to the bedroom where I got fleeting glances of more rich, dark wood and a giant bed with messy sheets.
I clung to him all the way, metaphorically clinging to the beginning of whatever this was. I had lived my whole life in a trailer park on the wrong side of the tracks. And maybe that was my life story, but it wasn’t the story of my heart.
Not anymore.
