Page 120 of Lucky Haven

“I don’t want you to ever think I don’t feel as strongly for you as you do for me. You’re so loving.”

“I know that now. I promise. If anything, I think it might be because you feel so much, it’s overwhelming?” Her eyes swim with an achingly clear desire to know me.

Me.

“Yeah, that’s probably true.” Fuck. I swallow hard.

“You’ve had to survive a lot in your life. Locking down your feelings is a good way to get through that shit.”

“Cursing, Haven?” I stroke her cheek. “That’s hot.”

She smiles. “It’s justified.”

“Sure as fuck is.” I drag in a rough breath. “Yeah, there’s probably something to that. Loving you…”

Like a movie reel, the last seven years flash through my mind. Being convicted. Haven standing up for me. The realization that I was going to jail. Wishing, desperately, that I had made different choices, so I could be a man worthy of her, instead of a brief pen pal she would disappear on.

I locked down a lot. Seven years of desire. Seven years of craving more than friendship with the memory of a woman so pure and innocent, there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d ever get her. And when she returned…

“I spent a long time telling myself it was wrong to look at your tits more than once a week.”

She lets out a startled laugh. “Oh?”

“Getting to be your bodyguard would have been more than enough.”

“No it wouldn’t have.”

“I thought so at the time.”

“But you wanted more.” She sees me. Sees right to my soul.

“So much more. And it felt impossible. For the rest of my life, I’ll regret that I didn’t see soon enough that we were meant to be, exactly as we are. I was over thinking it, because I wanted more for you. I’ll always want more for you.”

She cups my face. “You feel so much, so deeply.”

I twist my head, pressing my mouth to the palm of her hand. “Sometimes it feels like swimming in the darkest depths of the ocean.”

“That’s scary.”

“Only when I’m alone.” I wrap my arms around her, holding on tight. “Never letting you go.”

“Excellent plan.”

“What do you need?”

“You.”

The first time she needed me, for a kiss, I thought it was a ruse. But maybe there was a part of her that understood I was hers. For a kiss, for protection, for anything she needed. For everything.

She exhales and repeats the answer. “I just need you, Cash.”

Then I’ll give her what she needs.

I dry her off, careful for her cuts and scrapes, then re-dress her bandages before carrying her to bed.

My heart races as I stretch out beside her on the clean sheets, both of us naked. The door firmly closed, cocooning us off from the rest of the house, the rest of the world. Just one lamp casting a warm glow across her soft, curvy body.

I curl my fingers around the nape of her neck and cover her mouth with mine.