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“Is this why we have such a big table?” I say, sudden confidence exploding inside of me. “So that you can resist throwing yourself at me?”
“I’m not sitting at the far end,” he snarls. “I need to be near you. It’s so good to hear you talk like that, you beautiful thing.”
“Talk how?” I murmur.
“With confidence about your beauty,” he says passionately. “Because you are beautiful. You’re killing me. If you weren’t a virgin, I’d bend you over this table and claim that tight hole right now.”
I let out a moan, betraying my need.
Nervousness flairs beneath it all, a voice screaming at me, Don’t get too excited, don’t kiss him too hard, because you can’t go all the way. You’re not ready. You’ll embarrass yourself.
It’s the same voice I’ve heard all my life, self-doubting and cruel, that little critic that lives deep inside of me.
“Come on,” he rumbles, reaching over and touching my cheek softly. “Let’s sit. We need to take a look at the menus.”
“The menus?” I giggle. “Talk about official.”
He takes my hand and leads me to the table, pulling out a chair for me. I sit, shuffling forward as he helps me in.
He walks around to the other side and slides sleekly into his chair, moving with so much grace for a lion his size and strength.
He reaches into his inside pocket and takes out two folded-up menus, handing me one.
I look down, smiling in delight when I see mom’s handwriting.
“What are you thinking about?” my man asks.
“How much I love mom’s handwriting,” I tell him. “She’d leave sticky notes dotted all over the kitchen for me when I got back from school. Need more paint. Dinner’s in the oven. Stuff like that.”
“She and Harold made them,” Ryland says, looking closely at me. “That was the little request he mentioned. It’s okay to be sad if that’s how you feel.”
I smile, laughing, but I can’t hide the despair laden in the noise.
“You can read me that easily, huh?”
“I can read you better than anybody,” he snarls. “We belong together. Of course, I can.”
“She’ll be around to write me more notes, won’t she?” I whisper, a dormant sob flaring to life and making my voice tremble. “I can’t stand the idea…”
He reaches over and rubs my back softly, with firm strength beneath each movement, sending soothing waves through me.
I feel my body tingling at his touch, my heart telling me it’s all going to be okay as long as I have my man to support me.
“She’ll get through,” he says.
“You can’t know that,” I snap.
He pushes harder against my shoulder, squeezing and massaging, sending soothing waves of strength and contentment through my body. I lean back against him, as though there’s some energy shivering between us.
I can feel how badly he needs to protect me in his touch alone.
How impossible should that be?
“She will,” he growls. “You need to start letting me do some of your thinking, Miss Skeptical.”
“I don’t think that nickname applies here,” I giggle, wiping tears from my cheek and sitting up.
I need to be stronger. This is a date and I don’t want to ruin it.
“It does,” he says, sitting back, but never taking his laser-focused eyes from me. “You want to question hope, the same way you questioned my feelings for you. But if you believe…”
He smirks, shaking his head.
“What?” I urge, darting my hand out to his without thinking.
I squeeze onto him, staring at him until he looks back at me.
“What, Ryland?” I say.
“It’ll sound cheesy.”
“I don’t care,” I tell him. “I want to hear it.”
“Before I met you,” he says, “I stopped believing. The day we met—”
“Yesterday, you mean?” I tease.
He laughs gruffly. “Jesus Christ, that doesn’t feel real, does it?”
I shake my head, smiling widely, my cheeks flooding with love-sent warmth.
“Not even a little bit.”
“I was thinking about it that morning,” he goes on. “How I didn’t believe I’d ever find the woman of my dreams. And then I found you. I don’t remember how I used to feel. I only remember how badly I need to protect you and my offspring.”
“Ryland,” I whisper, fresh tears pricking my eyes. “You’re lucky I’m not wearing makeup.”
“You’re sexier without it,” he growls, reaching over and pawing tears from my cheeks. “I can see how fertile you are, how desperate your body is to give me a child. You can feel it, can’t you?”
“Yes,” I say, my body going tingly and tight, my lips shivering, everything within me screaming to take him, to let him claim me.
Over, and over… and over again.
“Shall we look at the menu?” he grins, sitting back.
I mock-pout at him. “I can’t believe they had time to do this. Mom’s writing is never this neat. Is it crazy to think that means she approves of us?”
“What has she said?” he asks.
