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“It wasn’t too late, Owen.”
“It was for me. By the time I worked up the courage to finally tell her how I feel, she had started dating someone else,” he says, and my forehead pinches into a frown. “It was right after graduation. I dumped Violet, then spent nearly two weeks preparing what I was going to say, working up the nerve to finally ask her out. But the day I went to see her, I saw her leaving her house holding hands with someone else. That was the day that I’d experienced my first real heartbreak.”
My mind drifts back to the day he is referring to. Two weeks after graduation was when Tobias Anderson knocked on my door and confessed his feelings for me. We had been friends throughout high school, and that day marked when we became more.
“He had her for the entire summer and after that, we both left town for different colleges. But there wasn’t a single day that I didn’t think about her while I was away,” he continues. “Heck. She was still on my mind when I graduated and moved to Chicago. So when I got word that she moved back to town, I quit my job and came back, hoping to somehow make things different between us.” He pauses, then breathes in what sounds like a sigh of defeat. “But… old habits die hard, I guess. We slipped right back into the way we were before and I held on to that because it was all I had. But there wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t wish we could be so much more. That I could somehow have the chance to show her so much more. But I’ve come to realize now that it’s never going to happen. She doesn’t feel the same way, and I doubt she ever will.”
“She does feel the same way, Owen,” I blurt out, pouring my whole heart into those very words, and his eyes snap to mine, brimming with an emotion that mirrors my own. “She always has. She was just as confused as you were growing up, and unfortunately, that confusion lasted a bit longer for her than it did for you. But she’s not confused anymore. She’s seeing everything clearly now, and she’s more sure than ever of what she wants.”
“W-what does she want?” he murmurs with a nervous quiver that makes his voice shake and his eyes roam over my face in question.
Tears sting the back of my eyes as I give him a warm smile. “You.”
His chest deflates like he’d been holding his breath, and his whole body visibly relaxes, replacing that uncertainty in his eyes with a mischievous twinkle. “Truth or dare, Mac?”
He waggles his eyebrows and a giggle blasts from my mouth as I shake my head at him.
This is just like him to take all seriousness out of a situation, but in all honesty, I welcome it right now. The revelations between us have brought forth an overwhelming wave of emotions, hitting me all at once, and for a moment there, I felt like I was drowning in them.
It makes me wonder if we’re more in tune with each other than I ever thought possible, and excitement flutters in my belly at the prospect of taking the chance to find that out.
Giving him a playful smirk back, I arch a brow in challenge. “Dare.”
“I dare you to kiss me.”
Shifting off my makeshift bed, his eyes widen, and he swipes his tongue along his bottom lip as I get on all fours and crawl toward him.
Reaching up and gripping his shoulder, I swing my leg over and straddle his waist, hiking up the hem of my dress and resting my pussy snugly against the erection tenting in his pants.
Our eyes lock, and I watch as the darkness of his pupils slowly eclipses the vibrant green as anticipation between us builds.
This kiss is everything. It’s the kiss that finally seals the deal and cements the new path in front of us. A path where we get to discover everything that we can be.
His hands slide up to my hips, and he takes them in a firm grip, making a deep ache throb within my core, and the urge to grind my clit against his steely erection becomes almost impossible to resist.
I inch a bit closer and then stop, taking a moment to savor this profound moment between us where everything is going to change.
But when his fingers dig into my flesh, urging me to close the distance, his eyes blazing with a mixture of pure lust, want, and impatience, I put us both out of our misery and press my lips to his.
CHAPTER9
MACKENZIE
Lavender.
It’s everywhere. The endless field surrounding me is blanketed by millions of bright-purple sprigs which stretch out over the vast horizon and kiss the edge of the deep-blue sky.
A lone butterfly flits around, moving from one bud to another before suddenly changing its course and heading in my direction.
It stops a few inches away, its little wings fluttering furiously as it hovers over my face before landing between my eyes and tickling the end of my nose with its tiny little legs.
I bat it away, and it chuckles, a deep, robust chuckle that has no business coming from such a delicate little creature.
It circles around and comes back, hovering in front of me again for a moment before landing on my lips and giving me a tender kiss.
The field around me suddenly descends into darkness as I’m pulled back into a state of consciousness. Blinking to clear the sleep-induced haze clouding my vision, a pair of emerald eyes come into focus, and a smile spreads on my face.
“Good morning, baby,” Owen’s gruff, sleepy voice rasps, the adoration pouring from his eyes making the languid rhythm of my heart kick up a notch.
