“Lacey, wait, please.”
She flipped her hair behind her shoulders and kept walking.
“I love you, Lace,” Nick said on a panting gasp.
She turned around and gaped at him. He came right up to her and took her chin in his hand, frowning when he saw her tears. “Oh, baby.”
He kissed her cheeks, her eyelids and her lips, before pulling away just a fraction of an inch. “Don’t cry, please. You never cry. I’m so damn sorry,” he said softly.
Lacey cried even harder. “You can’t mean it. You said it was great sex. What about that?” she tossed back at him around sniffles.
“I would have said anything to keep you with me. You’ve never given me a single hint that you wanted more than sex. I thought if I told you the truth I’d lose you.”
Lacey’s tears turned to wild, hiccupping sobs, only now it was from the joy filling her heart and soul.
Nick, the poor, misunderstood man, ground out, “Christ, if it will make you stop crying, you can use some of that karate on me.”
Lacey laughed and launched herself into Nick’s arms, nearly knocking them both to the ground. She grabbed handfuls of his hair and pulled him down for a scorching kiss. When she released him, he stared at her with so much love and tenderness it made her confess her own feelings.
“I love you, too, you crazy idiot.”
He grinned stupidly down at her and kissed her repeatedly.
When he finally came up for air, he looked at their surroundings, and chuckled. “Uh, maybe we should take this back inside. We seem to be creating quite a stir.”
Lacey glanced around Nick’s neighborhood. An elderly woman across the street squinted in her disapproval and a teenage boy mowing the lawn seemed rather rapt by their behavior. If they didn’t move off the street, the boy was liable to cut off his own foot.
Taking him by the hand, Lacey practically ran back to his house. Once she had him inside, she slammed him up against the back of the door and asked in breathless wonder, “Did you really mean what you said?”
He sobered instantly as he stroked her tangled hair away from her face with both hands. She wondered about his side, but if he was still in pain, it didn’t register on his face.
“I’ve loved you for awhile now, Lacey. I love you more than life itself.” His words were so soft she nearly missed them. “It’s killed me seeing you with other men.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I had no idea,” she uttered in shocked surprise.
“Why do you think I came up with this stupid plan to give you lessons?” His hands traveled down her back to her ass, cupping the round globes. “You wanted to be friends, and at first so did I. It didn’t take me long to figure out it wasn’t enough. I wanted a life with you. It was always only you. The way I was raised, it was cold and lonely. But from the first time I met you, I felt like I’d come home. I never really understood what I was missing until you walked into my life.”
Nick’s hands drifted around to her front where he deftly unbuttoned her shorts. Slipping them down her legs, he cupped her soft mound in one hand. Apparently, she’d forgotten her panties as well as her shoes. She heard Nick’s impatient groan.
“Tell me you want me, Lacey. And I don’t mean for just tonight. I want forever,” he demanded. “Nothing less will do anymore.”
Lacey’s heart raced and her body was on fire. She was wildly, madly in love. “Oh, I’ve been so incredibly blind. I wish I’d known the way you felt, but I’m just so glad you didn’t give up on me. I do want you, Nick, forever,” she moaned.
She stepped out of her shorts, reached between their bodies and swiftly undid his jeans. She wrenched them down his long, powerful legs. Without waiting another second, he lifted her up and shoved her down onto his waiting cock.
“Put your legs around me, baby,” he rasped, and when she did, he clutched her ass and began pumping into her warm, tight sheath. “Say it again. Tell me you love me.”
“I love you, Nick. Forever.” Lacey fairly screamed the words as she climaxed in his loving embrace.
Nick thrust into her hard one last time then he poured himself inside her. “I love you, too, baby. Forever.”
Epilogue
“Did you have to call both your brothers?”
Lacey patted Nick’s cheek and said soothingly, “Think of it this way. The sooner everything’s packed, the sooner we can be alone together.”
He glanced around Lacey’s apartment, now almost bare, and smiled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He frowned when he saw Blade staring at him, yet again. “Blade keeps looking at me as if he wants to do serious harm to my person.”