So beautiful.
My hands dropped, and I took a step forward. “Dan—”
He held out a palm. “Nope.”
“I want you—”
“Yeah, well, I want a lot of things.” His glare pivoted down and then up my body, and he sounded almost angry.
I’d been close, so close, and there’d been no numbness, only desire and sensation. Didn’t he understand how monumental that was? And then he’d pulled away.
“Couldn’t we—”
“No!” He stopped pacing, his eyes a little wild. “We’re taking this slow.”
“Because Dr. Kasai told us to? Or because you want to? Or because you don’t think I can?” I couldn’t disguise my bitterness.
His eyes were a jumble of emotions. “Because . . .”
“Because?”
“Because it means something!”
He’d shouted the words and the ensuing silence was deafening.
An answering swelling in my heart reached out to him, and before I knew it, my feet had taken me across the room again. He watched me come, his gaze wary, bracing, as though he expected me to strike or otherwise hurt him. But when I was close, he pulled me into his arms, holding me tight and releasing his favorite expletive under his breath.
I clung to him.
“I have to be honest here,” he said on a rough rush next to my ear, his voice was much quieter, yet doubly impassioned. “I have to tell you my limits, because you have to trust me. So you have to know . . . you mean something to me. It’s never going to be a finish line with you, or something to cross off a list. It’s—I want—I need—it to be everything.”
I stiffened a little at his words, recognition giving way to guilt. Before he’d thrown me for a loop by trading kisses for items of clothing, I’d been contemplating flowcharts and check boxes. Touching him, being in the moment with him, enjoying the tension between us had been infinitely more substantial.
And dangerous.
A difference I hadn’t comprehended until right now. Dan was not a box to be checked. He was not a task, a risk to be measured against potential benefit.
He wants surrender.
“I can’t control this,” I said, my eyes and nose stinging—not sure if I was referring to what had happened moments ago, or how I was falling in love with him, how I was probably already in love with him—and I pressed myself more firmly into his embrace. “It’s overwhelming.”
“It’s supposed to be.” His hold shifted to my shoulders and he held me away, just a few inches so our eyes could meet. “Trust me,” he said, and it sounded like a plea.
“I do.”
He shook his head, telling me he disagreed. “Trust me that I want every part of you.”
I stared at him, panic ballooning within me. “What if parts of me are messy? Or ugly?”
He smirked. “Parts of you are ugly and messy. I still want you. I want the ugly and the beautiful and everything in between. You don’t pick and choose the parts of a person you want. Shit, I’m the ugliest fucker I know, and I want to give it all to you.”
I laughed even as my chin wobbled and, damn it, I was already crying.
His smile was soft, his gaze focusing on the tear that had spilled over my cheek. He didn’t try to wipe it away.
“I want it all, Kit-Kat. I want all of you.”
I nodded, sniffing. “I want all of you, too.”
He placed a gentle kiss over my mouth, and then brushed his lips over the tears on my cheeks before resting his forehead against mine and closing his eyes.
“And I want it to last.” It was a rough whisper.
The words sounded like a wish.
Chapter Twenty-One
Generic (drug): A pharmaceutical drug (typically the chemical name of a drug) that is equivalent to a brand-name product in dosage, strength, route of administration, quality, performance and intended use, but does not carry the brand name.
—FDA.gov
**Dan**
I woke up in a great fucking mood.
We’d kissed. A lot. And then we’d fallen asleep tangled in each other. Kat hadn’t been naked—if she’d been naked, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep—but she was wearing those little pajamas I liked. One of her legs between mine, her arm draped over my stomach, her head on my chest. She smelled like cake.
The best. We should have been doing this all week. A missed opportunity.
But we overslept. We had an appointment with Eugene to go over the will at 8:30 AM; it was now 7:45 AM. I showered first, dressing in the study while she used the facilities, and we left in a hurry. Not even rush hour traffic and wreckers on the Pike could make a dent—no pun intended—in my mood.