Page 50 of Up in a Blaze
“A week where I’d spent every night at your place fucking you.”
“Well, yes, but you can’t honestly say you knew I was the one for you within a week.”
“I did.”
I shoved at his arm when he just kept chopping. “Blaze.”
He sighed and finally quit cutting to look at me. “Are you telling me you never believed me all those times I said I fell for you instantly?”
Eyes widening, I opened my mouth and closed it. He couldn’t be for real. I had definitely been taken with him, but I didn’t love him straightaway.
“You are messing with me,” I said.
He placed the knife down and slipped between my legs, hands cupping my hips. “Guess you’ve never believed me when I’ve told you this many times before, but I’ll reiterate again that I fell the day you found me in that alleyway. You didn’t know me, and I was a large, injured man. Yet, you were willing to help me. To annoy me back to health.” I slapped his chest before he went on. “Then, besides some family members—” His jaw clenched, and I knew he was thinking of his sister and how the rest of the no-good people who fell apart after she was murdered acted like Blaze wasn’t there and alive. He kissed my nose. “I’ve never had a lover show me that type of care. There was just something about you in that moment. My dark heart connected to yours. Why do you think I kept coming back every night?”
“But….” He picked his business over me. When I overheard his call about how he could get his customer a healthy kidney, I had given him the choice. Work or me. He walked away that night and broke my heart, even though I saw it caused him pain to do so.
His jaw clenched before he nodded. “Yeah, I’ll forever live with regret for leaving the only man I’ve ever loved. I told you it was one of the stupidest moments in my life, where I thought you were trying to control me, and I… fucked if I know. I felt like I needed to prove to myself that I didn’t love you as much as I did. Prove that you weren’t my heart and soul. So, I rebelled in the worst way by losing you. It didn’t take me long to realize you were just telling me that what I did wasn’t something you could live with. You gave me a choice, and I picked wrong.”
I slid my hands up his chest. “Mon amour, I know how much you regret that. We’re not talking about that. You have shown me in many ways that I am your world. I just couldn’t believe that you loved me in that first moment.”
“Well, I did, and you don’t have to believe it. I just know in myself that you had my heart in the palm of your hand the moment I saw you in that alleyway. I hate that we missed so much time together. That I watched you from afar and didn’t force myself back into your life like I should have. But I was scared that you wouldn’t have me, that you couldn’t possibly love me like I did you.”
“My beautiful beast, you are my air. I need you to live. I need you every day, all day, and nothing will change that. It may sound cheesy, mon amour, but we do complete each other.”
He hid his grin against my neck where he then kissed. “Very cheesy.”
I lightheartedly shoved his shoulder before I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I love you.”
His hands squeezed at my hips, and my cock took notice, thickening. “You’ve got all my love, firecracker. Even when you’re a pain.”
I bit his shoulder. “I am never a pain.”
He straightened, so I shifted my hands to his waist, clutching his tee. His brow cocked. “Remember when I had to pick you up and carry you out of that shop?”
I gaped, then huffed. “That woman wouldn’t stop ogling you. I had to give her a piece of my mind. I did it for all other couples in the world who do not wish for their partner to be eye fucked while trying to find clothes.” I huffed and then smirked. “What about the time we were in the bedding department, and you nearly suffocated me with a pillowcase?”
“You’re too good-looking. I either had to cover your face or remove the guy’s eyes.”
Snorting, I smirked. “We are as bad as each other.”
“Because we don’t like sharing or people staring at what belongs to us?”
“Oui, that, mon amour.”
He cupped my jaw, tipping my head back as his gaze ran over my face. His thumb slipped up and into my mouth where I sucked around it.
His gaze locked onto my mouth. “You could’ve been with anyone.”
My teeth dug into the base of his thumb before I gripped his wrist and drew it out to hold it between my hands. “I saw no one but you.”
“You should have your head checked.”
Laughing, I squeezed his hips between my legs. “My mind is perfectly normal.” Blaze raised a brow, and I scowled. “It is.”
He stayed silent, watching me, annoying me.
“Fine. I’m not exactly normal, but no one is.”
