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“What?”
“Force you.”
The ground seemed to open up beneath him. He closed his eyes. No. Please. Don’t do this.
“I love you,” she said softly.
He sucked in a breath and looked back to her. “Sam.”
“And I think you might love me back.” She didn’t flinch, but he could tell it cost her something to take the risk in saying that without getting confirmation from him.
But he was too tongue-tied to respond.
“In your letter, you told me I’m the strongest woman you’ve ever met. But what you don’t know is how goddamned strong you are, too. Look at you. You’ve survived things that would’ve destroyed most other people. You made a good life anyway. That’s why we get each other, Gib. We got the crap draw growing up, the short stick. And we didn’t let it stop us from being successful or whole or happy. It did not beat us. Fuck those people who didn’t love us like they should’ve, who hurt us. Fuck. Them. We are amazing. They didn’t break us.”
She stepped closer to him, her scent drifting on the night air, and looked down, forcing him to tilt his head upward.
She pressed a finger to his head. “In here are the monsters. Your father’s words, that insecurity he planted in you, all that hurt you didn’t deserve. I have monsters, too. But they’re only strong when you feed them. Stop feeding them, Gib.” She pointed to the building. “Inside those doors are people who care about you. They’re real. Not ghosts of the past.” She kneeled down in front of him, took his hand, and placed it on her chest. “And inside here is my love. And that’s as real as it gets. I love you. Exactly how you are. Because of who you are. Like never felt this way about anyone else in my life, love you.”
Tears climbed up his throat, made it burn.
“And in a few minutes, I’ll be inside with the others. Onstage. Waiting. Leave the monsters out here, Gib.”
His chest constricted.
“I’m not going to tie you up and drag you in there. This is your decision. And you’re strong enough to make it on your own. So you can stay out here with the monsters and let them have you. Let them steal away what you know could be an amazing, spectacular thing. Or you can get up on your own two feet, tell them to fuck off, and walk inside. You can kneel down for me in front of people who accept you and want you to be happy, and you can have me.” She cupped his face, her expression softening, but pain hovering there, too. “We can have this, Gib. Every day. I want you so much it physically hurts me, but I can’t force you. I thought I could. And if it was just sex and fun and for the sake of a kinky night, I’d be able to. But not for this. I need . . .” She took a breath, her eyes flickering with a vulnerability that dug right into him. “I need you to choose me. I’ve been forced on people my whole life, Gib. I need to be chosen this time. I need to be worth the cost to someone.”
He closed his eyes, the words seeping into the cracks of that wall of panic and settling in. Choose me. Sam, the girl who never got a forever family, who bounced from place to place like she was lost luggage, was baring her soul to him. He’d gotten so caught up in his own bullshit that he’d failed to see how selfish he was being. His pride and father’s legacy coming before the heart of the woman he cared most about. He’d been about to run from her. For what? In order to run to what? What would he gain by doing that? Nothing. But he knew what he’d lose. And he couldn’t bear that.
He turned his face into her palm, kissing the tender center, smelling her scent and tasting her skin, letting it calm him. This. This is what he needed. He let that sensation bloom in him, swell, pushing back that insistent voice that always told him to bolt, to protect himself, to never surrender. The tight grip around his chest loosened. “I’m so sorry, Sam.”
He sensed her stiffen. She was bracing. She thought he was saying he couldn’t do it, that it was too much. That he was apologizing for letting her down. She backed away. Her expression smoothed out, the shields going up.
He reached for her hand, capturing it before she could move too far away. “Don’t.”
“Gib, I can’t. I can’t stand here and—”
“I love you, Sam,” he said without fear.
She stopped backing away, frozen.
He climbed to his feet and though his heart was beating faster than it had all night, this time it wasn’t panic. This time it wa
s something very, very different. Instead of picturing the faces of the people who might judge him in submission, worrying about what his father would’ve thought, he only thought of her face. What he could give her. What gift he could offer.
She didn’t want the guy he always thought he should be. She wanted the man he was. Flawed. Real. Hers.
He released her hand, took a step back, and tugged off his T-shirt.
Her gaze followed the shirt as he tossed it onto the hood of the SUV. “What are you doing?”
“I love you,” he repeated. He reached for his shorts and tugged them down and off. Then he got right in front of her and kneeled back down in the gravel, more naked than he’d ever been in his life. He took her hands in his and met her gaze. “I love you, Sam. I choose you. I will always choose you.”
Her eyes were wide and they turned to glass then, sparkles in the moonlight as tears filled them. “Gib . . .”
“Please, mistress, take me inside and make me yours.”
She grasped his shoulders and dropped to her knees in front of him, the tears falling with her. She didn’t say anything, just wrapped her arms around him. He allowed himself to do the same, gathering her to him and sitting back on his calves so he could lift her knees out of the gravel and let her kneel on his thighs instead.
