Page 68 of Bound to You

“Will you tell me what I want to know if I ask you?” I fiddle with the ties on the straps of the pretty little dress she’s wearing today.

“Depends on the question,” she smiles.

“What scares you about this? About us?” Her eyes switch to look anywhere but me, I hate when she does that, like she’s contemplating whether to trust me with those parts of herself. I want that more than anything, so I go first. “Do you wanna know what scares me?”

She nods, her beautiful, vulnerable gaze finally looking back at me, and it gives me all the courage I need to open up to her now.

“That I’d do anything for you if you asked me to.” Her eyes widen an inch. “That I look for you in every place I go, that I want to spend every spare minute with you, fuck I couldn’t even do boys’ night without seeing you.”

She smiles at that.

“It scares me that you might simply decide one day that I won’t spend any of my minutes with you anymore.”

It might be crazy that I feel this way about her so soon, but that’s what she does to me, she makes me insane. I want to show her how I feel, and maybe she’ll do the same.

Maybe she won’t, but if I want her to open up to me then I need to do the same.

I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, I can see her thoughts swimming in her brown eyes like a splash of milk swirling in a cup of coffee.

“The last time I gave my heart away, it didn’t get smashed into little pieces like you’d think,” she starts, frowning as she concentrates on putting her feelings into words. “It slowly crumbled away, I lost little pieces of it each day, and after a while there was nothing left to smash, it had faded away. So when it came to that final night, I just left. I didn’t cry, I didn’t even really react, I knew it was over far before it ever officially was, but I hung onto it because…” she shakes her head. “I don’t even really know why. But that last slap in the face shut the light off in my heart, and I didn’t want to turn it back on. I didn’t have any intention of even speaking to any man but Miles on this getaway. I wanted to come here and reconnect with myself, find my spark again on my own. Figure out where I wanted to go with my life on my own terms, not on anyone else’s. But then there’s you.”

The words fall off her tongue, like she’s finally letting out something she’s been holding onto for far longer than she should have.

“You threaten that very idea Caio, because you ignite that spark in me, that light flickers back on when you’re around. Part of me hates it, because you make me want to uproot my life. Change my plans to spend all my spare time with you, because I don’t want to not spend any of my minutes with you either. You say I’m fiercely independent and stubborn. That’s because I’ve found many of the people in my life I haven’t been able to depend on. Other than May, the list of people I could rely on was nonexistent.” Her words throw me back to one of our first conversations. When I bragged about having so many people around me all those weeks ago.

“And with every passing day you make me want to depend on you Caio, to lean on you and let you in, you make me want to do all the things I said I’d stay away from. That’s what scares me.”

I smile, despite what she’s saying, or maybe because of what she’s saying, but mostly because she’s saying it at all. Trusting me enough to share this part of herself with me is all I could ever ask for.

“I’m sorry?— “

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” she interrupts me.

I grab her hands in mine, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “I promise I won’t ever hurt you, not intentionally, sweetheart. All I want to do is take care of you Isla, if you’ll let me.”

“I don’t think you’ll hurt me; I think I will.”

I don’t have a minute to think over her words before a grey ball of fluff jumps up onto my couch. Marvin meows and smooches up against Isla’s legs.

This guy.

“Oh hello little Marv,” she coos at him, sitting up to scratch him behind his ear and he eats it up, leaning into her touch, reveling in it. I don’t blame him.

His tail curls around her leg as he meows again, capturing all of her attention and curling up into a ball on my couch next to her. She runs her hands over his body, showering him with the affection he loves from only her apparently.

“Baby,” I say, not able to leave that conversation like that.

I grab her face in my hands taking her attention away from the cat and press my lips to hers. She angles her head, deepening our kiss and swiping her tongue against mine. She unfolds her legs and climbs on top of me straddling me and moans into my mouth as she grinds her hips against mine.

Fuck she makes it hard to concentrate. I hope that cat made himself scarce, or he’s about to be scarred for the rest of his nine lives.

I thread my fingers into her hair, tugging as she continues to move against me, friction building with every movement, earning me another one of her delicious moans.

My dick is getting harder by the second. She makes it too fucking easy to get carried away. If we ever had an argument, all she’d need to do is move on me like this and I’d forget anything else.

“Sweetheart,” I pull away but keeping a hold of her head, keeping her eyes locked on mine.

“I need to tell you something, will you concentrate for a second?” I ask softly, very aware of how turned on the both of us are right now, but I need to get this out.

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