Reese

Vega picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder. “Say what you want, Duchess, but it was quiet around here until you came back.”

I stop fighting him as he carries me out the door. “Do you wish that I hadn’t come back?”

He stops and drops me back onto my feet, places his big hands on my shoulders, and looks into my eyes. “Fuck no. You walking back into my life like you did was… I’d gotten sick of waiting for you to come back to me. I decided I was going to come find you myself.”

“Really?” I squeak out in shock.

“How is it you don’t see what we see?” he asks, genuinely confused.

“I know you said you’d always wanted me, but…” I trail off. Taking a deep breath I continue, “I’ve never been one to focus on my appearance unless it was for work. This is just the skin I was born in. I don’t consider myself ugly, but I don’t think much about me being pretty either. Seems a pretty vapid way to waste time. How I look always took a backseat to how my body worked. I had to be fit and strong, and that’s all that mattered.”

“And your ability to focus so singularly meant nothing else ever occurred to you, did it?”

“Well, I’m pretty driven, but I wasn’t oblivious to everything. There was this ridiculously hot guy I spent half my life crushing on,” I tease as I lift up onto my toes and wrap my arms around his neck and his hands slide down to my hips.

“Pretty, smart, fierce, and she has good taste. I’m a lucky, lucky man.”