Page 92 of Meet Me in the Valley
“Mm, Lo?” Tia breathes against my lips, not breaking our heated kiss.
“Yeah, baby?” I leave her mouth to taste her neck, licking and sucking a wet path down from the column of her throat, across her collarbone, and onto her peaked nipples.
An unbidden whimper leaves her as my mouth seals over the metal bar of her piercing, selfishly tasting and claiming what’s mine.
She grips my hair as I work over her nipples, arching her back in a contortion of desire. After a few delicious moments, she moves her hands to my face and angles me to meet her gaze. Her hazel eyes glow with unadulterated lust, holding me hostage to them as she runs her fingers through my bed hair.
“Why’d you make me stop?”
“Me and you? Tell me it’s real,” she whispers.
Suddenly desire shifts to doubt swimming in her eyes, and I’m thinking of all the ways I can make her believe what we have is real.
Do I tell her it’s so real for me, I’m imagining building my house with her in mind? Do I tell her she’s the only one I see at the end of the aisle? That I want to see her barefoot and pregnant in my kitchen?
Tia, if nothing else, is the very definition of real to me. The kind of real that doesn’t fade, even when everything else does.
But doubt stares me straight in the face. And with it comes guilt, crashing over me in relentless waves.
The guilt I’ve been carrying sincethat night.
It’s easy to forget the bad when I’m holding something this good.
Too easy to turn a blind eye to Nora. To my mom.
To what happened with Krista.
Tia and I have fallen trap to the newness of us, uncaring about anything and anyone who tries to break down the perfectly protected walls we’ve surrounded ourselves with. Where no one is allowed, and nothing bad can touch us there.
Those three words are right there, dancing on the tip of my tongue. And the terrifying part is—I actually fucking mean it.
I love her. Wholly. Devastatingly. Maddeningly in love with Tia Young.
Even through the doubt and the crippling guilt,I love her.
But I can’t fully give her everything until I rid myself of this guilt. The love I have means jack shit if we harbor secrets, and I can’t avoid it any longer. We’veneverkept secrets from each other.
I came to Vegas to prove not only to Tia, but to myself that I can be a man deserving ofreallove. The easiest decision I could ever make was to give up the life I lived before this weekend with her. Every one-night stand, every random faceless woman, every bad decision—I give it all up to be a man deserving.
And Tia has to know my truth before I can fully give her whatshedeserves—my whole fucking heart and soul.
My hands gently cradle her face, holding my entire world in my palms. I tremble above her, breath stuttering and heart thrashing. Tia sees my hesitance, and I can imagine she’s thinking it’s not real for me when, in fact, it’s the complete opposite.
She tries to soothe me, running her soft hands over my shoulders, then resting them right on top of my heart that no doubt belongs to her.
“Your heart is beating so fast, Lo.”
I know.
“I want to give you everything, T. I’ve never been in a relationship before. Not a real one, anyway. You know me better than I know myself. You know how I operate, my motives, my routines. God, I look at you now like I’ve looked at you a million times before, but I see you now. I know I’ll get it wrong from time to time because, fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’ll do it for you. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”
The words come out in a rush, like one held breath into a long exhale. The corner of her lips curve into a small smile as shebrushes her fingers softly over my lips. I capture the pads of her fingers, kissing each one.
I fight the urge to devour her mouth again, wishing that was the end of what I had to say. Her hazel eyes regard me with adoration, and time suspends between us, hanging like the heavy truth I need to speak.
“I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”
Her face flickers with doubt at the same time her chest rises in quick, uneven bursts like fear is tightening its grip around us.
