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He blew out a breath, leaning into my hand on his cheek. “She once said that my temper was what made me not worth loving.”
A sharp sting radiated through me at his words, at the pure hurt in his eyes. “And you believed that, didn’t you?”
“For a long time,” he said. “Sometimes even still—”
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t you dare believe that, Ethan.” I swallowed hard, my heart racing against my chest. I shifted closer to him, positioning myself between his muscled thighs, garnering all his attention. “You are worth love,” I said. “You’re worth time and passion and love. Your anger is a natural part of you, and it doesn’t diminish your ability to be loved at all.”
He huffed a dark laugh and shrugged. “So you say,” he said.
“I do say,” I said.
“We can’t really know though, can we?” he asked, more to himself than to me, his eyes still half in the past and half here with me. “Not really.”
“I know,” I said, determined to make him understand. To make him realize how amazing he was.
“How?” he asked. “You may be an expert on body language and emotions, but this is one thing we can’t know.” His voice rose an octave, and he gently shifted away from me, standing and crossing the room as if he needed to ensure the distance between us as his emotions swung from sadness and regret to anger and adrenaline.
“Fuck,” he snapped, raking his fingers through his hair. “It’s been years. Years. How the hell can she send me right back into that pathetic, heartbroken bullshit state?”
“Ethan,” I said, standing to cross the room. “Trauma like that doesn’t just go away. It’s a constant task to work through. Healing takes time.”
“Right,” he said, his voice clipped. “I hate that I have no control over it. Hate that what she says can still affect me. She’s nothing to me. Nothing but a painful reminder that no one will ever be able to see past my short fuse and take the time to really get to know me.”
“That’s not true,” I argued, stepping before him. “Ethan—”
“You can’t know that,” he said. “You may be one hell of a life coach, and you’ve definitely helped me get a grip on my emotions and my outbursts, but you’re not a physic. You can’t tell me that someone will love me like this…never knowing when I’ll have another episode. Never knowing if that episode will damage more than my career.” He spun away from me, as if he couldn’t bear to say the words while looking at me.
“Yes, I can!” I fired at his back, tears coating my eyes at the way he treated himself, the way he spoke about himself.
“How?” he asked again.
And this time…this time, I couldn’t hold back the answer.
“Because I love you!” The words rang out between us, and Ethan slowly turned around, shock coloring his features. I let out a breath. “I know it’s fast. I know today is technically the end of our thirty-day agreement. I know it makes zero sense with how quickly it happened, but I can’t lie. You know I don’t do lies.”
He tilted his head, the only movement breaking his statue-like stance. “You love me?”
I nodded. “And I don’t want you to say it back,” I clarified. “I know it’s too fast. I know it’s reckless of me, especially with the way our pasts have treated us. I’m not trying to trap you or make you feel obligated. Me telling you that I wake up with you on my mind and go to bed aching for you has nothing to do with forcing your feelings. I love the way you help people without asking for anything in return. I love how perceptive you are, taking the time to listen and learn and take that information to make the other person happy. And I love how protective you are of the people you care about most. It’s not a weakness, Ethan, it’s a fierce quality that makes you…you. And I love every piece of you.”
Ethan took one step closer to me.
Then another.
“Say it again,” he whispered.
I smiled up at him. “I love you—”
His mouth crushed mine, cutting off anything else I might’ve been about to say. He kissed me like his life depended on it, like I was the deep breath he needed to settle his soul.
We were a tangle of lips and touches and tossed clothes as we made our way to the bedroom, a silent show of how much we meant to each other.
Ethan pulled me onto his lap, our bodies flush as our eyes locked between kisses. I sank atop him, desperate to feel every inch of him against me, inside me. His powerful arms enveloped me, holding me there as we drank each other in, drawing out the anticipation until we were both shaking.
