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I blink and pull back in surprise, and my stomach cuts a flip, though it’s not the babies’ fault this time. “Well, yeah, at least I think I have. But it was a few years ago, and I’m probably a different person now, so who knows?” He nods without looking at me. “How about you?” I ask, trying to hide the way my voice is trembling.
He shakes his head. “Ihavebeen in a few relationships, contrary to what everyone might think.” And I wince, because I’m guilty of making that girlfriend joke earlier. “But I’ve never said ‘I love you’ to anyone outside my family.”
“Oh,” I reply. “Does that … bother you?”
He brings his shoulders up as best he can to shrug. “Maybe.”
I reach up to cup his cheek. “Hey, any woman would be lucky to hear those three words from you.”
“And what if I finally worked up the courage to tell her, and she didn’t feel the same? Or, worse, she couldn’t trust me enough to believe I really meant it?”
My chest tightens when he stares into my eyes. “I know you. You’d make it so that she had no choice but to believe you.”
He huffs and looks away. “I suspect I’m not as smooth as my reputation led you to believe.”
“If anything, the real Blake is even better,” I say with a smile.
“Hmm.” His tone shifts, and he raises his brow as he turns back to me. “So what I’m hearing is, if I’m consistently honest and vulnerable with her, she’ll eventually have no choice but to reciprocate?”
Breathe, Loren.
I’d forgotten how to do that for a second.
“It’s been working pretty well for you so far,” I whisper.
He smirks, and I can visibly see his confidence returning. He’s like a video game character that just ate a weird plant and developed a flirty superpower. “Has it?”
“For the past few months, actually,” I confess, surprising myself.
He pins me with one of those smoldering looks again, and I suspect my pajamas may be melting away by now. “Are you admitting that you’ve fallen for me?”
“I mean, hypothetically speaking, if your goalwasto get me to fall in love with you, then I guess I’d have to say you’ve been doing a damn good job.”
“Oh? How so?” he asks, running a finger down my arm and giving me the chills.
I gulp. “Uh, you know. Besides being yourself, I’d probably cite all the compliments, the chivalry, showing an interest in my interests, making me feel important and … desired.”
“Then—and this is still purely hypothetical, of course—would you venture to admit that you actually like being taken care of?” He continues stroking my skin softly, growing more and more cocky as he garners a different reaction from me. And my heart and my body are both providing feedback at the moment.
“Under the right conditions, I suppose there’s some truth to that.”
“And that maybe, just maybe, if I keep at it long enough, I might convince you that you’re worthy of love? And that I’m capable of it?”
I’m basically a container of hot soup at this point.
Sorry, babies, but it’s your daddy’s fault that you’re cooking in there now.
“Maybe you already have,” I rasp.
He stares at me for a while, and it looks like he’s not sure whether to go on. “Lo,” he finally begins, his poise slipping just long enough for his nerves to resurface. “There are so many things I haven’t been able to tell you, because I promised I’d abide by your rules, and I’ve been afraid to overwhelm you.”
I nod, because I don’t trust myself with words anymore, and he continues.
“But every time we’re together, I find myself thinking,This has to be it.I can’t imagine ever feeling this way with anyone else.”
Now I’m having troublenotbreathing too quickly.
“You really think that?”
