Page 137 of Stolen Kiss

I didn’t know. I was almost thirty, but I was sorely lacking in any real-world experiences.

I stood from where I had been crouching at the side of her bed, and when I turned to the door, I was surprised to see Jensen standing there. I walked over to him, ignoring how good he smelled. I didn’t need him to distract me, but when I looked up and met his gray eyes, I wondered how I could not be affected by him.

Images of the two of us entangling in each other arms ran through my mind. I wanted him to hold me and promise everything would be better.

“Have a drink with me?” he asked in a whisper.

I hesitated for only a quick second before I nodded.

I ignored the way his eyes lit up, and before I knew what was happening, Jensen grabbed my hand and led me downstairs to the kitchen.

I reluctantly pulled away when we got there, and purposely avoided looking over at him.

The air grew thick around us, and I shifted my weight a little before walking over to the barstool by the kitchen island and sitting down.

Jensen came back moments later with two glasses and a bottle of scotch. I wasn’t big into drinking hard liquor, but I supposed having one drink with him wouldn’t hurt, and if I was being honest, I wanted to prolong my time with him.

He poured two fingers of scotch for me, then himself. I held the glass up and he clinked it, our eyes making contact, holding, before I looked away. I cleared my throat.

“Thank you,” I said. “For today.”

“You don’t have to thank me for this, sweetheart,” he answered gruffly.

I looked down at the golden liquid in my cup swirling it around. “Now what?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“What’s supposed to happen with us?”

He placed his glass down on the island and turned to me fully. “I’ve made my feelings for you very clear. I want you, Emilia. I love you, and I want everything with you. But I also know I had more time to come to terms with this than you did. So anything that will happen with us from now on is up to you. I’ll be here and waiting for the day you decide to come back to me.”

I frowned at that. “You say it like it’s easy.”

“It is easy. You sealed your fate that night. You stole a kiss from me. I have been hopelessly yours since that moment on.”

I didn’t know how to answer him. “You say that like you’re going to wait for me. To decide.”

“I will wait for you,” he answered without hesitation.

I laughed at that. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How so?”

“What if a year from now, I’m still indecisive about us?”

“Then I’ll have waited for you for a year. And I will continue to wait.”

“What if I decide I don’t want to be with you?”

I pretended not to see the look of pain in his eyes. Fuck. “I hope that’s not the case, but if it is… fuck, baby. I don’t know if I can let you go, even then. But I won’t stand in your way to find happiness elsewhere.”

I took another sip of my drink. I asked him what had been bugging me since his confession. “How come you never came back for me? In London,” I clarified. “I waited for you at that bar. I stayed on and continued to work there, even after I graduated. Even after I took on a job at Bowing’s, I worked part time at the bar.”

I felt silly doing it. Admittedly, it was the reason I stayed in London for two years after I graduated. I was waiting for him, and he never showed up.

He didn’t say anything for a while. Then he said, without looking at me, “When we met, you were still so young. I didn’t want to disrupt your life. I wanted you to have the full college experience. But two years after, my grandpa died, and we were given that stipulation at the will reading. I walked away and essentially had to start over. I didn’t know how to start anything with you, then.

“But if you want to know the real reason, I didn’t want to start anything with you. Not at that time.”

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