“I dreamed of you,” she puts her hand on my cheek, “every single night.”
“Good,” I say, smiling, “at least I wasn’t the only one. Begged you in my dreams to talk to me. Begged you to tell me how you felt.”
She puts her hand that is on my cheek on my chest. “Tonight, seeing you on the ice.”
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “It’s—” I try to tell her it doesn’t matter, but she puts her hand over my mouth.
“I spoke to Lexi before and told her how I felt about you. I was going to come and see you,” she admits. “Tomorrow I was going to show up at your house.” I kiss her fingers. “I was going to tell you how I felt. That I was not only falling for you and the kids but that I was wholeheartedly in love with you. I think about you all the time. I want to be with you all the time. I just, being with you, it’s just so scary.” The meaning of her words and the emotion within them jolts me. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong,” she takes a deep inhale, “but I’m going to give it my all.” She shakes her head. “I’m just going to need you to be patient with me.”
“Baby,” I finally say, “we’ve got the rest of our lives.” She smiles. “I’m not sure I know what I’m doing either. But there is no one…” I move her hair from her face. “There is no one I want to learn more with than you.” She chuckles and I pull her close to me. “You’re beautiful,” I say softly.
“You make me feel beautiful.” She looks into my eyes. “You make me feel a lot of things.”
I chuckle. “Well, get ready to feel a lot more.” I grip her ass. “We have the whole night to make up for past days where we were apart.” We both laugh as I kiss her, and we spend the rest of the night in each other’s arms.
thirty-four
Kylie
I feel heat all around me and feel myself pulled deeper into the heated cocoon, and a hand roams up from my stomach to my breast and then I’m pulled flush to Knox’s chest. “Are you trying to wake me up?” I mumble with my eyes still closed but with a little smile on my face, “Because it’s working.” I bask in his heat, bask in his arms. Bask in the fact this is the first morning in over a week that I woke up without a sense of dread in my chest.
“No.” I feel him bury his face in my neck and then I feel the little flutter of his lips kissing me right behind my ear. “I just woke up and didn’t feel you near me,” he grumbles. I put my hand on his at my breast, pushing his hand deeper into me as I blink away the sleep from my eyes.
He sighs deeply and I turn in his arms, hitching my leg over his hip, one hand going to my ass as the other goes to the back of my neck and holds me as close as he can, while I cuddle my face into his chest. “How are you feeling?” I ask him, kissing the middle of his chest softly. My palm opens and feels his heart beating.
“Got a headache, which is normal for a concussion.”
“Is there anything you need to do for that?” I ask him, trying to move out of his arms to look up at his face, but he doesn’t let me get too far away from him.
“Rest, mostly,” he says softly, “avoid screen time and loud music.”
“Are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” he says, his hand on my ass squeezing it.
“I meant for food.” I move away from him, and he lets me.
“Why don’t you stay here, and I’ll go make us breakfast in bed.” I toss the covers off me and finally see him in the middle of my bed, and I have to put my hand on my stomach because the flutters start, a smile filling my face so big that my cheeks hurt.
“Or I can come with you.” He looks up at me and I shake my head.
“Let me take care of you.” I walk over to the end of my bed, grabbing his dress shirt and putting it on.
“If you walk out of this room wearing that”—he puts his elbow on the bed and then places the side of his head in the palm of his hand, holding it up—“I’m going to follow you into the kitchen and fuck you bent over the counter.”
I shake my head and slip the shirt off me before grabbing the light-yellow robe, putting it on and then tying the sash around my waist. “Don’t move from here.” I point to him. “I’ll be back.”
I turn and walk out of the bedroom to the kitchen, opening the shades in the room and then taking out some bacon and eggs. I’m starting to fry the bacon when I hear hissing coming from the door to my bedroom. He puts his hand over his eyes, and one is closed. “That’s bright as fuck.” I look over my shoulder, seeing him standing there in black boxers as he comes into the kitchen.
“I said to stay in bed,” I snap at him.
“I missed you.” He puts his hands on my hips and smells me. “Would it be okay if we perhaps closed the blinds a bit?”
“Okay, fine.” I move away from him as his hands fall from my hips. “I’ll close the shades, but you can go and watch me from the couch.”
“But if I help you, then you’ll be finished faster and we can get back to bed,” he reasons at the same time the phone rings from the living room.
I walk around the counter. “You are the worst patient I think I’ve ever met in my life,” I scold, grabbing my phone and seeing it’s Lexi calling, “and I worked in a hospital, so that is saying something.” I answer the phone, putting it on speaker.
