“I think I’ve fallen for you, too,” she admitted on a shaky breath.
She’d said what I already knew, but even I needed to be reassured sometimes.
“Are you telling me you love me, Avery?” My words were strangled with emotion.
“Guilty.”
“I want to hear you say it.” My hands cupped her jaw. I was ready to pull the trigger the moment she told me how she felt. I needed her lips on mine. The moment those three words were exchanged, I wanted to show her just how much I loved her too.
“I’m in love with you, Spencer.” Her lips formed into a shy smile.
“I’m so fucking gone for you. I love you too, Avery.”
I pulled her mouth down to mine, kissing her like I meant every word. When it came to her, the only thing she would hear from me was the truth. If it was ever a question, if she ever had a single doubt in her mind that I was in love with her, there would only ever be one answer.
Guilty.
“Wake up, baby.”Spencer’s raspy voice stirred me awake.
My eyes fluttered open and a big stretch racked through my body, pulling each muscle apart until I was left feeling completely relieved. Once I felt more awake, I could feel each of my limbs aching head to toe. A night filled with mind-blowing sex would do to you.
I still couldn’t believe our night started when we messed around in the hidden nooks of a nightclub.
Stretching my arms over my head, I mumbled, “What time is it?” The hotel room was a lot darker than it was back in Spencer’s penthouse. While we were still in the city, we weren’t in a city with neon lights everywhere you looked.
“Most likely too early for you. But it happens to be my favorite day,” Spencer muttered against my neck, his beard running along my throat like it had on my inner thighs last night.
“Saturday?” I glanced at the clock.Seven in the morning.
“The day after your birthday.”
“The day after my birthday?” I rolled my body over—so we were no longer spooning—and propped myself up on my elbow.
“Any morning when I wake up next to you is my favorite day, but especially today.”
“What’s the difference between this morning and all the others?” My hand ran over his broad chest, perfectly sprinkled with dark hair.
“Because it’s the first morning I can wake up and finally tell you I love you.”
Those words, coming from this man—the same man that I met in a bar and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since—was so surreal.
I wasn’t the girl who got lucky. I wasn’t the girl that good things happened to or fell into her lap when she needed it the most. As much as I tried not to define myself as,“the girl who got cheated on”or“the pool girl by day, escort by night,”the idea that this was all too good to be true haunted me.
What did this man see in me? He was successful. Older. He could have anyone he wanted. But he chose me.Why?
“It doesn’t feel real,” I whispered.
“I think the response I was looking for goes a little like, ‘I love you too.’”
“I do love you, Spencer. So much. I was tossing and turning all night because I can’t believe this is my life. It’s all happened so fast.”
“You can’t put a timeframe on this kind of thing. For some, it happens fast. For others, it might take a little while longer. This is our journey. Our timeline, Bella. Believe it.”
After years of living in an all too comfortable, yet rocky, relationship that faded the more time went on, I never thought I’d find love again so soon after. Being so work driven, my mind wasn’t focused on finding someone. I’d spent my evenings acting in love and faking enjoyment.
Then Spencer came along and flipped my whole world upside down.
“I’m afraid once we go back home, things will be different,” I choked out.
