Page 34 of Spring Forward

“I love you, Noel,” her voice is soft like she’s afraid of speaking louder because then it’ll be real and undeniable.

As if she wasn’t screaming out her love for me last night.

After I take a deep breath, words start to spill from me, “I need you, Delaney. I need you so damn much, I don’t think I could ever express how much. The thought of living this life without you in it scares the hell out of me. I don’t think I could survive not being next to you. I don’t know if that means you’re at my side, or if I’m at yours—maybe both? I don’t care about the terminology. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth and back if it is what you need. If you want to keep traveling and taking contracts, then we’ll make it work.”

Her green eyes are big and round as she blinks at me a few times while absorbing my words. But now that I’ve started it feels like I can’t stop.

“Even if we spend most of our time out on the road, I want to give us a place to come back to here on Limitless, like Fletcher and Eden have. I’ve been on a recon mission for weeks now and have been finding out everything about your dream house. Then a few days ago I took them to a construction company to have plans drawn up and an estimate put together.”

“You’re planning to build us a house?” Her voice is filled with shock. “Here on the land?”

“Yes,” I breathe while my heart hammers against the inside of my chest. “I want to give you a home here. I want to show you that you are meant to be here with me, with us. You’re part of our family. Will you stay? Will you love me for the rest of your life and let me be with you every day until we take our last breaths?”

Tears fill her eyes at my earnest plea and her delicate hands come up to cradle my jaw. “Okay,” she whispers.

“I just can’t imagine letting you go. I can’t do it.” I shake my head as her response finally filters through the panic at the thought of her walking away from me and I freeze. My entire body locks up and disbelief pumps through me with every beat of my heart. “Did you just? What?” I shake my head, trying to clear it before I rasp, “Say it again.”

The smile Delaney gifts me with is filled with certainty and promises I’m almost afraid to accept because they could be ripped away from me.

But then she erases that fear completely.

“I said okay, Noel Burns.” She leans toward me, her words a vow, “I’m not going anywhere. We can talk about how to move forward with my business. Maybe traveling will work for part of the year, like during the summer. Maybe I only do teleconferences and then short visits to places. I don’t know what it all looks like, but I know there is no way forward without you.”

When a tear slides across her face, my thumb is there to wipe it away. I’m speechless. Utterly and completely speechless.

I blurt out, “Do you want to see the plans before you really commit?”

Delaney’s laughter is light and filled with forever. She shakes her head and then kisses me softly. It’s brief, far too fucking brief.

“I don’t need to see the plans because I had already made up my mind. That’s why I had to talk to August yesterday. I couldn’t tell you what my heart and soul had decided long before my head caught up without making sure he was on board first.”

“He’s okay with staying?”

“He wants to stay,” she whispers. “He feels like he’s home, too.”

I feel like I can conquer the world right now. Instead of implementing a plan of pillaging and destruction, I roll my woman onto her back and loom above her. The giggle that comes out of her shouldn’t be as sexy as it is, but the sound is downright fucking naughty.

And so her. Delaney. My Freckles. Mine.

She’s a contradiction. She’s soft curves but with a spine of steel. She’s learned to survive for herself while putting Augustfirst in so many ways. She’s innocent and the most sinful of women I’ve ever met.

“I love you so fucking much, Delaney,” my voice is deep and husky.

Her green eyes sparkle as she looks up at me. She’s a fucking vision with her hair splayed out across my pillow and her back arching like she has to be closer to me.

When our mouths crash together, the kiss between us all fire. It’s filled with teeth and tongue, with nothing being held back or tempered.

She writhes underneath me as her legs wrap around my waist and pull me down until there’s no space between us. We groan at the contact and my cock throbs with the desire to be buried deep inside of her.

I start to slide down her body, but my woman’s fingers thread through my hair and she gives a tug which has me looking into her eyes. “No, Noel,” her tone is demanding. “None of that. As much as I love your mouth on me, I need to feel you deep inside of me.”

“You need me to seal your decision with a nice, hard fuck?” I arch an eyebrow at her, the challenge in my expression clear.

A smirk lifts one side of my woman’s face as her nails slide down my back until she grips my ass. Firmly.

“Are you going to give me what I need, Noel?”

Talk about rising to a challenge. Fuck. I can’t deny her.

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