Page 67 of Deliver Me

“I think I haven’t let you experience anything else,” he said carefully. “You’re a virgin and look what I did to you this morning-”

“Ilikedwhat you did to me this morning,” she said angrily, poking him in the chest with her finger. “I tried dating someone else and I didn’t like it, but if you’d rather that I got someexperiencewith someone else first—”

“Like hell,” he snapped. Rational thought and selfless impulses aside, the idea of her being with someone else was enough to have jealousy clawing painfully at his insides. Fuck that. Maybe he didn’t deserve her after everything and maybe she would have been better off with someone else, but it was too late for that now.

“That’s what I thought,” she said quietly. “I don’t want someone else, and I don’t want you to be with someone else, either. I don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks or about what happened before.”

She crowded into him, pushing into his personal space and resolutely ignoring it as the occasional passerby slowed down to stare at them. She leaned into his chest and pressed up on her toes, curling her arms around his neck and tugging him down until he surrendered.

Her mouth was sweet, and she parted her lips for him without coaxing, heedless of the eyes that watched them or the judgment of those who stared as she teased him with her tongue and tangled her fingers in his hair. She kissed him senseless and then pulled away to place one last peck of her lips to the tip of his nose and smirk up at him in satisfaction.

“I don’t know what I could ever have done to deserve you,” he said, awed as always by the sheer vibrancy of her, the light that she carried with her into every situation.

“You were just you,” she said, “and that was always enough. Let’s go home, okay?”

He didn’t say anything else until they were settled into the car and the radio was softly playing a song he’d never heard before just loud enough to be heard over the continuous blast of the air conditioner.

“I wanted to take you on a date,” he said, squeezing her hand where it rested in his on the center console. “But with the way things went at the store … And I haven’t even tried to call Amy yet to get access to my trust fund. I need money for us, a driver’s license. I want to take care of you.”

She squeezed back, her smile bright and unconcerned. “You will take care of me, and I’ll take care of you. Things will settle down soon and then we’ll work on getting you a license. Maybe next week if you feel comfortable? In the meantime, you can work on other things. We’ll call Amy’s office this afternoon before we go swimming and later tonight we can order take-out.”

“Swimming and take-out aren’t a date,” he argued. “I wanted to do something special for you.”

She shook her head. “We’ve got the rest of our lives for fancy dinners, Gabriel. We can go if you want but it’ll be the same thing that happened at the store. I’m perfectly happy with a movie at home and couch cuddling. That’s the kind of thing I imagined doing with you if you ever got out, not eating expensive food with too much silverware.”

He thought back over the number of dinners Lilah had made him attend, crammed into a stuffy suit and shoes that pinched his feet as he listened to boring conversations that he’d have done anything not to be a part of. It didn’t compare in the slightest to the image of relaxing on Mia’s couch with her head in his lap as they watched whatever movie she’d picked out for them on her TV, and he played with the ends of her hair.

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll stay in and order food.”

“I always win,” she said brightly. “I’m very stubborn.”

“Yes, you are,” he agreed. “Lucky for you I like stubborn brunettes with a pretty smile.”

She grinned at him, and he lifted her hand to his mouth, pressing a quick kiss to the backs of her knuckles. The soft smell of her perfume lingered in the air and her skin was soft under his fingers. Being able to touch her whenever he wanted to felt like some kind of miracle, the kind of thing that made even someone as jaded and cynical as him wonder if perhaps there might be a God after all. Or at least the beginnings of a run of good fortune that he’d be a fool to turn his back on.

It was a feeling that he carried with him through the rest of the day.

His own incredible good luck.

It hit him as he watched her make them sandwiches for lunch, stacking slices of meat on bread as he stood beside her in the kitchen filling their plates with chips and slices of watermelon. And again, when they went down to the pool before kids got out of school for the day, when the cold blue water wasstill empty of everyone except the two of them. Swimming was a pleasure he thought he’d never get to experience again, and they splashed each other like two teens just learning how to flirt before coming up to breathe locked around each other, their mouths hot and hungry.

She tasted of summertime, of sweat and chlorine and sunscreen. Water ran in rivulets down the slim column of her throat, and he chased them with his lips, making her shiver with anticipation before he tossed her back toward the deep end and laughed at her indignant squeal.

When he bought her a house, he was going to make sure it had a pool.

By the time they’d made it back upstairs, he’d forgotten the world outside their little bubble of tranquility. The thoughts that had plagued him in the store earlier seemed like nothing more than a bad dream, a brief lapse of judgment on his part.

All that mattered was her and the love he felt for her, and he was sure that there was nothing outside of them that could tarnish it.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

He grinned and got to his feet, pursuing her down the hallway as she danced playfully just out of his reach. He’d barely cleared the doorway to the bedroom when she stopped running and launched herself into his arms, her mouth already seeking his and her arms locking around his neck.

He was tender as he stripped her down, his mouth barely leaving hers as his fingers worked to unhook her bathing suit and tug the fabric from her skin. “Are you …”

“Don’t you dare,” she said. “Don’t you dare ask me if I’m sure.”

“I don’t want you to regret being with me,” he said honestly, swallowing hard on the fear that he’d been trying so hard to ignore. “I’m going to do every single thing that I ever told you I would, I’m going to fuck you until you can’t breathe, and you forget your own name. But you have to be sure.”

---