He pressed his forehead to hers, drawing in her wonderful scent that changed with each trip to the kitchen. Today she was all sage. “If you’re asking if I want you, the answer is yes.”
A tear slipped out of her lids and down her cheek.
He brushed it away with his thumb. “Maggie, don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it.” She gulped a sob, holding back her emotions. “I want to believe you, Cash. I do. I just don’t understand why you left me last time. What did I do wrong?”
Cash peppered her temple with kisses. “Nothing. You didn’t do anything.”
“Then why?”
“Because I was scared and stupid and young and dumb and still a boy with a grown-up love on his hands that he didn’t know what to do with. Maggie, you were the first—and probably only—person to ever love me without holding back. I didn’t know what to do with that love. I was unprepared.”
She nodded, then winced and shook her head. “I don’t know any other way to love.”
He brushed her hair back and then ran his thumb over her cheek, relishing the soft, velvety feel of her skin. “Don’t change. I want it all, Maggie. I want all the love you can dish out—every crumb. And I promise I won’t run away this time. I don’t think I could. I’ve been without you too long.”
She trembled in his hands. He wrapped one arm around her shoulder and drew her into his chest. Her hands slid around to his back and she pressed herself into him, holding on tight and burying her face in his shirt.
This moment right here would have scared him to death. Pouring his heart out, being so honest he felt naked, was hard for him. In his house growing up, you kept all this tender stuff on lockdown. Feelings were weaknesses that would be exploited or made fun of. But because it was Maggie, because he’d do anything to hold on to her, he’d laid it all out there, ready to be swept away by her dismissal.
“Will you say something?” he begged.
She chuckled, pushing back so she could look into his eyes. Swiping at the makeup gathered under her lashes, she shook her head. “I don’t want to talk.”
Threading her fingers into the hair on the back of his head, she made goose bumps break out on his skin, and an awareness of how perfectly she fit against him roared to life. Lifting up, she pressed her lips to his.
Cash never considered himself the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knew just what to do with a willing, kissable Maggie on his lips. Tipping her head, he swiped his tongue over her lower lip before moving to kiss her jaw, where he proceeded to slowly work his way back to her ear. Once he found the hollow spot that made her moan—yep, just like that—he came back to her mouth and showed her that he was man enough to know just what to do with her love.
When they were both quite out of breath and not at all satiated, he pulled back.
Maggie trailed her fingers down his neck and then rested them on his chest. “It’s too easy to get lost in you.”
He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “I won’t rush you into this. We can take our time.”
She smiled. “I’d like that. Now get in the truck. The ice cream’s melting.”
He laughed. “I think we melted everything in a five-mile radius.”
She blushed furiously, her cheeks turning a deep red that buried her few freckles in its color.
Cash floated back around to the driver’s side of his truck, the door still hanging open. When he got in, he reached for Maggie’s hand and she let him hold it without any fuss. Right now, he was the luckiest man on the planet. He only hoped he didn’t screw it up.
Chapter 13
It seemed as if all the air had been sucked out of the truck, because Maggie was panting. She rolled the window down as they drove back to the homestead. Her palm, resting against Cash’s, was slick, and she had a hard time thinking about much besides what had just happened.
She hadn’t meant to turn things on their side. All she’d been looking for was a little reassurance that they were on the same page about the attraction between them and a possibility of a future together. But Cash had been, like … all over it. And then he’d been all over her lips and she couldn’t think straight because it felt so good and so right. That man could kiss. Like Olympic high-dive level kissing on the 4thof July.
The silence between them was comfortable. Thankfully, she didn’t feel the need to chatter away about what they’d just promised. It wasn’t a forever kind of promise, but a commitment to try in their relationship, to open themselves up to one another. To be vulnerable.
She would not panic.
“You’re freaking out, aren’t you?” said Cash.
Maggie let out a high-pitched, awkward giggle. “Sort of.” Honesty was the best policy.
Cash brushed his thumb over her hand. “Because I broke up with you before?”
