Panicked, I grabbed his arm. “Wait.”
He stopped retreating but didn’t look at me, and the absence of his attention felt like a crack right through the center of my heart. “This tile is unforgiving.”
“Are you?”
His eyes whipped to mine. “What?”
“I’m scared.”
The lines creasing his forehead and the irritation pulling the corners of his mouth faded away. “There’s no reason to be scared, baby doll. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“Not even you?”
He drew back. “Me?”
“What if you take it away?” I fretted, trying to get my fingers into my mouth.
He made a scolding sound, and I dropped them.
“Take what away?” he asked. His full attention was back on me, and it made me feel see-through. Like a wet page from a book with the ink running every which way.
“Your love,” I finally whispered.
He said nothing.
I took a chance, peeking up at him. “No one’s ever loved me before.Ever. So when you said it, my heart felt like a kite. Flying high, dipping, and swooping. Technically, heavier than air but suspended anyway, kept afloat by the wind.”
I dared another look at him, and his face was soft, almost endearing. “Go on,” he urged.
“My heart is like a kite, but instead of being suspended by wind, it’s love. If you take it away, I’ll crash to the ground.”
Kieran opened his mouth, but I slammed two fingers against it, keeping him from speaking.
“I know you said you liked my firsts… but what about my lasts? You can’t have this first, Kieran, if you don’t also want to be my last.”
His eyes twinkled, and it made me wonder if there were somehow stars trapped inside.
Grasping my wrist, he pulled my hand down. “Baby, I want everything you got, especially your lasts.”
“Say it again.”
He pursed his lips, then sighed. “I love you.”
“I love you back.”
If I thought there were stars in his eyes before, now I wondered if there might be an entire galaxy. “Yeah?”
I nodded. “A whole lot.”
“My heart feels like a kite too,” he whispered.
And just like that, I fell a little more.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
Kieran
