Page 77 of How to Say I Do
It was our first kiss since Mexico.
We clung to each other as if we’d never separate, our hands locked together so tightly they began to go numb. I remembered every millimeter of him. There was the rise at the small of his back, and there was the ticklish spot beneath his ribs where he bit down on my shoulder when I spiraled my fingertip. He remembered me, too, and knew where to caress me and how to make me moan or gasp or stop breathing.
But when I tried to go for his belt and his buckle, he stilled my hands and said, “I’m still—”
I kissed whatever he was about to say out of his mouth.I’m still not sure,or I’m still trying to decide about you, or whatever it was. I couldn’t hear it.Not yet. Don’t end yet. Not yet, please.
In the morning, we rode back to the ranch holding hands. I made coffee while he led Peanut and Pickle to the barn, and, after he bounded up the porch steps, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into a kiss that seemed almost mournful.
“What?” I pulled back. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
His eyes were a tempestuous gray, and he looked so unsure of himself, rife with vulnerability. “I still need to take things slow.” His voice was barely louder than a whisper. “It’s not that I don’t feel— Because I do, I just…” He seemed guarded. Almost, even, afraid. “Noël, I’ve been in love with you since Cancun,” he said in a rush. “I know that sounds crazy, I know it does, but I fell in love with you down there and I’ve neverstoppedloving you, and I want to do this right this time because—”
I kissed him slowly, surely. My hands cradled his face, and he chased my kiss when I finally ended it, like he wanted to just stand on his porch and kiss me forever.
“I want to do it right this time, too,” I whispered. “But I’m such a fuck-up, Wyatt. I screw everything up, and I’m going to screw this up, IknowI will—”
He pushed our foreheads together and held me to him.
“But I do want this. Us. I know we’ve got so much shit to figure out, and it’s fucking terrifying, because what if we can’t, and what if—” I was rambling again.
“We try,” Wyatt said. His lips moved against mine, kissing me as he settled me down with his strong and simple statement. “We try, Noël.”
Somehow, and some unfathomable way, I’d caught this man’s attention and affection, and even more unbelievably, he’d seen something in the wreck and ruin of my life that made him want to know me more. He’d put in the time to peel me back, patient layer by patient layer, uncovering my contradictions and my fears and my failings, and bringing back to life parts of me I’d long forgotten had existed. Being with him, being around him, and feeling his love, felt like I was surfacing from the bottom of the ocean.
All the time and energy I’d been worried about him wasting, and all the frustrations I’d wanted to save him from. I thought I was a stubborn man, but Wyatt could beat me by a million miles. All I’d really accomplished, when I was trying to save him from the disaster of me, was make him dig in his heels. The struggle, the heartache, the confusion—
Somehow—astonishingly, amazingly—it had all been worth it to him.
Iseemed worth it to him.
CHAPTER21
Noël
Of course,then we ran into Liam.
We were in town. Frank and Connie had texted Wyatt and told us to come down for dinner. Frank had gone fishing and hauled in several beauties, and he knew how much Wyatt adored fresh fish. Come on down, they said, because they were fixing up the catfish just the way Wyatt had always loved it. I was unbelievably charmed.
They gave us a quiet table in the back, complete with a blue gingham tablecloth and a vase with a fresh sunflower in the center. Frank led us to our seats, past the ranchers who came to town every afternoon for coffee and chitchat, and a handful of families settling in for dinner.
No one else had a candle or a sunflower on their table.
Eyes were on us. Smiles were getting smothered in napkins. Wyatt was flushed and fumbling for a thank you.
“This is lovely,” I told Frank. “Thank you for thinking of us.”
Frank smiled as Wyatt pulled out my chair. Three tables away, Dean, my octogenarian friend, raised his coffee in a toast to us. When Wyatt settled into his seat, I twined my fingers through his on the tabletop. His thumbs rubbed circles over my knuckles.
Connie brought us hush puppies and sweet tea with enough sugar to slap you across the face. She stayed to chat, and we spent twenty minutes hearing all about her morning and Frank’s fishing trip. Before she bustled back to the kitchen, she tucked a strand of Wyatt’s hair behind his ear.
They brought Wyatt a pile of fried fish larger than his head, so fresh I could still smell the river. He inhaled every bite. I’d had no idea he loved fried fish, and I was hunting my memories of Manhattan for the best seafood dive, somewhere that could approximate, maybe, the authenticity of Frank and Connie’s restaurant. I’d search out the best seafood in Manhattan for him because he was absolutely going to visit now. We were doing this, we were really doing this—
“Well, I’ll bedamned.”
We were both so absorbed in each other that we hadn’t heard Liam coming. I only recognized the click of his boot heels on the old wooden floors after he’d stopped next to our table.
Wyatt’s eyes closed.
