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“Don’t stop loving me,” he begged her, even though it wasn’t fair to ask her for this. “No matter what happens, promise me you won’t ever stop.”
Her smiled wobbled at his request as she leaned down so that her br**sts were pressing against his chest and her mouth was almost on his.
“How could I stop loving you,” she said so softly he could barely hear her words over the blood rushing in his ears, “when I’ve never been able to do anything about the way you make me feel? I’ll love you forever, Zach.”
He could hear the surrender, but also the joy, in her admission, as their passion hit its sensual crescendo. Knowing just how much the words cost her, he wanted to give her more than just another climax, more than just the pleasure he knew she’d found in his arms as she lay soft and supple over him while they both worked to catch their breath.
He wanted to give her the same gift she’d just given him. He wanted to give her a promise of forever.
But he couldn’t.
All he could give her was what he felt today. Here. Now.
“I love you,” he whispered into her ear.
And this time, she whispered it right back.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Heather had never been able to sleep during the day, not even back in college after pulling all-nighters to finish a paper. But as she lay sprawled across Zach’s bare chest with early afternoon sunlight streaming over the bed, she was so physically spent that she knew she could have closed her eyes and kept them that way until the next morning.
Of course, there was no way that was going to happen with the dogs pawing at the bedroom door.
On a groan, Zach pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Go take a shower. I’ll go take care of the fur balls.”
Now that she was awake and temporarily sexually sated, her worries about Zach’s reaction to the anniversary of his father’s death came right back.
“Can I ask you something?”
He took her hands in his, brought them up to his mouth for a kiss. “Yes,” he answered, “I’ll be ready for another round soon.”
It would have been easy to use their incredible attraction to skip over the hard stuff, but she didn’t want that. And she was pretty sure he didn’t want that, either.
So even though she couldn’t help but smile at his teasing, she still said, “This is a hard day for you, isn’t it? Despite the baby,” she clarified, “and us. Because of your father.”
His hands tightened on hers for a split second before he shrugged. “It’s a good thing that we have something to celebrate now, instead of being bummed every year on this day.”
The dogs were all but throwing themselves against the door, and when he pressed one more kiss to her knuckles, then let her go to let them out, she really couldn’t stop him.
Wishing that love came with instructions, she went to the shower and got under the warm spray. If only she knew how to heal him over his father the way he’d helped her with hers.
She sighed as she faced the truth. Yes, she’d been brave and had opened up her heart to Zach. But just because she’d said “I love you” to a man for the first time in her life, didn’t mean there wasn’t more to say.
And how could she expect him to be completely open with her when she hadn’t been completely open with him?
When she’d told him a flat-out lie.
Zach found her forehead-to-wall as he joined her in the shower. He wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Already regretting it all?” he teased against her neck, but she could hear the real worry beneath his joking words.
She turned in his arms so she could press her face to his chest and hear his heart beating strong and steady in her ear. “Have I ever told you that I love the way you make me laugh?”
Maybe that was why she knew she could tell him anything; because he wouldn’t let her take anything too seriously, would always find a way to show her the joyful side of life.
“You mean like this?”
He tickled her ribcage until she was giggling as the water splashed down on both of them and made everything too slick for her to get away from his teasing fingertips.
And when laughter inevitably turned to passion and he pressed her back against the wall, she welcomed the chance to clear her mind of anything but the sweet ache of taking him inside her yet one more time, letting him fill up all her empty spaces with his heat, his kisses.
And his love.
* * *
Good thing Sullivan Autos was a well-oiled machine, because if it were a choice between hanging out under the engine of a car or spending time with Heather—naked or not—Zach would happily blow off every future day at the office. He was in the bedroom pulling on a T-shirt when he heard Heather speaking to Cuddles.
“Uh-oh, did you find another yummy shoe?”
He walked into the living room just as she picked up a slobbery hunk of brown leather.
She gave him a crooked, very cute smile. “I suppose we’ve been a little lax with training her the past few days.”
“I’ve got this,” he said as he grabbed a tiny chew toy from the floor and held it out for the puppy, who immediately latched onto it with her sharp little teeth. Cuddles shook it with her tiny mouth, her fur flying around her face, and he told her what a good girl she was.
Heather leaned back against the counter. “It used to really annoy me how good you were with her. The fact that she so easily accepted that you were the boss.”
He grinned at her. “I liked annoying you.”
