Page 82 of It Must Be Love

"I know that."

"Let me pay your father's—" I pinched him hard, and he yelped. "What was that for?"

"Didn't we just say no money between us?"

"I was trying to be nice," he grumbled.

I stroked the skin I'd pinched. "Sorry."

"It didn't hurt. You pinch like a girl and," I pinched him again and again, "ouch, ouch, ouch, stop."

He pushed me onto my back then. "I'm bigger than you."

"And what are you going to do with all that bigness?" I challenged him. It felt so good to have a man naked with me, a man who didn't care that half my body looked like a blistered tomato. A man who was fun and funny and looked at me like I was the most beautiful woman in the world.

He rolled on top of me and slid into me. My breath caught.

"There, that should shut you up."

"Amias, I—"

"All I need to hear you say is, 'Oh, Amias, your cock is so big, will it fit?'"

I broke into a smile so wide my face hurt.

"Oh, Amias, your cock is so big, will it fit," I said in an exaggerated porn star voice.

"Let me show you, my little warrior," he said in a big bad wolf voice.

Chapter 29

Naya

"Hey, sweetheart." Amias was at a desk, the glittering lights of New York City behind him.

We spent almost every night from Christmas through New Year together, and alone, just the two of us.

When I started working at InnoWare, he continued to come to my place. I had been to his place a couple of times, but the size and the opulence intimidated me. He guessed as much and didn't push me.

It was March and spring hadn't yet shown its face in Boston. We'd been together for nearly three months now and it had been like being in my own fantasy novel.

I was already in bed when he called me over FaceTime.

"Hey. How were your meetings?"

"Good. How was your presentation?"

"Really good. Everyone was impressed. Eva came and told me that she was so glad I was at InnoWare." It had only been a few weeks, but I was already very happy with my decision to change companies—especially now that, for some strange reason, Amias and I were dating.

We were in our own cocoon. We spent time with one another. If we went to a restaurant, it was just us. We spent our evenings at my place with me working on the sofa and Amias on his laptop at my dining table. I knew he'd be more comfortable at his apartment, where he had a home office, but he never complained.

"She should be. She stole you from Midas," he grumbled and then added, "I'm so fucking proud of you, Little Warrior."

He'd started calling me that, and every time he did, I felt something warm and amazing run through me, which tasted a lot like love and freedom all tangled into one another. I was falling in love with Amias. I couldn't imagine how I'd hold his interest in the long run and worried that he'd start to miss his life with a busy social calendar and want me to go to parties with him…or worse, wouldn't want me to go with him because he was embarrassed about me.

These feelings were unfair because he had not once suggested I change one thing about myself except that I stop saying cruel things to me about me.

"Would you look at someone else's scars and say, wow, those are hideous like Kara did to you?"

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