“Whoa,” she breathed.
“Anyway, thought you’d want to know. Go back to sleep. Also, call me so I know you’re alive. You know I hate driving in the snow.”
I chuckled as Shade hung up without a goodbye.
“Shade means well, I promise,” she said quietly.
I tucked a loose lock of curly hair behind Birdee’s ear and said, “You ready to talk to me?”
She flushed. “Yeah.”
I pressed both of my palms down onto her hips before saying, “I love you.”
Her mouth fell open in an O as she stared at me.
“I’ve known for a while, really. I wasn’t upset with you, really, once I understood about my sister,” I said. “After putting the puzzle pieces together, I knew you meant well. I knew that you only wanted what you didn’t have. And again, you’ll never know how sorry I am for how I acted. It was out of fear, really. But like my sister said, I need to start letting her make her own decisions. She’s an adult. I shouldn’t have kept the news of my being alive from her and I definitely shouldn’t have reacted the way I did with you. I just…I’m stupid, okay? I’m totally stupid. I know we’ve already gone over this but…I can only say that I wasn’t expecting you to mean that much to me. I wasn’t expecting you to go above and beyond.”
“I love you, too, you know,” she whispered. “I don’t know when I realized it. Probably the day that you came breaking into my home. Your words were like a shot to the heart, and it wasn’t until Charleigh asked me the next day if I was in love with you that I realized why your words hurt so much.”
Again, the shame hit me like a brick to the face.
“I’ll never act like that again,” I promised her. “From now on, I’ll be even-tempered and I’ll never take it out on you.”
“I kind of like you being wild,” she pointed out. “I don’t want you hiding who you are from me. If I piss you off, tell me. Because I have no relationships to work off of here. I’m a virgin, for Christ’s sake. I’m going to mess up.”
“I’m not any better relationship-wise,” I pointed out. “I was in jail for the better part of my adult life. I had no chance to experience anything relationship-wise. Loving my sister doesn’t compare to how I feel about you.”
“You make me want things,” she said as she leaned forward, making her intent known.
Her lips were an inch from mine when nerves started to swarm my stomach.
Our first kiss.
Gentle.
Be fucking gentle!
I breathed a shaky breath as her lips met my own.
The hint of surprise was short-lived, and then I took control, cupping the back of her head with both of my hands so she couldn’t pull away.
Then I was leaning hard into the kiss, my tongue slipping past her lips as I tasted her.
“Jesus Christ,” I growled, pulling away with a rumble of incoherent words. “You make me want things…”
“Take them.”
“Birdee…
“Please,” she begged. “I’m okay.”
“But you weren’t okay just a few days ago,” I pointed out. “And the doctor explicitly said no sex.”
Because that was exactly where this was going, we both knew it.
“You’re fully capable of taking care of me,” she challenged me.
She had a point.
