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“Wake up, sleepyhead. Look at all that sunshine coming through the windows.” I nudged him awake, feeling him stretch against me as his eyes fluttered open. “It’s magic up here in the morning. Baby, look.”
“I don’t need to look out the window. You’re all the sunshine I need. You lit my way out of the dark last night, didn’t you?”
I inhaled a sharp breath at the beauty of his words. “Well, you made me brave again. I stayed in the dark with you and actually fell asleep in it. Maybe the moonlight is magic up here too.”
“Look at us, making progress.” His body rumbled with sleepy laughter. I loved the sound of his laugh but feeling it against me was the best.
“I would have destroyed this if we hadn’t become friends first,” I confessed on a whispered sigh.
He nodded, tickling my neck with his hair. “I wasn’t ready for you when we first met.” His eyes shifted up to catch mine in his smiling gaze. “But I am now. And I swear, I’ll never doubt what we have again.”
“I swear it too. This is real. What we have is too special to ever put at risk with irrational fears and stupid doubts.” I squeezed him tight. “We’re past that now, I know we are.”
I didn’t like the sorrow on his face as he looked up at me. “I hate what I said to you and I’m so sorry for leaving you alone like I did.”
“Please don’t be. I understand.”
Earnest eyes met mine. “When we started out, I was too busy building armor, protecting myself, thinking all the wrong things. Instead of wondering how I would inevitably hurt you, how I would fail you when I eventually broke, I should have been asking myself what I still had left inside of me to give to you. How I could make you happy. I make you happy, don’t I?” His voice dropped low as he asked for reassurance.
“Yes, so much. I’ve never felt anything close to the way you make me feel. And you don’t need armor, Liam.” I cupped his face in my palms. “Not when you are already fucking unbreakable. I would never hurt you, not ever. I would die first. I—I love you, Liam.”
He pulled me lower on the bed and deeper into his arms, so we were eye to eye. Then he pulled me tight, so we were pressed close, heart to heart. “And I’m in love with you, Holly. From the moment I saw you, I knew it. You changed everything for me, and I’ll never let you go.”
Chapter19
Liam
She was mine. There was no going back for us now. Her big blue eyes glittered in the early morning sunrise, brimming with tenderness and promises as she held my face in her soft warm palms and kissed me.
“You’re the one for me and I’m going nowhere. I promise you that, Liam.”
I could only hope to find the right words to express how full my heart felt right now. “I’ve waited for this moment, wished for it, dreamed of it every fucking night since I met you. I never want this to end. I’ve wanted you for so damn long.” I sealed my lips to hers, thrusting my tongue into her mouth, desperate to get as close to her as I possibly could.
Pulling away to catch her breath, she said, “This doesn’t have to end, Liam. We have all the time in the world.” She ran the backs of her fingertips down my face then kissed me sweet. “Oh, before we start, I went to the store.” Her lips moved against mine as she spoke. “The bedside table is full of every kind of condom you can imagine. I know it’s not our Friday, but we don’t need to wait anymore.”
It was inevitable now, me and her. This was going to happen, and I almost couldn’t take it. “No more waiting.”
“No more waiting,” she repeated. “I want every part of you to be mine, Liam. Everything.” She was greedy-eyed and flushed in the cheeks, and more fucking beautiful than anything I’d ever seen.
I nodded. I’d give her anything she asked for and I’d die doing it if I had to.
I had never felt like this before.
Overpowered.
Overwhelmed.
I was in over my head with this woman, and I never wanted to come back up. I would rather drown in her depths than ever breathe on my own again.
“This is almost too much for me, Holly. The way I feel for you.” I had to tell her. She had to know what she did to me. The power she held over my heart.
“I feel it too. You’re it for me, Liam.” her voice was nothing but a wisp of air between us, but the meaning of her words gave me strength. “And you never have to worry again because I’m yours, remember?”
“I need you naked. Right now. I have to feel you.”
“Yes. Oh god, let’s make this real, Liam.”
She wore a thin cotton nightgown, and I wanted it gone. I tugged on the hem, and she lifted her body so I could pull it over her head as she reached down to shimmy out of her panties.
