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“You look beautiful tonight,” Hale tells me. The appreciation in his gaze makes me glad that I took the time to dress up in the moss green dress with the full skirt. Gabby loaned it to me. She dropped it off earlier today while Ollie and I were napping.
I murmur my thanks, feeling my cheeks heat up.
He moves around the furniture to hold out my chair before he settles in the seat across from me. “This is from one of my favorite restaurants.”
I lift the cover on my food to reveal meatloaf and mashed potatoes. “My favorite comfort food. More data you harvested?”
Hale shrugs. “I started studying people and looking for patterns when I was a kid. My parents frequently divorced. They’ve both been married multiple times. I have thirteen siblings including Katie. Some of them half-siblings, some step-siblings.”
“Did it help you cope, to learn more about their patterns?” I ask softly.
“It still sucks when you’re constantly getting moved between homes, never knowing who mom or dad’s latest flame will be or if they have kids that you’ll get along with.” He gives me a wry smile. “Probably a good thing they finally sent my grumpy ass to boarding school and ignored me.”
“Sounds pretty miserable.” After spending so much time in foster care, I see now I have an idealized and romantic idea of family. In my mind, it’s a group of people that gets along all the time and loves each other. But for some people, that’s not the reality.
He takes a sip of his sweet tea before setting it back on the table. “Their dynamic was why I never had a relationship. I realized early on I’m the kind of person that’s in it for life.”
My heart pounds and my insides turn to goo. “So then, you haven’t even been on dates?”
Hale shakes his head. “In college, I was busy launching businesses and making my millions.” The tips of his ears turn red. “Never had a girlfriend either.”
“So then were each other’s firsts.” As soon as I say the words, something changes in the air. I stand from my seat at the same moment he does. Then we’re crashing into each other, arms and lips connecting.
“We don’t have to go fast,” Hale tells me between kisses.
“I’ve been aching since the day you first came into the dessert shop,” I gasp as his lips go lower, caressing the spot under my jaw. He smells like leather and heat and raw masculine power.
He growls and lifts me into his arms. “We’ve both waited long enough.”
We start toward the cabin, food forgotten. But as I’m pressing kisses to his neck, I pause to gasp out, “The baby monitor.”
He turns back and grabs the monitor while still carrying me. I suspect he’s going to take me to my bedroom, but instead, he carries me into his room.
Hale’s room is decorated like the rest of the house—light and airy. But it’s different in here. There are some darker touches like the wrought-iron bed and the navy-blue blankets. He stalks across the room, letting me slide down his body onto the plush bedding. I grind against his hardness, not wanting to separate our bodies.
“You have a picture of me on your nightstand,” I say softly. It’s a recent one of me at the town’s annual summer picnic. I’m wearing my favorite blue jeans and a T-shirt for an old band as I stand in front of the funnel cake stand. Gabby took that photo, and it was posted to the town’s online group. He must have gotten it from there.
“I want you to be the first thing I see every morning and the last thing I see every night,” he explains.
I’ve never had anyone care that much about me, let alone feels the level of obsession that this man does. I grin up at him. “When I was dancing in the gym, I was thinking of you.”
His eyes darken even more. “Is that right?”
I nod. Maybe I should feel shy about this, but I don’t because I’m as obsessed as he is. “I knew you were watching.”
“I want you to dance for me one night. Just me.” His eyes darken even more. “I thought I was going to have to kill those other motherfuckers in the gym.”
“No one else in that gym existed to me,” I reassure him. There may have been other people, but I wasn’t paying attention. There’s only one man whose eyes I want on me.
Hale’s expression has changed from predatory to downright feral. “Got to get you naked.”
He reaches for my dress and helps me out of it until I’m in the red bra and panty set I bought specifically for this date. He runs his thumb across my port scar, frowning at it.
I explain to him, “It’s a port scar. The port is placed so they can get the chemo in your body. After it’s removed, some people choose to cover the scar with a tattoo. I wanted to leave my cancer scars visible.”
He leans down and gently presses his lips against it, whispering, “My beautiful warrior.”
I thread my fingers through his hair, tugging on the short strands. “Your beautiful warrior is horny.”
