“Thank fuck.” He exhaled loudly. “I was going to have a really hard time being noble and respecting your wishes.”
He laid his lips in my hair while I toyed with the comforter.
“But I’ll have to see if I can transfer my final year to the university thirty minutes away.” Nerves rippled through me as I spoke the words out loud. “I can’t be sure if my credits will transfer, if the financials?—”
“We’ll sort it,” Beau interrupted me, kneading my breast.
I instinctively arched into his touch.
“Beau,” I protested. “Those are not things you can grunt or alpha or grumpy into fruition.”
“I can be very convincing when I want to be,” he mumbled into my neck, his scratchy beard lighting up my synapses.
His fingers tweaked my nipple.
I struggled to keep my thoughts on practical matters when I ached to lose myself in Beau.
“It’s notyourproblem,” I argued.
Beau stopped to look at me, very seriously, even while his hand danced along my inner thigh.
“Your problems are my problems,” he corrected. “And anything that ensures you’ll stay under this roof, in my bed, is certainly my problem.”
He leaned in to kiss me, as if the matter were closed. I used all my restraint to hold on to his face to stop him.
Beau looked surprised, but he stayed there. He honored my wishes, even when they went against what he wanted.
Proving to be a miracle of a man yet again.
“Beau, this is fast,” I whispered. “The moving in together?—”
“We’ve been living together for the better part of a year.”
“Not like this,” I disagreed. “And you’re talking about forever when you don’t know?—"
“I know.” Beau circled my wrist with his hand.
I opened my mouth to protest.
“I know that you make my daughter laugh.” He fiddled with a strand of my hair. “You knit for babies you don’t know. You need coffee first thing in the morning. Your first instinct is always kindness, even to men who were total assholes to you. Present company included.” He leaned in to kiss my nose. “I know that your pussy tastes like honey.”
My pussy clenched at his words. As if it hadn’t been utterly worshipped by him all night.
“I know that you cry while watching videos of flash mobs,” he continued, tracing around my eyes with his finger. “You’re a voracious reader, you’re intelligent, you like reality shows about rich housewives. I know that you curl into me in your sleep. I know, Hannah Morgan, that you’re made for me. I know you. I know I’ll only ever want you.”
He wiped a tear I didn’t even know had fallen from the corner of my eye.
“But those are all the things I know. You’ve shown me nothing but the best of you because there is nothing more to you than the best things. I’ve shown you the worst of me, so it makes sense?—”
“I want you.” I cut him off, reaching up to brush his beard. It was such a thrill, a gift that I got to touch him. Whenever I wanted.
“I want this. But it scares me.” The words sounded simple out loud, but it didn’t feel simple. “And there are a lot of parts of me that aren’t ‘the best.’ I’ve been poor, Beau. Really poor. I’vebeen hungry. I’ve been hurt, physically and mentally by people who were meant to care for me. I am just a little bit broken.” My breath hitched.
Beau watched me for a long time, not speaking for several heartbeats.
I expected him to tell me I wasn’t broken, to shower me with compliments, place me on a pedestal which I would inevitably fall from.
But he didn’t.
