“I love you,” he said. The words were there before he was even aware they had formed on his tongue.
Her breath hitched and her body tensed beneath him. He leaned back enough to meet her gaze and found her eyes wide, her swollen lips forming a little O. “You’ve never said that to me before.”
He smiled, gently tucking a few unruly strands of her dark hair behind her ear. “Well, if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”
Her brow furrowed, followed by a calm, blissful expression that spread over her face like a warm light.
“Does that mean you want me here tomorrow morning, too?” she asked, her lips curling into a lazy smile. But he could see it was tentative, like she was still testing the waters of this thing between them.
“Emma,” he whispered. His hand moved to cradle her jaw, ghosting her lips with his thumb. “I want you here every morning.”
She gazed up at him, green meeting gold, his own eyes reflected in their depths as she seemed to register the gravity of what it meant for him to say this to her. Mr. No-Strings-Attached was breaking all his own rules. He wanted all the strings, all the messy tangledknots that came with whatever the hell this was or would be. He just wanted her.
“I love you too,” she finally breathed.
His heart tripped in his chest.
“Yeah?” He cupped her face.
“Yes, Knightley. Of course I do.” He could see her eyes misting up, quiet tears threatening to fall.
Her voice was soft, but the words… they felt like a revelation. A new source of gravity tethered to his sternum, grounding him to this place.
She always had been that for him, hadn’t she? No matter where he flung himself, no matter how much he tried to erase history, to search for that something that seemed missing from his core, she was always here, waiting for him to return. No expectations or judgment.
It was never this house calling him home. Never this city. It was always her.
He found her hooded eyes staring at his lips, his jaw, his eyes. She could probably see the realization blooming across his face; every fucking emotion was there on display.
He didn’t care. He already felt raw and exposed—there was no use hiding it.
He was so fucking in love with her he could barely breathe.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him, and they held each other. All this time, everything he was looking for was right there, right across the yard.
The mid-morning sun was already over the tops of the buildings by the time Knightley woke. He winced against it, turning overto find Emma lying on the other side of the bed, curled around his other pillow and watching him with a small smile on her lips.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hey.”
Over the course of the night they had spread out across the bed. Now Knightley’s long, tanned limbs took up most of the space, while Emma hoarded all the covers.
“Sleep okay?” he asked, stroking her arm.
“Yes.”
“You snore, you know.”
Her mouth fell open. “No I don’t!”
He shrugged one shoulder.
“I donotsnore.”
“Don’t worry. It’s cute.”
“Oh myGod!” She turned her head into the pillow.
