Page 46 of Dyana
I carefully wrestled the egg away from her and set her down to enjoy the spoils of my conquest. For Dyana, I ate it in two bites instead of one and made a bunch of exaggerated yummy noises.
Dyana tried her hardest to look annoyed at my manhandling. “You big oaf! You’re lucky I lo—“
My heart stopped as Dyana’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “You love me?”
“I didn’t say that!” Dyana quickly denied. Her eyes darted around the room as she looked for the closest escape route. Oh no, she didn’t. I wasn’t going to let the little rabbit run away after her almost declaration.
Like a snake striking its prey, my hand snapped out and grabbed her wrist before she could take off. I tugged her off balance and quickly pulled her into my arms and locked them around her. “You said you loved me.”
“I—, I—, maybe,” she finally said, hiding her face in my chest.
Gently, I tipped her head up until she met my eyes. “I love you, too, Dyana.”
She turned nearly the same shade of red as her hair. “You don’t have to say it back just because I said it.”
“Trust me, Sweetheart, that’s not why I’m saying it. I’ve loved you far longer than you’ve loved me, but I didn’t want to say anything too soon and freak you out. And technically, you didn’t say it.” There was a clear challenge in my tone when I said the last part, daring her to say it.
Dyana’s eyes narrowed. “I love you.”
My lips crashed to hers before she had finished speaking.
Chapter fourteen
Dyana
That wasn’t how I planned to tell Bryce I loved him. Hell, if I were being honest, I absolutely hadn’t planned to tell him at all. My stupid mouth doesn’t know how to shut the hell up. But now that I had, I knew I had to tell the others. I didn’t want their feelings to be hurt if they found out I’d said it to Bryce and not them. I left Bryce happy as a clam in the greenhouse and went to find Evan or Jack.
Evan was easy enough to find. I stepped into the shed he had turned into his workshop, where he was tinkering with something. Evan was always trying to improve something, even things that didn’t need improvement. I had been worried at first that Isaac was going to tie him to a tree one of these days, but as it turned out, he didn’t care that much. He enjoyed sharing the burden of making sure everything worked efficiently around here. It gave him more time to spend with Johnny and Cora.
“There’s my favorite girl,” Evan said when he saw me. “Come ‘ere a sec.” I stood beside him, and he handed me a long PVC pipe wrapped in insulation.
“What’s this for?” I asked as he threaded a wire through the pipe.
“Hopefully a freeze-proof automatic waterer for the chickens,” Evan replied. “While it might not feel like it now, winter will be here before we know it, and if there is a really bad storm, we don’t want to risk losing the chickens if we can’t get out to them. I’m also making an automatic feeder we can fill for them.”
I didn’t mention that if we were in a bad storm, then the chickens would have access to the snow to stay hydrated. I’m sure Evan had already thought of that and figured out a reason why this was necessary. And even if he hadn’t, the waterer would still be helpful to have. I held the pipe for him, aware that he probably could have done this without my help, but in true Evan fashion, he was more than willing to share the load to include me in the project. That was the beautiful thing about Evan: he didn’t care about getting credit for anything and often downplayed his involvement. He was happy to help and took pride in his work. That was all he needed.
I watched him work until my feelings for him felt like they would explode if I didn’t say what I came to say. “Evan?”
He paused his work and looked at me, concern creasing his eyes. “Yeah?”
“I love you.” I smothered my laugh the best I could at the myriad of emotions that played across his face. Disbelief, shock, confusion, and eventually happiness. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when he reopened them, my breath caught in my throat at the amount of heat I saw in them.
Evan ripped the pipe from my hands and threw it behind him as he lifted me onto the worktable and claimed my mouth in a searing kiss. The kiss left me breathless and desperate for him, and I reached for his pants at the same time he went for mine.
“I love you, too. So fucking much,” Evan rasped.
I had just reached my hand inside his pants and wrapped it around his cock when several things happened at once to remind us where we were. Killer hopped onto the table and meowed before crawling into my lap, purring like a machine. The chickens squawked, and Cora laughed somewhere nearby. I bit my lip and looked at Evan. We laughed as we untangled ourselves.
“Right, maybe not here,” I said as I scratched Killer behind the ears.
“We could go home,” Evan suggested as he rebuttoned his pants.
I was contemplating his suggestion and about to agree to it when Cora arrived. “There you are! Dyana, do you think you could...” She trailed off as her eyes bounced between me and Evan. Her eyes twinkled as a knowing smile spread across her face. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” I said quickly.
“Yes,” Evan said at the same time.
