I looked up at him. “And what does ‘mine’ mean for you?”
He held my gaze. “It means I’ll be exclusive with you. I won’t be gettin’ with club girls behind your back or hookin’ up with one-night stands. You and I are good together. I want to be with you and only you for as long as you’ll have me.”
“That’s pretty clear,” I responded.
“This is a pretty big deal. Almost like being married, right?”
“Yeah,” he said.
I reached out and touched the patch. The leather was buttery soft. That meant it was high quality.
“Did you have this custom made for me?”
“Yes, of course. I’m not putting some rough piece of off-the-rack trash on the woman I love.”
Shock roiled through my mind. “You love me?”
“Yeah, I sure fuckin’ do. We haven’t known each other long, so if you don’t feel exactly the same way, that’s fine. Like I said, I want to give whatever this is a chance. If you end up feeling the same way about me someday, I would count that as a blessing.”
I felt myself tearing up. “I do feel the same way about you. Why do you think I wanted you to be my first?”
“Your only, if you decide to put my cut on.”
I picked up the cut and looked it over carefully. I thought about the chair in the hallway and him watching over me all night, every night. Then I thought about all the nice things he had done for me while I’d been here. And that’s not to mention the money he bid, that he didn’t even have. He’d done a lot for me, but what I felt for him was much more than just gratitude. It was love. I knew all the way down to my bones that he was the right man for me.
I wasn’t quite naive enough to think this piece of leather was a magical solution to all my problems. Viper was out there doing evil deeds. The Dark Slayers still had two favors hanging over their heads. And depending upon how all that went, Viper might have grounds to reclaim me. I still hadn’t figured my life out yet. We both knew a lot of things were still up in the air, but the one thing we could agree on was wanting to be with each other. Fuse was the one bit of happiness I never wanted to do without.
“Alright, I want to be with you and see where this relationship goes too. You’re the one thing I’m sure about, so I don’t want to do anything to mess that up.”
“Do you want to try it on and see if it fits properly?”
I got up from the bed, realizing that I was wearing nothing but my panties and bra. It didn’t matter because we were just checking that it fit. Fuse helped me into it without making a production of it, smoothing the collar down in the back and checking to make sure the zipper worked smoothly. I reached up and smoothed the front down.
“It’s really comfortable. More so than I would have thought.”
“I’m glad you think so,” he murmured.
He sat back down on the edge of the bed and watched me turn back and forth in front of the mirror and looked at me for amoment. His gaze became warm and admiring. He picked up his coffee cup and took a long sip.
The kittens climbed onto the bed and immediately launched themselves at our food tray. One stuck her nose in the fruit dish and sneezed dramatically. The other stuck her paw in our scrambled eggs.
Fuse leaned forward and gently redirected them, setting a handful of their kibble on the bedspread near the foot of the tray. “Eat your kitty food,” he told them sternly. “And leave our human food alone. It’s not good for you.”
They ignored him and went back to attacking our breakfast.
I shook my head. “I don’t think they realize it’s food.”
“They’re cats,” he replied. “They’re intelligent about animal things, not people things.”
I picked up a piece of bacon, broke off a small bite, and held it out to them. One of them sniffed it, then tried to bite my finger. I jerked my hand back, laughing.
“That could have ended badly for me.”
Fuse’s eyes turned warm and admiring. “You’re smiling.”
I hadn’t realized he was watching me that closely.
“I’m happier than I’ve been in a long while,” I admitted.
