Locke cupped the back of my head and placed kisses on top of it until the elevator dinged and the doors slid open again.
Thankfully, the key card worked on the first attempt, and I was able to push inside my room. As soon as I felt him behind me, I turned to find out what was supposed to happen next. Was this where we talked it out? Confessed all of our lies and started over again?
“Take off your clothes.”
Apparently not.
“I think we should talk,” I said, trying to be an adult and accept the consequences of my actions.
“Is that what you want right now?”
I stared at him. “No.”
He stepped forward and cupped my face. “What do you want, Jethro?”
His expression was sweeter than I deserved. Kinder. Affectionate. Every move of his hands was gentle and tender. Almost too much.
I didn’t deserve it.
And despite his announcement downstairs, it was too good to be true.
Part of me felt like this was all part of an elaborate ploy. A revenge plot expertly targeted to enact the most amount of damage.
I’d been here before. But neither of the men I’d trusted to love me in the past were even remotely able to hurt me like this man was.
If this was all a joke, it would end me.
Which was why it finally happened. The dam burst, and the first tear came.
I’d learned from my dads a long time ago that crying was nothing to be ashamed of. But just as long ago, I’d learned from my school friends that it was. The result was my brain being completely on board with a good cry and my heart being mortified by it.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, moving as far away from him as possible and dropping down to sit on the far side of the bed. “Ignore me.”
He didn’t let me hide. Instead, he followed me around the bed and pressed me down onto it, lying on top of me and covering me in his warm strength. He pressed soft kisses to my cheeks, forehead, eyelids.
Lips.
“I will never ignore you, Jett Talmadge Marian,” he said reverently.
I blinked up at him, remembering he’d known my name when making his big public declaration. “How do you know my name?”
“I know people,” he said with a soft smile.
“And now you know me,” I said, stupidly, trying to make a joke on the off chance it would stop my meltdown. “The real me, I mean.”
The look on his face was making it hard to breathe. He still looked fondly affectionate. Adoring.
In love.
“I always knew the real you, Jethro,” he said.
He moved a hand to my forehead and smoothed back my hair, the movement comforting and sweet. The smile was still there. And the kind eyes.
It was too much to take in.
“I came here to tell you that I need you,” he said. “But I think I had it wrong. Well, partially wrong, anyway.”
He leaned down and kissed away the line of tears across my temple. “I think you need me,” he whispered. “Just as much as I need you.”
