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“I just needed you to know that I understand, Grey.”
Before I could ask what he understood, he turned around and walked away from me. In our short conversation, he’d never once looked at me. My eyes went back to the drawing of me, and I listened as his heavy footfalls drifted away. I could feel each step like it was another nail in the coffin of my relationship with Jagger, as friends or something more. I knew what I did right then would forever change Jagger and me.
If I continued to look at this drawing for another minute before walking away from the gallery, then that would be it. We could never go back to the way we had been, because we couldn’t go back to being as close as we were now that I knew how he felt. I couldn’t do that to him; I couldn’t give him hope that there would someday be an us when I knew that I would never allow it. He would eventually find someone else, and I . . . I would just focus on moving.
But if I stopped him, then the dynamics of our relationship would change in a way everyone had already been expecting them to. A way Jagger wanted them to. A way I wanted them to.
That thought shook me as I finally admitted what I’d been trying so hard to deny. I wanted this. I wanted him.
“Jagger,” I mumbled, and turned to look for him in the gallery. He was twenty feet away from me, shaking a man’s hand, with his back to me. “Jagger,” I said louder when he began walking again.
He glanced over his shoulder fo
r a second, before pausing and turning to face me. His face went blank in an attempt to mask his emotions. I walked toward him, each step feeling a little easier than the last—as if my decision was solidifying with every step closer. He didn’t move toward me, and didn’t say anything when I stopped directly in front of him, just looked at me with those green eyes . . . waiting.
“I’m sorry that I ran,” I whispered, and a muscle ticked in his jaw from the strain he was putting on it. “I was scared, and I think I still am. But I’m not better without you. It hurts to be away from you. This?” I gestured to the side and shrugged. “Seattle? I needed to think about what you said, what my family said . . . I just needed to think. I can think here with Janie, but that doesn’t mean I’m better here. And all of this”—I gestured toward myself—“was only because of tonight. Janie and Heather did this because they thought I would see you. I miss you every day, Jagger. I don’t know how long I would’ve stayed gone, but please . . . don’t stay away from me for me.”
Taking a step forward, I leaned into his chest as I had done so many times in my life, and I knew that this was right—this was where I needed to be now. His arms automatically came up around my waist to hold me, and I sighed against his chest.
“I’m scared.”
“Why? If you’re scared to lose me, you won’t. I’ll always be here for you.” His voice was low, and the way it rumbled through his chest and against my cheek was something so familiar and so calming. When had I started craving this?
“Not that. I just . . . I don’t know how to let myself love you too,” I confessed, and felt his body tighten against mine.
Lifting my head to look at him, I paused when I found his face inches from mine—closer than it had ever been. I let myself take in everything about him that I never had before. His green eyes that seemed to look straight through me, the bridge of his strong nose leading down to full lips that were usually in a playful smirk. But now that my gaze was on them, they slowly parted as his breathing deepened, his chest moving harder against mine. When I looked up again, his eyes were dark with want.
“Loving you scares me,” I whispered, “but I know I can’t keep telling myself that I’m not in love with you, Jagger.”
“Excuse me.” A voice called out from next to us, but neither of us moved until I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned and took a step away from Jagger when I saw an older woman standing there. Her pondering expression turned excited when I was facing her. “It is you.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re the muse for the pieces, are you not?” she asked, turning enough to point at the drawing I’d just been in front of.
I looked to Jagger for help, but he was still staring at me with an intensity I felt in my core. My mouth opened, and I looked back to the woman helplessly.
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you, you just look so much like her.”
“I—I . . . they are—”
“She is,” Jagger said quickly, stepping forward to put an arm around my waist and extending a hand to the woman. “Enjoy looking around, but I hope you don’t mind me stealing my muse away.”
“Of course not.” The woman smiled at him, and sent me a knowing look as Jagger pulled me to his side and walked us quickly through the building and down a dark hall.
When we reached the end of the hall, he turned me so my back was pressed against the wall and his body was caging me in. He slowly brought his hands up to my face, the tips of his fingers trailing along my jaw and cheeks until he was cradling my face in his large hands. For minutes, there was only the distant sound of the music playing in the gallery and our breathing as our eyes adjusted to the dark, and we just watched each other.
“I’ve been waiting to hear those words from you for a long time, Grey LaRue.”
My lips parted as his head dipped closer to mine, and soon Jagger was the only thing in my immediate world.
He paused a breath away, and my eyes fluttered shut when he slowly trailed his nose down mine. His lips faintly brushed against mine as he spoke. “I don’t want to be Ben, and I don’t want to take what the two of you had away from you. I’m not going to try to replace him, Grey, because I don’t want to forget him either. I just want to love you the way I always have, and hope that one day you’ll love me half as much as you love him.”
Slowly moving up, he passed his lips softly across one cheek, my forehead, and nose before settling back into the place that had me straining not to reach up to press my mouth to his.
“Don’t be scared. I will always take care of you, I will always put your heart before my own, and I will never push you for more than you’re willing to give me,” he promised. “I have no expectations, and being mine doesn’t change the fact that you can talk to me about anything—including him.”
I nodded my head, my nose and lips brushing against his as I did, and he leaned impossibly closer without completely closing the distance between us.
