“You don’t count the laundromat?” I tease.

She laughs softly. “We can hardly call that a date.”

We’re quiet for a little while, both of us watching the ducks, as a light breeze blows through the park and causes the bare-branched trees to rustle. My temples are pounding so hard it’s like a hammer is cracking against my skull. My body is buzzing with nerves and adrenaline and lust and so much else.

“Lori, there’s something I need to tell you. I can’t hold it back any longer.”

“Uh oh.” She turns to me, still in my embrace, leaning back in my arms. “That sounds ominous.”

“I hope not.”

I force myself to look her in the eye, not to look away. I can’t keep taking the coward’s way out.

Smoothing my hands down to hers, I hold both of them. We’re standing the same way we will on our wedding day, at the altar… but I can’t let myself think that far ahead. All that matters is the here and now, the breeze rustling my woman’s hair, the way her lips are turned down into a frown.

“What is it, Lukas?” she asks.

“It’s hard to explain.”

She takes a step forward, looking up at me with those wide eyes of hers. “Try.”

I smirk. “Just know I understand how crazy it sounds, okay? I’m not blind to the fact you might call me insane when I’m done.”

“Try me, Lukas.”

I swallow as I try to work up to it. I’ve never felt like this, with so much trying to burst out of me as I try to push it back down. Even before my boxing fights, I never felt this all-consuming feeling of anxiety, a whispering voice telling me I’m not going to be able to handle it when she tells me I’ve gone too far.

“Lukas?”

“You are mine, Lori,” I growl.

She gasps and the words start coming out of me so fast I couldn’t stop them if I tried. It’s like there’s a volcano inside of me, gushing with flaming heat. The animal inside – the one who has never questioned this for a second – has taken control now.

My voice comes out deep and rough and intense.

“You belong to me. That’s the only way I can explain it. When I laid eyes on you, with your curvy body and your beautiful smile and that shy sassiness in your eyes… I knew I had to have you, Lori. I knew it without even knowing how. It was like this—”

“This compulsion,” she whispers, reaching up to swat at her cheek.

“Yes,” I growl. “It was agony, being close to you without being able to let it all out. But I can’t keep it inside anymore. In my mind, I’ve already claimed you, claimed you for life… When I look at you, I see the life we talked about over dinner. I see a future. I see a family.

“And when I think about another man ever daring to try and take you from me, or even thinking about it, I can’t explain how crazy it makes me. The thought of you with another man makes me feel deadly like I’d do anything to keep you mine. Mine alone. Forever.”

I pause as she wipes tears from her cheeks.

She’s looking up at me with a hard-to-read expression. She could be trying to work out how to tell me I’m crazy, or that she feels the same.

Anything.

“I know this is a lot,” I go on, taking a step forward, staring down at my woman. “But I can’t fight it anymore. You belong to me, Lori. I own you. I own your curvy hips and your gorgeous smile and that unique and perfect look you get in your eyes when you’re excited. I want – need – to be with you for the rest of my life, to raise a family with you, to support you as you go after your dreams.”

She blinks and more tears slide down her cheeks, but this time she doesn’t wipe them away. Instead, she stands on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around me.

Clinging into my neck, she leans in for a kiss.

I meet her halfway, she meets my lips with a new hunger this time, as though she’s letting the full force of my words barrel into her.

She breaks it off, smoothing her hands over my face, clasping onto my cheeks. “Swear you mean it. Swear this isn’t a lie.”

“I’d never lie about this,” I growl. “I swear, Lori. I’ve been driving myself crazy trying not to tell you. It’s only been a couple of weeks. I know how it sounds.”

“It sounds like the life I want,” she murmurs.

My body tenses. “What?”

She nods, her lips shaping into a smile. “I want to be yours, Lukas. I want to belong to you. I want a family, a future. I want everything you’ve described. I had no idea you felt the same.”

Tags: Flora Ferrari Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net