Page 39 of Forever Yours on Christmas Eve
“Of course I did,” she said, biting her lip in excitement at his reaction. “That fight was a good reason why we met in the first place.”
Sev shook his head in awe as he turned to the next page, stopping to take in another drawing. This one was done in pen and ink, and was clearly of the home she and her father had rented on The Point.
“This is us when I dropped you off,” Sev said, lost in hismemories. “When we made the pact.”
“It is. I can’t believe you got it.” Kelsey smiled at his recollection. “To anyone else, it would just look like a house and a shadowy couple of figures.”
“No, I can see what it means,” he said, eyes glued to the picture. “I remember it, too.”
Giving her a quick smile, he flipped to the next page, expecting another fabulous drawing. But instead, he stopped cold and read out loud the line at the top.
“Things I’ve always wanted to say to Stewart Severance.” His face turned contemplative as his eyes grazed the words she’d etched into the drawing paper. “I love his smile.”
“True,” she chirped, as she suddenly didn’t have much of a voice, emotion wedging its way in her throat.
He turned to her and grinned. “I love your smile too.”
Of course, that made her smile despite her watery eyes. Reaching an arm around her again, he tugged her to him, her side pressed to his, and their heads nearly touching. Holding the book between them, he began reading aloud her most personal thoughts, each line a gift.
“When I feel down, he always lifts me up. Whether it’s a joke or a story, or just something to make me stop and think, I know he believes in me, even when I don’t believe in myself.
“He’s always on my side. Even when he probably shouldn’t be. Even when I don’t deserve it. He always has my back, and I hope he knows I’ll always have his, too.
“When I think of the future, I don’t want one unless he’s in it.” The words rolled off his tongue so easily, but his brain could not connect what he was seeing. He stopped, rereading the last sentence, turning his head, and locking eyes with hers. “Do you mean this?”
“Every word,” she said, steeling herself in her honesty. One thing about Kelsey was that she didn’t play games. She wasn’t subtle or coy about things that were important to her. “Over the past year, you’ve become this incredible part of my life, Sev. I… I want more of you.”
“You want to be mine?” he asked, his face just inches from hers.
“Yes,” she answered without any hesitation. “Two years ago, I wandered into a bar in my wedding dress, broken-hearted. Not because my fiancé had cheated on me. But because I thought I was living my best life, and I realized, in that moment, I wasn’t. And at that painful, awful time, you were there for me.”
“I did just what anyone would do.”
“See, that’s the thing,” she said, shaking her head. “A stranger wouldn’t have indulged a bet. He wouldn’t have taken me to dinner. And he certainly wouldn’t have spared the time to get me away from my ex.” She paused. “That’s something only you would have done.”
He pondered the idea, listening to her words. Her heart.
“Do you remember what you told me that first night we were together? When I came up with the idea to meet up again in a year?” She cupped his cheek and stroked the hairs on his jawline mindlessly, like the sensation focused her. “You said to take some time and rediscover myself. Anyone else would have just looked to take some random guy’s place. But you wanted what was best for me.”
“Of course, I do,” he said, as if the idea were preposterous otherwise. “I knew no matter how I saw you, if you didn’t believe it, it didn’t make a difference.”
“It took me some time to figure that out,” she said, shifting her hand to the back of his head, her nails gently scratching against his scalp just the way he loved. “It turns out, I needed this hard year to really turn my life around. To start going after what I wanted.”
Sev’s heart was pounding like a bass drum in his chest. “What do you want, sweetheart?”
“You,” she said without hesitation. “I love you, Sev.”
Dropping the book to his lap, Sev wrapped his arms around her, kissing her with a passion he’d never felt before. She held onto him, spearing her fingers into his hair as she met his kiss with a fervor that, before this moment, he didn’t realize she possessed. She wanted him. Needed him.
And after this, there wasn’t a chance on earth he’d let her go.
Toppling over onto the ready-made couch, Sev sought to landoff to her side, so as not to crush her. While his lips were still fully engaged, her words sank in, and his mouth spread wide in an uncontrollable grin.
When he finally pulled back and looked at her, panting like he’d just run a marathon, he admitted to her something that he had been holding in his heart for way too long. “I love you too, Kels.”
The look of pure love on her face, reflected back in his eyes, made everything worth it. All the time they’d been apart. The slow pace they’d gone. The work they’d done on themselves. It all culminated to this very moment.
And in his heart, he promised himself that it would be forever.
