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“You’re beautiful, Lauren. Jeans, pajamas, dresses, nothing…” He waggles his eyebrows, and I cover the laugh that pops out of my mouth with a hand. “It all looks good on you.”
“I…well, uh…thank you, but—”
“Lauren, I wanted to do this,” he breaks in again, stepping forward, laying the rose on the table, and taking my hands in his. “I want to do this. Maybe we’ve only been dating for a short time, but it’s been one of the best months of my life.”
“Garrett,” I whisper.
“Too much?” he says with a laugh.
I shake my head and then nod. The truth is, it’s way, way too much and not enough all at the same time.
It is frightening how desperately I want to hear all the things like that and more. How dependent I feel myself getting on hearing them.
In true compartmentalizer fashion, I focus on something entirely different, just to give my brain the space to be calm. “When did you even have time to do all this? Didn’t you only take the kids back to Bethanny’s, like, an hour ago?”
Garrett smirks, unannoyed by my distraction techniques. “They helped me with some of it after you left last night, and then Sarah really got into deciding on my fashion choices this morning. Hence, the suit and tie.”
“They helped you?” I whisper, suddenly fighting a sting in my nose so fierce, I don’t know if I’ll be able to best it. I didn’t expect the kids to be involved at all. I didn’t expect them to know, let alone participate. I didn’t expect them to…care.
His smile is so gentle, my lip quivers. I can’t help it. “They like you, Lauren. They like us. After you left last night, you were all Sarah and Chloe could talk about.”
“Oh my God,” I announce. The pressure in my sinuses is too much. I can’t fight it anymore. “I’m going to cry.”
Garrett pulls me into his arms and tucks my face into his chest, and I breathe him in so hard I swear he should be a part of me.
“Hey, now,” he tries, cooing to me softly.
I shake my head against his chest. “No. This is too much. Too good.” I pull my face back and lock on to his glitzy blue eyes. “I’m so happy, Garrett. I don’t know of anything else you could do that would make this night better.”
“Are you sure?” he asks with the cutest, richest laugh. “Because I can think of a few things.”
“Shut up.”
He kisses me then, soft and sweet and so in tune with my entire body that I spark into a flame. I moan as he moves from my lips to my throat, nibbling a perfect path down and back again.
When our lips meet again, he doesn’t hesitate to sweep his tongue inside and sink his hands into my hair. It’s carnal and vibrant, and I have never in my life felt more alive than I do right in this very moment.
He pulls back, breathing elevated just enough that I can feel the puff of warm air on my cheek before he puts his lips to my ear.
“Ready for dinner?” he whispers there.
“No,” I answer without shame. “Not even remotely. We can eat dinner after.”
He doesn’t need any more convincing than that. With one swift sweep, Garrett takes me into his arms and climbs the stairs like I weigh nothing at all.
And maybe I don’t. Because I sure as hell feel like I’m floating.
Garrett
I inhale against the skin of Lauren’s neck and hold on to the gulp of sweet, floral, fruity notes desperately.
I want to lock it in my nose forever—climb inside the smell and sigh.
It’s crazy—I know it. It feels like I’ve lost my mind and sense because I’ve never been this overrun by a woman in my life.
She arches her back off the bed as I run my fingers against the inside of her bare thigh and groan.
God, she’s hot—so fucking hot I can hardly stand myself anytime I’m within ten feet of her. I’m like a rutting buck, and any and every little bit of sense I had goes right out the window.
In fact, that’s the whole reason we ended up in bed before eating dinner in the first place. She deserves to be romanced. Wined and dined and shown how special she is outside of physical beauty.
But goddamn if I can turn myself off now that I’m so turned on. I need to be against her, in her.
I need to feel our bodies working together to reach the ultimate cliff just so we can dive off it together, and I haven’t even taken off my clothes yet.
I glide up her body and put my lips to hers, deepening the kiss until our bodies strain toward each other violently. I pull back and trace a thumb around her lips, and she takes it inside her mouth and sucks.
