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“But you were twenty-one, and I felt like I was fifty by then. The shit I’d done. Seen.” I pushed aside the flashbacks attempting to penetrate my thoughts. I didn’t have time for them, I needed her to understand, to know the truth. “I couldn’t consider making a move on you. You were too young. I was coming up on my tenth year in the Navy, and I knew I’d be in for a lot longer. I couldn’t push that life on you.”
I closed my eyes and bowed my forehead to hers.
“When Anthony shared the news you two were dating, it felt like the door was closed forever. Even if the time ever became right to ask you out . . .” I didn’t need to finish. She’d understand.
“And if I told you I wish you’d been honest with me that day anyway, because I’d had a crush on you for years, what then?”
My stomach dropped at her words, and I pulled back to find her eyes again.
“I ended things with Anthony so quickly back in college because I felt guilty dating him when all I could think about was you. I felt like a horrible person.” I could hear the emotion catching in her throat. Witnessed it in her glossy green eyes as she admitted, “And then I spent years dating the wrong men while I waited for the only one I wanted to come for me. But he never came.”
I’m here now. I pushed away from the counter and gripped my throat, feeling as though it were closing up.
“And when Mom pushed Anthony and I back together again, I said yes because I’d already given up on you. Thought you hated me. I also knew Anthony could never break my heart. No one was capable of breaking my heart. Because no one was you.” Her lower lip quivered and her eyes fell shut. I reached for her and circled my arms around her, holding her tight.
Her heart was pounding so intensely, it felt as if the rhythm intertwined with mine, and we shared the same heartbeat.
Smoothing her hair away from her ear, I whispered hoarsely, “I didn’t know.”
“How could you?” She eased back, and I cradled her face with my palms. “We both made mistakes. Kept fighting the truth that was right in front of us. Maybe we were both scared? But you keep fighting—”
“Until you can’t,” I growled out before my lips crashed over hers. I was done fighting my feelings, hiding behind excuse after excuse. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t resist her.
I was fucking tired of fighting.
Natalia moaned against my mouth and her tongue slid between my lips. I eased one hand into her hair, and held the back of her head, drawing her as close as possible.
Every part of me was on fire. Hot. Tense. Aching.
But it was how my chest felt that was going to do me in. That tight fist squeezing my heart, that clutch of guilt, went away.
And I could breathe again.
I lifted her onto the counter in one fast movement, and she hooked her ankles around my back, arching into me.
I planted my hands on the counter on each side of her so I could nudge my cock against her. I was losing my damn mind with lust.
My lips broke from hers, dragging tender kisses down her neck, nipping her earlobe, trailing my mouth along her cheekbone on my way back to that sultry mouth of hers.
She buried her fingernails into my back, lightly moaning from the contact before I sucked her bottom lip and kissed her again.
I was two seconds away from losing all self-control right there in Mom’s kitchen when . . .
“Oh. My. God.”
Natalia flinched at the sound of my mother’s voice echoing around us.
My lips froze against her mouth, and my fingertips curled into my palms on the counter as I tried to calm myself down before we faced her.
“Ryan Rossi,” Mom whispered, and I’d never been so grateful to not have a middle name. “What’s going on? When I said you should be friends, I didn’t mean make out with your brother’s ex-fiancée on my kitchen counter.”
I slowly helped Natalia down, her throat and cheeks flush with embarrassment. I wanted to shield her, protect her from whatever my mom was going to say. Because I knew Mom and loved her to death, but Anthony was Anthony.
He’d had to become the man of the house at too young of an age because I’d been serving. I’d immersed myself in training to run away from the pain of losing Dad.
But Anthony had been there for her since day one and every dark day after that when I was physically and emotionally incapable. I was grateful he’d been there for her, but he’d been too young to take on such a heavy load. It’d been too much for them both to deal with, but they did it together. And they were closer than close because of it.
Annnnd there’s that familiar ache of guilt.
