Page 96 of Mine to Worship

I’m finishing up packing when the nagging thought being whether I want to go back to Las Vegas or not surfaces. It feels more like I’m pressuring myself, as if there is a test we still have to overcome. No one is forcing me to go back, and I am not keen on returning.

“Something is bothering you.”

“What if I don’t like it back in the city?”

“You just have to say so,” he says, assuring me.

“But our friends are there.”

“They’ll remain our friends, even if we decide to move away.”

“I have been so happy here.” I don’t even know where I am going with this, and he brushes his fingers against my cheek.

“If it means so much to you, we’ll stay.”

“I want to at least try to go back to the city, though.” What if the time we spent here has been a mirage, and there everything will fade into dust particles?

“We’ll give it a go then you can decide how you feel.”

He says and does all the right things, turning my heart into his instrument.

“I love you,” I whisper, my mouth inches away from his lips.

“Not more than I do.”

“Wanna bet?”

He shakes his head and chuckles. I lift my chin, our lips meet in the middle and we spend the rest of the day cuddled up together on the sofa.

When we wake the next day, all the memories we’ve made here rush through my mind when Kian shuts the car door. Nostalgia washes over me, sticking to me like damp clothes after a summer rain. He climbs into the driver’s seat and his hand clutches mine.

With every hour on the road, we leave behind the landscape of lush and thick trees and the road opens to an endless stretch between barren land of rocks.

“Ouch,” I say, and rub the spot on the side where the baby kicked me. “She’s getting stronger in there.”

“She is growing fast.”

“Me, too.”

He sways his head to me, his eyes peering into mine with adoration. “But you look so damn beautiful. Dressed like this, it reminds me of when I saw you a few times after we met, in your denim jumpsuit, and your bandana. I knew you were it for me.”

“Minus the giant football in my stomach, of course.”

“To me, you’re beautiful in every way,” he says tenderly, and my heart starts singing love songs in my chest.

“Even in my comfy dress?” I ask, playfully.

A shudder rolls through him and his brow pinch together. “Even in that horrible thing you call a dress. If I ever meet the person who ruined men’s fantasies by making that, I’ll strangle them with it. It’s the best sex barrier ever.”

I say through a fit of laughter, “That didn’t stop you, you’d never undressed me that quickly.”

“My point exactly and I am a weak man when it comes to you,” he says, waggling his brows at me. His lips curve into a grin, revealing his pearly white teeth.

I shake my head at him and say, “I blame those dimples.”

“It works every time.”

“I hope Kira has your confidence; she’ll take this world by storm.”

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