Burn Me Once

But it’s just another form of hiding.

Fighting this with the sex thing is pointless. We know that works.

I hold her at arm’s length.

‘You love me, right?’

‘Yeah. I love you.’

She sounds so angry I can’t help but laugh.

‘Good.’ I nod. ‘Prove it.’

She moves closer to kiss me, but I shake my head. ‘No.’ My eyes are determined. But every single nerve inside me is groaning and protesting my honourable intentions. ‘First we have dinner. We date.’

‘I don’t want to date,’ she says in disbelief—a disbelief I completely understand.

‘Yeah, well, we’re going to.’ I lean in and kiss her lightly. ‘I’m never going to give you a reason to doubt what you mean to me. That’s our new deal. Okay by you?’

She stares at me, her eyes huge, her lips parted, her breath audible. A pulse point is jerking in the base of her throat and, damn it, good intentions or not, I want to reach over and run my teeth over it.

She moves forward, pressing her hips to me so that I’m sure she can feel my rock-hard cock through the fabric of our clothes.

I am desperate to drag her into my bed, but if I play my cards right I’ll have the rest of my life for that. Now is for sealing the deal. Now is for making sure she knows how much I love her and how much she loves me back, so that she can forget about that asswipe Jeremy and begin to see herself like I do.

Brave. Smart. Kind. Good. One of a kind.

‘Deal,’ she purrs. ‘But don’t think I’m going to make it easy for you...’

I relax. I smile at her and she smiles at me and we understand one another. Love is a gamble, but so is life, and my life has new meaning because I have found—unexpectedly, unquestionably—never-ending love.

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