Page 78 of My Vows Are Sealed

“Pick something to watch on TV,” he told me. “The pizza will be here soon.”

* * *

After we’d finished an entire pizza and watched a few reruns ofSeinfeld, Brendan sighed and turned the TV off, then looked at me with an expression that was almost…guilty? Was that right?

“Look, Dar, I have to tell you something, and you’re probably not going to like it,” he sighed.

“What is it?” I wondered, picking my head up off his chest and sitting up so I could look at him.

“I know what your dad saw that made him so upset.” His voice broke a little and he swallowed hard before continuing. “The foreman at the job Alex and I are working on right now…when we were leaving the site today, we found him on the side of the building. He was…with…a girl in an alley next to the house we’re working on. And I swear, that girl looked like she could be your twin. I had to call my uncle about it because he was doing that on company time, and apparently my uncle’s going to fire him on Monday and personally oversee the rest of the job. I’m so sorry, baby. My boss…he’s responsible for your dad…”

A lone tear trailed down his cheek, and he took a deep breath as he wiped it away.

My heart broke. I knew that all he wanted in this whole world was to protect me, but the reality was, he couldn’t be there every second of every day. He couldn’t have any way of knowing what would or wouldn’t set my father off, becauseIdidn’t even know most of the time. And he definitely wasn’t responsible for anyone else’s actions but his own.

I climbed onto his lap, straddling his legs, and put my hands on his face to make sure he was looking at me. “Babe, it’s not your fault. You’re not responsible for anyone else’s decisions.”

“I could have…I could have gone out there sooner. If I had, maybe I could have stopped him before your dad saw. Maybe I could have prevented all of this.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“I’m supposed to protect you,” he insisted, swallowing hard again. “It’s my job. And today, your dad almost…and I might have been able to do something to stop it.”

“You can’t protect me from everything, Brendan. And that’s not what your job is. Your job is to make me feel safe. And you do. Always. When I’m with you, when you have your arms around me, that’s the only time Ieverfeel completely safe.”

I wiped the few tears that had leaked out of his eyes off his cheeks, just like he’d done for me countless times, and brought my lips to his, pouring everything I felt for him into this kiss. I slipped my tongue out and traced the curve of his bottom lip, and he let out a sigh as he parted his lips and granted me entrance. As his tongue started to gently massage mine, he moved his hands to my hips, and one of them slipped under the shirt I was wearing.

He’d held my hips like this while we were kissing a thousand times, but feeling his rough, calloused hands against my skin lit a fire inside me like I’d never felt before. I couldn’t explain it, but it was so different from anything else I’d ever felt with him. Somehow, this simple, innocent touch felt like everything I’d been missing in my life.

My hands found their way to the hem of his shirt, and I slipped them under the fabric, tentatively exploring the hard ridges of his abs. He stopped kissing me and sucked in a sharp breath, but he didn’t stop me. Instead, his eyes met mine as he slid his other hand under my shirt and trailed his fingers over my stomach. I gasped, unprepared for the tingling sensation I felt to reverberate through my whole body.

“Is this…is this okay?” he asked timidly.

I nodded.

He leaned forward and whispered a kiss over my lips as he slipped his hands around to my back and trailed them all the way up to caress my shoulders. I slid mine upward, and I could feel his chest rising and falling with each rapid breath as his heart beat at a million miles a minute. My mouth found his again, and I felt the quiet moan he emitted all the way down to my soul.

One of his hands came around to my front again and tentatively cupped my breast, like he was testing its weight, before gently kneading. I whimpered softly and deepened the kiss, and the hand that was still on my shoulder tightened its grip while he ran his thumb lightly over my nipple, making me gasp at the spark of electricity that ran through me.

I felt what this was doing to him as his hard length pressed against the softest part of me. And the absoluterightnessof the way this felt, of how natural it was to be connecting with him in this way, washed over me like a tidal wave.Thiswas how it was supposed to be. This was the way God intended for human beings to love and be loved. Brendan was the only one I was ever supposed to elicit this kind of a physical response from.

I started to slide his shirt up his sides, letting my fingers brush against his skin as I did. I felt him shudder a little, and he took a shaky breath as he broke the kiss and did the rest of the work for me, tossing the garment onto the floor.

The weird realization hit me that in the entire time I’d been dating Brendan, I’d never seen him shirtless before. Not even on a hot summer day or while we were lounging around on the couch here in this apartment. I took a few seconds to appreciate the toned muscles that didn’t quite form a six-pack, but showed the manual labor that he did every day at his job.

“Can I take this off, baby?” he asked, so quietly it was almost a whisper, as he moved his hands away from my chest and shoulder and toyed with the hem of my shirt.

I nodded, and his lips found mine again. His fingers trembled as he pushed my shirt up, and the same tingling feeling from before returned as a flurry of butterflies invaded my stomach.

His hands came to a stop under my arms, and I reluctantly broke the kiss as I lifted them and let him take my shirt the rest of the way off, leaving me in nothing but my panties. I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, raking his eyes over me with so much adoration in them that it made me choke up a little.

“You’re so beautiful, Dar,” he whispered, finally letting his eyes meet mine. “Tell me when you want me to stop.”

“I don’t,” I said without even thinking.

Those words, words that went against a lifetime of church teachings, surprised me for a split second. And it surprised me even more that I meant them, more than I’d ever meant anything else in my whole life.

Brendan was my solace. My security. My safety. My home. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. And what I wanted – what Ineeded– tonight was to be close to him. In every possible way. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.

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