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We arrive back at my apartment mid-afternoon. The car ride here was not weird or awkward, despite the turmoil rushing through my head. He didn’t stop touching me the whole drive home. If he let go of my hand, it was because he placed it on my thigh.
While it was a nice ride home, it only increased my fear of this whole thing with him. Do I want it to be official? Yes. But I’ve never let someone close to me before. That thought alone has me ready to run for the hills to avoid the inevitable pain of a man walking out of my life again.
I begin to unpack some of my things while Marc sits on the edge of my bed, wringing his hands together like he’s nervous about something. This is it, this is the moment he walks away from me the same way everyone always does.
“I understand you have to leave,” I murmur with my back turned to him.
“What?”
“You look like you’re ready to tell me you’re leaving. If you have to go, you have to go.”
I hear the bed creak as he stands up before he’s standing directly behind me. The air in my lungs gets trapped and I can’t exhale it out.
“I don’t want to leave, Ave. But I want you to come home with me.”
“I don’t know, Marc.” I shake my head, continuing to unpack my duffle bag of clothes. “This past weekend was the last thing we needed to do with Bill for you to be considered to take ownership of Prestige Horizons.”
“And…”
I spin around from across the room, throwing my arms out trying to prove my point. “I know we said something in the heat of the moment. I’m just saying, you’re under no obligation to keep this up with me.”
“You think you’re an obligation to me?”
“Wasn’t that what this was, Marc?”
“That might have been what this was at first.” He stomps towards me. “But you’ve become my undoing, Ave. I’ve been running for years from the walls I had built up around my heart, until you came along and broke every single one down.”
My mouth parts in shock, tears threatening to spill over again as my body runs cold as shivers skate down my spine. I blink several times to try and keep them at bay. I donotfucking cry.
“When my heart was broken all those years ago, I immersed myself in my job. That was all that mattered to me.” Marc’s hand reaches up to swipe a loose strand of hair away from my eyes. “That’s why this deal matters so much to me. It was all I had… until you.”
I forget to breathe as my body shakes, the tears spill over the edge. He delicately swipes them with the back of his pointer finger before he pulls me into his chest.
“I don’t know when it happened or how it happened, but I’m completely head over heels in love with you, Avery.”
I pull back, gasping. “What?”
“I love you. I’ve said it more times than I can count under my breath. I’ve wanted to say it for a while now. But I knew you needed time. I know you think you’re not wired for it and you claim you have this big black heart and are incapable of love. But I see you, baby. I see all of you. You’re so far from everything you say you are.”
“How? What?” I stutter my words. Unsure of what to say. “I—”
“Stop.” He brings a finger to my lips to shush me. “Don’t say it back. I don’t need you to say it back yet. Take the time you need to feel it too. But I want you to know that I’m not going anywhere.”
As if he can read every fear and worry in my head he says the words I so desperately needed to hear.
I’m not going anywhere.
No one has ever known these parts of me. Every vulnerable side that I’ve never let anyone see before. The girls are the only ones who know the real me. Men I’ve had casual encounters with, have never amounted to anything because I just never let them.
But Marc… he’s not going anywhere.
“Don’t you think we’re a little complicated here? Complete opposites? Like we haven’treallydated to know all of this for sure. Like—”
He stops my rambling when his hands cup each side of my neck and he leans down to kiss me. It’s not a soft kiss, it’s a powerful all consuming, like he can’t live without my lips, type of kiss. I grip his wrists and relax into his arms, the way I always do when he kisses me, and exhale the breath I was holding in.
I open up to him, allowing his tongue to swipe past my lips. Butterflies in my stomach causing chaos as he reassures me with this kiss right here that he means everything he’s admitted.
Pulling back, Marc keeps his lips hovered over mine. “I’m going to head home. But I’ll say it again for you to understand… I’m not going anywhere. I’d rather do this complicated chaos with you than do easy with someone else.”
