Page 107 of The Casanova Complex

“Thank God. I was scared I was going to cry in front of you if you rejected me, and that would be weird after everything I just admitted.”

I laugh. “A little.”

“I’ve never been a boyfriend. Ever. So there’s a good chance that I’m going to fuck up, and I’m definitely going to make mistakes. I’m probably going to get it right like 69 percent of the time and wrong the other percent, whatever is left.”

I bite the corner of my lip to keep from laughing. He looks so serious, I wouldn’t dare.

“What I can promise you, with a hundred percent certainty, is that for all the times that I get it wrong, I will spend double trying to make up for it.” He pauses for a beat, eyes bouncing between mine. “I know the first time we met was something you want to forget, and you’ve been through it. I know my past is always going to be at the back of your mind after what Gauthreaux said tonight, but I’m not him. I will never be him. You’re the girl I want, Merritt. I know that I haven’t always taken everything seriously, but I swear to you that is not who I am anymore. I’m serious about this. About you. About us. All I need is the chance to prove it.”

The thing about words is that even when they’re big and profound, they can be reduced to nothing if there aren’t actions behind them.

I’ve learned that many times in my life, most of them the hard way.

And as Bennett stands here and says all these things that make my heart race, I know that they’re not just words because I’ve witnessed it over the last few months.

I’ve seen him grow, even if I didn’t fully understand what that meant yet.

It’s one thing to say you’re going to change, and it’s another to actually do it. When I think about how many times toward the end of our relationship Blake and I got into fights, when he said things that he couldn’t take back, and afterward would make promises about how everything would be better because he’d try harder and that he would have more patience when he got frustrated at me for something I couldn’t help.

They were empty promises, and in the end, all he did was prove that words are just words.

Yet the man standing in front of me has already shown me more than Blake ever did. He’s never once treated me with anything other than respect and kindness. Not even when I was so salty with him at first.

I lift onto the tips of my toes and whisper against his lips, “You’re already proving it, Bennett.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

BENNETT

My brain is still trying to catch up with what she says.

It takes me a full three seconds to realize that her lips are on mine and her hands are fisting into the fabric of my sweater.

That she’s agreeing to be mine and that we are finally, fucking finally, stepping past this line that I’ve thought about crossing a thousand times in the last few weeks.

When I feel her tongue tracing across my bottom lip, begging for access, I snap out of my haze, the realization rushing through me.

Merritt is mine.

She’s my girl, and the thought alone has my dick hardening and a sense of unhinged pleasure tugging in my spine.

It makes me fucking feral to think about the fact that I’m the only man who’s going to touch her, taste her, make her come.

That’s my privilege, and fuck, I’m not going to stop until she’s given me every ounce of pleasure from her body.

Her fingers glide down my stomach and slip beneath my sweater, tugging it up and trying to yank it off me.

We’re a frantic tangle of hands, lips, and teeth, and clothes that we just can’t seem to get off fast enough. I tear my lips from hers long enough to pull the sweater off and throw it aside, then slam my mouth back to hers, swallowing down the needy whimper that slips past her lips.

Jesus, I fucking love that sound. I need to hear it in my ear when I’m fucking her into the mattress.

I curve my hands along her jaw, angling her mouth to delve deeper, to stroke her tongue with mine, and she whines. Her fingers flick at my jeans to unbutton them, but they’re shaking.

I wrench my lips away and step back, sucking in a breath when my head feels dizzy.

“I’m done waiting. I’m fucking done.” I swallow hard as I twist my fingers into the sides of her sweater and pull it over her head and drop it to the floor. I deftly unhook her bra and let it slide down her arms until it falls free. “Let me make you mine, Merritt.”

I don’t know where to look, torn between her face and the heavy-lidded gaze she’s giving me. To where she licks her lips and rakes her teeth over that plump bottom lip, staring at me like all she wants is to get fucked. Down to her chest, which is heaving with short, shuddering breaths, causing those perfect tits to sway. To those pale pink nipples, which are tightening into buds beneath my gaze. “Just put me out of my misery, baby, please.”