Page 62 of Bullet
“Can we do that again?” she asks.
I laugh. “We will, but not now. I shouldn’t have let it go that far.”
She frowns. “Don’t regret it. I don’t.”
I press a kiss to her nose as I pull her from the wall and start walking down the hall.
“I don’t regret it. I could never. I want to take this slow, though. Do right by you,” I tell her.
“Doing right is overrated. That felt right. Are you saying you won’t let me take care of you?” she asks, squeezing her thighs around my hips as I carry her into her bedroom.
“Not tonight. I only wanted to prove to you that I’m devoted to you. We haven’t even been on an official date. Let’s start there and see how things progress,” I tell her.
She sighs as I lie her on her back. She pulls me down on top of her.
“Will you at least stay a while?” she asks.
“Of course,” I tell her, kissing her lightly.
Then I settle next to her, pulling her into my arms.
“The girls said I should get to know you a bit more,” she tells me.
“Yeah? What do you want to know?” I ask.
“Well, I know you have two siblings. Do you ever see them?” she asks.
“Not really. I talk to them sometimes, but their life is so different from mine. It’s hard to relate. I love them and would do anything for them, but I’m not in the same place they are anymore.”
“I wish I had siblings. I always thought I liked being an only child, but now it feels so lonely.”
I kiss the top of her head. “You are never truly alone. You have me and the girls and all the brothers. I know it’s not the same, but in a way, you do have siblings. In all of them, at least. I hope you don’t view me like a brother,” I joke.
“Ew. Yeah, no. You are not my brother, that’s for sure.” She laughs.
“Thank God, because that was about to be awkward otherwise.”
She turns in my arms, looking me in the eye. “My dad gets the final say on us, doesn’t he?”
I give her a solemn nod. “He does and he never wanted you part of this life. Probably even more so now.”
“How are we going to convince him?” she asks.
“Don’t you worry about that. It’s my job to show him that I’m the right one for you,” I promise her.
“What if you don’t convince him?”
“Then we run away together,” I lie.
I would want to run away with her, but I would never take her away from the last bit of family she has. No matter how much I love her and it would kill me to be without her, I wouldn’t be able to do it.
Still, I let her live in the fantasy.
“We could go to Tahiti,” she whispers.
“Bermuda. I hear people get lost there.” I match her tone.
She giggles. “Imagine having our own private beach. We could sunbathe naked.”
