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“I’ve always loved you,” I say evenly. “The timing sucked. Every time I wanted to ask you out, I missed my chance. And when I’d give up and date someone else, it didn’t feel right. But now I’m asking. I’m telling you how I feel.”
She blinks, eyes still huge and deep and beautiful, so beautiful it hurts my heart. Her lips are parted, and I can see that she’s breathing quickly, her pulse beating fast at the base of her neck.
“I love you and I want to be with you,” I tell her.
She doesn’t say anything, just keeps breathing fast, staring into my eyes. Looking stunned.
I take a deep breath. “I can understand that it might be kind of a shock to you, to find out that I feel that way, and it—”
“No,” she interrupts. “Not a shock.”
“—it might take you a while to get used to the idea, but I needed to tell—”
“I’m used to it,” she blurts.
It’s my turn to be without words.
“I’ve been thinking that for, oh, at least months now.” She puts her free hand on my chest. “I’ve always thought you were a great catch. So handsome, so nice, so amazing…whichever girl was lucky enough to get your love was going to be the happiest girl in the world.”
I still can’t talk. She squeezes my hand.
“But I really started thinking about you and me when I realized that Jake was never going to be there for me, to support me, or ask me what I needed, much less give it to me. I realized that you were always there. That you always gave me what I needed. And I just—” she breaks off and drops her hand from my chest. Shrugs. Bites her lip. “Jordan, that is so sexy.”
I blink, startled.
“You are so sexy to me. I want you, too.” Tears come to her eyes. “I’ve just been so scared that I might lose you as a friend. I mean, I’m really scared of that. I’ve been so scared of it that I’d rather not love you if it meant we might not be friends down the road. I could not bear that.”
My throat is tight and my eyes sting, but I know what to do. I take her in my arms. “You won’t lose me. Ever. We won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t be sure,” she starts to say.
I stop her mouth with a kiss.
That tenderness and passion that I was thinking about earlier? I don’t have to force it. It’s just there. It’s Ainsley and me, and it’s there. The sweetness and the heat, the closeness and the lust, it’s everything. It’s everything.
I kiss her right there in full view of everyone and neither of us cares who’s watching. When I start wanting to rip her dress off, I pull back a little. “I’m sure,” I say, my voice husky. “I’ve been sure for a very long time.”
She’s close enough now that she can feel my erection against her abdomen, but she looks up into my eyes with both trust and lust. She does want me, too.
“So,” she says, her voice shaky with the kissing, “so let’s go on a date.”
“Dancing in the main ballroom tonight?”
“It’s why we took the lessons in the first place,” she says. She takes a deep breath, and then she smiles at me, her lips deep pink. “Let’s do this.”
