My breath hitched, and more tears spilled. “Please don’t mess with me,” I begged. “I want you so much. I want to keep you and have you be mine.”
He pulled back to meet my eyes, both hands now cupping my face. “I’m already yours, baby. I think I was that night at the Candy Bar. When you told me to ‘sit my sexy fucking ass down’ and proceeded to sass me, Magic Mike–style.”
A helium laugh bubbled up. “You tried so hard to act unaffected.”
“I was affected, Jethro. Very, very affected.”
His smile was more relaxed than I’d ever seen it. And there was a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Your Jethro?”
“Mmhm. If I have anything to say about it—which I do because you will do what I say—you’ll be my Jethro forever.”
“So fucking bossy.” More tears. “Forever?”
He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Unless you send me away. And even then… I gotta be honest. I don’t take well to being denied by you.”
I barked out a wet laugh. “When have I ever denied you?”
His thumb brushed more tears away. “Because you’re my good boy,” he teased softly.
My stomach tightened with need. “I want to be,” I admitted.
The moment sat heavily between us. Monumental. Toes off the edge of a diving board and all the weight shifting forward.
“I love you,” I said, words featherlight and hopeful.
His smile widened. “I know.”
“How could you know anything? I’ve been keeping so many secrets from you.”
Locke leaned down and kissed me slowly before pulling back up to peer down at me. “Not as many as you think. Not the stuff that counts.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
He pressed a kiss to my temple, taking in the last of my tears. “Wait here.”
He got up and found his pants on the floor. And then he pulled out a tiny box. For a split second, I recoiled in uncomfortable shock. This was way too soon for tiny boxes. We had days and weeks of conversations that needed to happen first?—
“Relax, baby,” he said with a chuckle, shaking the box gently. Then he moved next to me on the bed. We both sat up and leaned against the headboard. “Open it.”
I pulled the lid off and peered inside. There on a tiny little handful of sand was a perfect triton, the brown and white spines forming a familiar spiral design.
My heart leapt in excitement. “I love tritons! Where did you find this?”
He reached in and pulled the tiny shell out of the sand. “Rabbit Island. I went walking with Hunter and Pepper.”
I blinked at him in astonishment. “You what? How? Why?”
“I was looking for you. Wasn’t sure if maybe I would throttle you or fuck you. I was in the process of figuring it out. And then I found this.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him, remembering his command when we’d first entered the room.Take off your clothes.“And you decided to fuck me.”
“I decided to do both.” He placed the shell in my palm and curved my fingers around it.
Locke’s gaze warmed. “I decided to keep you.”
35
LOCKE
