Chapter 29

Chapter 29
He stopped me with a look so tender, so loving, that I almost melted right then and there. Those cool yellow eyes warmed me all the way to my core and sent heat radiating through me. “You trust me?”

I bit my lip and nodded. “It took me...” I swallowed. Saying what I was about to say was hard, but I wanted – no, needed – to get out. “Trusting you is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I don’t think I’ve ever let myself fall for someone like I did for you.”

It all came out at once, in a big long rush. I was scared that I was going to screw everything up. That I was going to mess this chance up like I had most of my others by being afraid. This time was different though.

“And, well, it took me a lot more than it should have for me to say that just now. I really hope this doesn’t change your mind about anything. About me, or about us, or—”

Erik’s answer was to shush me with a kiss. His lips against mine so hard and deep and hungry, filled me with such warmth and security that I could hardly stand not having him completely right then and there. He took a breath, pushing my lips apart and swirling his tongue against mine for a moment.

When Erik pulled away, he slid his teeth – that I noticed were starting to get a bit sharper – along my lip, and sucked as it popped back into place.

“Nothing you could ever say would make me regret what we’ve done, what I’ve got. Nothing in the world could make me regret you. You understand that, right?”

“It’s just hard for me after everything to sit back and think that, finally, something good is happening to me and that I’m not going to ruin it. I never thought, never in my whole life, that taking some dumb job from an online ad was going to change my whole life, you know?”

Erik studied my face for a second. He opened his mouth, then reconsidered. “It changed mine too, you know,” he said a moment later. The fingers against my sex slid upward, and he cupped my face in his hands.

“It’s okay, Izzy,” he said. “Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re going through, I want you to tell me about it, all right?”

I nodded, the tears came. “It’s just... after my whole life, this is really happening, and I can’t let myself believe that it’s really happening.”

Erik watched and waited. “Anything you need to say,” he kissed me again, “never feel like you have to keep secrets. Never feel like you have to be afraid alone. All right?”

With him holding my face in his hands, I just let go.

“I thought we were at goodbye,” I said sniffing. “I thought the other day, we were over, and I thought I’d gone and messed up yet another good thing by being... me.”

“Hey, hey,” Erik said, wiping the tears out of my eyes with his huge thumbs. “That wasn’t your fault. That was me bumbling around and... and me being afraid.”

“What?” I said, sniffling harder. “You? Afraid?”

He nodded. “I had to realize that the only reason I was holding off on marking you was... well, I didn’t trust myself not to make a stupid decision.

So I was hunting for any damn excuse I could. But now—”

“Don’t say that,” I said. “You’re not stupid, you were just being careful.”

“No, I was being a coward. When you left, I felt my heart jump right out of my chest. I was afraid you were serious. You have no idea how glad I was when I saw you looking down at me from that window. It was... I don’t know how to explain it, but it was like find someone I thought I’d lost.”

“No,” I said with a smile through the tears rolling down my cheeks and into Erik’s hands. “That’s exactly what did happen.”

He kissed me again, the sweetest, softest, most gentle kiss I’d ever experienced. He caressed my lips, then my cheek, before warming my neck and sending goosebumps down my chest. “I never wanted anything as bad as I’ve wanted you, Isabel,” he whispered. “I don’t know how or why, but I feel like everything up to this point was just waiting. Just build up. Just...

wasting time for you to come along.”

“Really? You really think that?”

He nodded. “The first time I saw you get out of that half-broken Bonneville with the one window that didn’t go down, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I watched you. You know that?”

I shook my head. “You did? When I first showed up?”

“Yeah. I remember it like it was yesterday. You had a white coat, blue knit hat thing, and those knee boots that I love so much. You looked around when you got out of the car like you were trying to figure out which building to go into – because you know, there’s so many courthouses in

Jamesburg’s town square.”

He smiled, and I laughed. It was just like he said. It was exactly the way he told it.

“You looked left,” he kissed me. “Then right.” And again, this time on the other cheek. “And then you finally looked straight at the building, and I saw your perfect face. The second I saw your face, I fell in love with you,

Isabel. And I never fell out, not even for a second.”

“And now here we are,” I said. His thickness against me, through our clothes, had me ready to fall over. “You’re about to make me your mate and then...” I shrugged.

“After that,” Erik said, “who cares?”

I nodded, smiling. “Who cares.”

The next kiss tasted so sweet it was like honey on the rim of a teacup.