Page 79 of The Road to Finding Us

“What do you think of the fireplace, Lily?” Aspen takes several steps closer to me, until he’s standing right in front of me. I don’t fight him when he grabs onto my shoulders, turning my body to fully face the fireplace. “Is this okay?” he asks under his breath, looking down to his hands resting on my shoulders.

I nod, not wanting his hands anywhere else but on me.

He keeps his hands on my shoulders, their warmth soaking through my exposed skin. One of his thumbs carelessly moves in circles.

“The fireplace is great, Aspen.” I look over my shoulder at him, finding his face closer to mine than I expected.

He catches me off guard when he slowly runs his hands down my arms. Since I have on a tank top, I can feel the callouses on his fingers scratching a path down my skin. I wonder if he can feel the goosebumps rising on my skin from his touch.

His breath tickles my ear. “You see, one night, not too long ago…” Aspen’s hands shift from my arms to my hips, “you told me that we were fire. Wild and passionate, but only for a short amount of time. You said we couldn’t burn forever, that fires eventually have to burn out.”

I suck in a breath as his hands travel underneath my top.

“Your words stuck with me, Lily. I sat in bed that night turning them over in my head. Because I thought of us as fire, too—wild, passionate, all-consuming. But we saw things differently. I didn’t see us as something bound to burn out.”

His thumb scrapes across the waistline of my shorts. “I saw us as an uncontrollable wildfire. One started from the smallest spark, but in no time, wild and raging. You know how much effort it takes to put out a wildfire? A lot. And even then, a spark could just light again, maybe burning even brighter the next time.”

He pauses. “That’s like my love for you. Maybe our love never grew, but it could. It has the potential to. Just like that spark becoming a wildfire.”

“What’s that have to do with the fireplace?” I whisper.

“Because even when you thought I was playing games with you, I wasn’t. I was making plans—for us. For our future together. In hopes that you’d want the same thing. I wanted to prove to you how much I loved you. How real this relationship had become to me. How I wanted to have a grown-up relationship with you. So grown-up that I wanted you to one day—however long it might take—move in here with me. I wanted you to look at that fireplace right there and remember my love for you. I want to keep that fire lit for you at all fucking times if you’ll let me. I don’t care that it’s hot in the south and that we’ll have to pay double for air conditioning, I want to always remind you that my love burns as bright for you as that damn fire. And that it won’t ever be put out. It’ll come back stronger and stronger. That the love is fucking real, and I want it forever.”

He pulls me flush against his body, spinning me around to face him. “I want this. I want us. I want you to know I’m in this for forever, no games, just love. So now that I’ve shown you how serious I am about this, I need to ask you one last time, Lil. Do you love me? Can you see our future as fucking clear as I can? If you don’t, I’ll respect it, but I need—”

Crushing my lips against his, I give him my answer. I throw everything I have into the kiss—apologizing with my lips, promising him the future with a slip of my tongue.

He pulls back. “Wait, so does that mean my not-too-sappy, just-sweet-enough speech worked? It took me a while to get it right, you know.”

I can’t help but smile up at him. “Yes, it worked. I love you, Aspen. I was wrong about you. About us.”

Aspen brushes his nose against mine. “I love you, too, Lil. I love you so damn much. Now kiss me again.”

We crash against each other wildly, passionately, raging.

And the kiss? It’s all-consuming.

Epilogue

Aspen

One Year Later

“What do you think of this piece?” Lily asks from the doorway of our closet.

I’m sprawled out on our bed in nothing but my boxer briefs, facing the gorgeous woman I now get to call mine. “Like I’ve said about the fifty other articles of clothing you’ve tried on tonight, they all look great. You make them look stunning, Lily Bear.”

Smoothing out the fabric of the dress she wears, she says, “Are you sure? I just don’t know if it fits the vibe.”

Groaning, I pull one of the ten throw pillows she has on our bed to cover my face. She’s been parading around in her bra and underwear for almost an hour now, trying on potential clothing options for the upcoming opening of her boutique. When she asked me to help her decide, I jumped at the opportunity. Watching Lily try on sexy little dresses and also getting to watch her strip out of them? Sold.

Little did I know it would be the most epic tease for my dick.

My voice muffled by the pillow, I respond, “Lily, anything you put in that boutique will be amazing because you chose it.”

I feel the bed dip two seconds before the pillow is ripped from my face. As if she wants to give me the worst case of blue balls ever, my fiancée puts a knee on either side of my hips, completely straddling me.

“I just want it to be perfect,” she says with a smile, her hands resting on my chest.

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