Page 104 of The Guy Next Door

“Then I’ll drive you. Visit you. Be there to pick you up. And be here to bug you when your health insurance fucks up and you have to call to get them to cover your meds. And to give you a BJ every time you get too stressed.”

His smile returns, but another tear streaks from his eyes. “Fuck it,” he says, wiping at it.

Then there’s another tear.

I’m waiting for him to hide them from me, out of pride, but he doesn’t. He studies my face for a moment before his gaze meets mine. “Leif, I lost the people I cared about most. And losing Mike…I thought that was going to kill me. Makes me thinkit’s a stupid idea to get close to anyone. And like, the dumbest thing I’ve ever done was get close to you.”

He sounds almost angry with himself as he says that last bit, and an uneasy sensation stirs in my chest. Why would he say that? Did I go too far? Is he about to push me away?

“Zane…”

He kisses me again, and between the kiss and how he’s holding me, I assure myself my fears are irrational.

When he pulls away, he goes on. “What I’m saying is, I don’t think I should have gotten this close to you, but now it’s too fucking late. I’ve lost enough people in my life to know that you can’t wait around to say the things you have to say, so I’m just going to say it.”

He looks me dead in the eyes. The last time he looked this serious was the night we met. “I love you, Leif.”

That sensation, like I’ve been pumped with a sedative, comes again. Those words make me feel so at ease, so at peace, as though I’ve been waiting to hear them all my life.

From him.

He rushes on. “I don’t need you to feel it yet. In fact, it’s probably best if you don’t feel that way about me. I’d never ask you to pretend you do when you don’t, but I need you to know…” He takes my hand and sets it on his chest. “My heart belongs to you.Ibelong to you.”

Considering how guarded Zane was from the moment I met him, it’s shocking to hear these confessions.

With one hand still on his chest, I place the other against his cheek. “Zane, of all the things I could have expected to come into my life, you definitely weren’t it. My little creeper next door.”

His expression finally relaxes, his lips curling into a smirk.

“But whatever brought you here, I’m glad you’re here now. And I do love—”

“I don’t want you to say it because I said it,” Zane blurts out.

“I’m not saying it because you said it. I’m saying it because after the past months, I can’t imagine not having your creeper face in my life.” I take his hand and place it on my chest. “I love you too. And I’m not accepting your heart unless you take mine.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It is.”

He leans close for a kiss. As he pulls away, he says, “Now who’s being the bossy one?”

We’re both smiling, but then his expression turns serious again. “Leif, what am I gonna do?”

It reminds me of how quiet he was on the trip home. How much he’s being tortured by what happened at Caribou Coffee.

“You don’t have to figure it all out tonight,” I say. “That I know for sure.”

He trails his hand down my chest, to my navel, and as I follow it, I notice he’s hard again. His hand travels around my hip to my ass.

“I have an idea what I could do instead,” he says. “Now that I know, I think there’s something else I’d like to belong to me right now. If you’re ready again, that is.”

I snicker as I roll onto my stomach, displaying my ass for him. “That’s yours too,” I say.

A wide grin overtakes his face.

And he doesn’t hesitate to claim what belongs to him.

28

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