She was his heart. It was as simple as that.
And, as usual, this beautiful, wonderful, kind woman had surprised him.
This time it wasn’t assault by novel or confronting him in a restaurant or getting locked in a bathroom stall.
Instead, she’d decided she’d had enough and was going after what she wanted.
“Garret?” she asked, stroking him and making every single one of his carefully laid out plans poof right out of his head.
“Yeah?” he gritted out, clambering for control and not finding it.
“Can we”—another stroke that had him groaning—“skip the foreplay. Just this once?”
His eyes shot to hers.
She shrugged. “We’ve kinda had three months of foreplay already.”
Good point. Excellent point.
Garret nodded. “You’re right.” He swept her up into his arms, pounded up the stairs. He was inside her bedroom seconds later, tossing Kay onto the mattress, tearing off his clothes.
She slipped out of her panties, tossed them aside. Breathtakingly naked, Kay reached for a packet from her nightstand. “Catch.” She lobbed it at him.
Gotta love a woman with a plan.
Garret caught the condom, tore it open, and rolled it on. He was on top of her by the next second, spreading her thighs, kneeling in between, and then . . . his heart had him pausing.
“You sure?” he asked.
Her eyes softened and she reached up to cup his jaw. “I’m sure.”
“Good,” he said and thrust inside. “Because I’m keeping you.” Her eyes had flitted closed as he’d pushed home, lips parting on a moan, but at his words she peeled back her lids.
Warmth. This woman just imparted so much fucking warmth.
He looked at her and felt . . . everything.
Possessiveness, desire, heat . . . love.
She made him want to write sonnets and horrible love songs, to shout her name from rooftops.
“I love you,” he said.
Her hand came up to rest on his chest, just over his heart. “I love you, too,” she said, tears making the pretty brown of her irises glitter.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Kay shifted beneath him, hips undulating and sucking every rational thought from his mind. “I know I’m supposed to be the romance writer here, and I should be appreciating you and the loveliness of this moment, but can we appreciate it later?” She shifted again. “Because I really need you to move.”
“Yeah?” He pulled out, slid back in.
She nodded. “Fuck now. Romance later.”
Another thrust. Another shared moan.
“Words to live by?” he managed to ask.
“I’d rather live with you,” she said.
“Me too, sweetheart, me too.”
Then they weren’t talking, or at least they didn’t have any more room in their brains for talking. The moment became about sensation—for nerves to fire, for caresses and soft touches to leave goosebumps in their wake, for pleasure to build, orgasms to pull them each over into the abyss, and . . . for hearts to feel.
After, as they lay together, bodies intertwined, Garret knew his heart wouldn’t ever belong to another.
Kay owned it.
And that was perfectly fine with him.