Right, yes. Of course.
I get my own compatibility test sheet.
And do not at all mention how, if we’re talking first real proper kisses…it was mine.
The only reason I was any good at it, I’m convinced, is because I have spent many, many,manynights practicing in my mind exactly what I would do to her if given the chance.
At some point amid my attempts to regain intellect, I come to a sickening conclusion and say, “If that wasn’t your first kiss, how can you have no exes?”
“Because,” she mutters, “you have to be dating to be considered exes… He was just some…horrible guy in high school. He lead me on. Only wanted me for the physical stuff. Then, when I was all used up…you know.” She lifts a shoulder. “He left.” Her lips press together and her pen stills for a moment. “There was never any of this sort of thing. Any of this…getting to know each otherstuff. There were just whirlwind moments of attraction. Back behind school building mistakes. And too many stupid choices to excuse the fact he never seemed to have a single free moment outside of…whatever.” She goes back to writing. “Before you ask, no. That moron wasn’t the person I trusted who left. He taught me other bad lessons and probably laid a foundation to drive home the pretty depressing worldview I’ve put together, but that guy wasn’t doing a single thing for me emotionally.”
My stomach tightens. “I’m sorry.”
“I just have bad luck with friends and optional relationships, Kyran. I pick poorly. It’s not that big of a deal.”
I think it is. I think it’s a huge deal. I think that some idiot hurt my wife, and now I have pieces to pick up and kiss back together. Anything that shatters someone is abig deal. Worse, I hate knowing that the reason she stopped me earlier wasn’t because she wasn’t ready or because she wants to have a closer emotional connection with me before we go that far. I’d betanything it’s because she was scared I’d use her up then leave her, too.
Andthat?
Thatreallypisses me off.
“Morana.”
She tenses. “What? Why are you suddenly so serious? You’re using a pink glitter pen, for crying out loud. You shouldn’t sound likethat.”
“I’m going to say something, and then we’re just going to ignore it and learn how we’re perfectly compatible, okay?”
“Yikes.” Wary, she watches me, braced for whatever nonsense I might come up with this time. “What?”
I take a breath, focus on the compatibility test. “I want you in my bed forever. I want to find new places to love you every day. There are endless ways to touch you. I know, because I’ve spent a hundred trillion waking moments thinking of them. I will never run out of ideas on how I could make you come apart for me. But that’s not even what matters, because beyond it all, beyond the millions of fantasies and all the new ones I’ll never stop inventing, there isyou.” I lift my gaze off the page, fix it on her. “And you are even more limitless than all of that. Had an hour ago gone differently, I would have stayed with you all night, woken up to make you breakfast, and then sat right here with you, dazed and delirious, while we talked over these same worksheets and I asked you when you wanted to get married. In my mind, we already are forever. And for all my faults, Morana? Commitment isn’t one of them.”
Chapter 11
?
No regrets, I guess.
Morana
For all my faults, Morana?
Commitment isn’t one of them.
Kyran’s words echo in my skull, and I can’t drag my gaze off him even as he goes back to his worksheet and pretends he didn’t just say the most beautiful collection of words I’ve ever heard in my life.
I force myself to work on my sheet, too, just so I might have a chance to keep from falling apart.
Once done, I find that I’m still reeling.
Except, now I’m reeling, replayingearlier, and keenly aware that I am sitting next to a man who genuinely believes he wants to marry me.
“Done?” he asks, voice no longer vibrating with lethal gravity.
Setting my FrostPlays-brand ice-blue pen down, I fold my hands in my lap and nod. “Yep.”
“Who’s messier?” Kyran reads the first question, looks at me, looks toward my dining room table, and says, “I think we both know the answer to that, and I have to say, I am delighted to inform you that, before tonight, I would have put down a different one.”
My face heats. “Oh, stuff it.Yes, I’m a slob. You’d never be able to live with me. I like things everywhere. My favorite pictures are the ones you see something new in every time you look at them, and I want my living area to reflect that energy. Meanwhile, themessiestyou are is when you’re trying to bug me.I mean,seriously.” I huff and twist a lock of my hair between my fingers. “The only time your room isn’t immaculate is when you’re trying to flirt with me.”
