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‘I think I’d like both,’ she told him with a half-laugh.
She was probably joking, yet because she’d asked, something inside him wanted to try; wanted to be the kind of man who could tell her what was in his heart.
‘Okay.’ He held her. ‘How about this? I’ve spent all my life ducking the idea of settling with one person. Believing that it was better to be like this than give any woman the life my father gave my mother. However much she loved him.’
‘Hayd—’ she began, but he dropped his lips to hers and momentarily silenced her.
A mere brush of their lips, yet it was enough to almost send him over the edge.
‘I think I loved you the moment you walked into that damned nightclub with my sister as your personal bodyguard.’
‘Was it the danger of being attracted to your kid sister’s friend?’ She grinned, but he could see the hint of uncertainty in her and he loved the fact that he could read her even when she was trying to cover herself.
‘No.’ He shook his head, his eyes dangerously sexy. ‘It was most definitely not that. It was the danger of you, Birdie. Pure and simple. I couldn’t resist.’
‘You certainly made me think you were going to,’ she teased.
‘I’ve no idea how,’ he groaned, stepping forward and gripping her shoulders. Not tightly enough to hurt but enough to hold her in place and make sure she was listening. ‘It damned near killed me, Birdie, and I never want to have to do that again.’
‘Is that so?’
‘That’s so,’ he confirmed. ‘One month in your company and I realised that what was really better was to find a woman who actually wanted to live the life that I did.’
He loved the way her eyes glittered, like crystals of demerara sugar dropped into the richest, darkest pools of strong coffee.
‘But not always, Hayd.’ She pursed her lips ruefully. ‘What about in the future?’
‘I don’t know what the future will hold. I only know that I don’t want to face it unless I’m by your side. You and I. Together.’
‘You should know now that I want a family one day. Maybe that will be ten years from now. But one day.’
‘I want that too, with you,’ he told her, knowing that there wasn’t a part of him that doubted it. He wanted everything with her. Now he understood what Mattie had been going on about.
And then, before either of them could waste any more breath talking about it, he lowered his head and claimed her mouth with his own.
The first kiss of the rest of their lives.
* * *
