“How can you say that? You are everything, Kyla. You’re strong and beautiful, funny and caring. You have a heart of gold. Though you’ve been dealt some difficult cards in life, that doesn’t define who you are; it only shows how much strength you actually have. I fell in love with you because of your strength and your goodness and…everything about you. Please let me prove to you how much.” He reached out and gently pried her arms away from her body so he could take her hands into his.
“I…I stopped believing in love when I lost my family,” she said, the pain so clear in her eyes that he felt it to his very soul.
“Then let me show you how to love again.”
She allowed him to fold her into his arms, and she rested her head against his chest and sobbed. A flood of emotions she’d been holding in for so long broke free, and he was strong enough to carry her through.
“Please just let me love you, Kyla. I promise to cherish you, promise to help you carry the burden you’ve been carrying alone for too long.”
“I love you too, Tanner. I don’t know when or how, but I’ve missed you, missed your smile and your jokes, missed the way I felt when I was with you. The pain faded, hid away for a while when I was with you. I think I felt guilty about that, felt as if it were wrong for me to keep living my life, to be happy when the rest of my family couldn’t be here to experience such wonderful emotions. I know now that’s not what they would want. I know they’d want me to be happy.”
“Yes, they would,” he said, and leaned down and captured her lips.
As he kissed her, his heart flooding with love, he suddenly noticed the clapping. Lifting his head, he looked around and saw the hall filled with people who had just witnessed his groveling. But he didn’t even care. The old Tanner would have, but he was a new man. Hadn’t he said that much to the world?
“Congratulations, sonny,” the nosy neighbor said, then went back into her apartment now that the show was over.
The construction workers didn’t move.
“Get back to work,” Tanner told them, trying to sound stern, but not able to pull it off, since he couldn’t get the goofy grin from his face.
“Let’s have some privacy,” Kyla said, pulling away and holding out her hand for him to take.
She didn’t have to tell him twice.
The two entered her apartment, and he couldn’t believe how nervous he was. He couldn’t mess this up now that she’d finally let him in.
“I don’t want you to think this is about sex, but I want you so badly,” he said, unable to quit running his hands up and down her back.
“It’s definitely about sex. I want you too, Tanner,” she admitted, then pressed up against him and kissed him with a hunger that could only match his.
Lifting her up into his arms, he carried her to her room and stood her in front of her bed, slowly taking off each piece of her clothing, his fingers shaking as he bared her body to his enraptured eyes. After laying her gently on the covers, he yanked off his own clothes without taking his eyes from her.
Then he climbed up on top her, lying between the perfect heat of her thighs, and he kissed her again, enjoying the slow tangling of their tongues as they reacquainted themselves with each other.
He moved his head down her neck, sucking her skin and rejoicing in her taste. After skimming his lips across the tender mounds of her br**sts, he proceeded to her stomach, enjoying the quiver in her belly while rested his chest against her core.
Lightly, he kissed her stomach while he caressed her sides and arms, her skin a perfect silk beneath his rough hands. Bringing his arms beneath her, he lifted her up and moved lower, cherishing this moment.
She pushed up against him, her body knowing exactly what it needed, and slowly, inch by mesmerizing inch, he approached her very center, letting his tongue trace the sexy bone of her hip and then going to where her heat was calling him.
The quiet moan escaping her throat floated around him and made his body throb with even greater need. He pressed his lips downward, then fluttered kisses on the soft folds of her womanhood.
Lifting one of her legs, he placed it on his shoulder, opening her fully up to him so he could gaze at her perfection before leaning down and tasting her again, exciting her, building her pleasure to nearly unbearable levels.
Unable to take it slow any longer, he kissed her heat intimately, worshipping her beautiful folds with his hot tongue and making her cry out when he sucked her swollen bud into his mouth and swiped his tongue across it.
“Tanner, please take me,” she gasped out, and though he wanted to sink within her, he also wanted to keep drinking her in, feeling her, making her burn.
His arousal pulsed with incredible need, and he reached down and gripped it, trying to ease the ache. It didn’t help. It had been too long since he’d been inside her, and his body remembered all too well how good she felt.
But Tanner continued to tease her, at first slowly, and then with growing speed, kissing, licking and sucking her tender flesh until he felt her tense, felt her body find the release he’d been taking his sweet time building for her.
When he slipped his finger inside her, the walls of her womanhood pulsed around him, and her wet heat showed him she wanted more, needed to have him inside of her.
When the last of her tremors died down, he let his tongue caress her core one last time, enjoying that her taste had become even more exquisite than before, and her h*ps pushed upward, seeking him.
“Please, Tanner,” she begged.
He thought he wasn’t going to deny the two of them any longer. But as he kissed his way back up her flawless body, he had to stop at her hardened peaks and suck each into his mouth while holding the other one, his fingers pinching and teasing, making her gasp and pant and moan.
Finally, their bodies were lined up, his arousal pressed against her, and he looked down into her eyes, feeling that he could get lost there forever, feeling that he was finally home.
“I love you, Kyla, love you more than I ever imagined anyone could love. I know I said I wouldn’t bring up marriage, I know I said this was too soon, but when you know something is right, you just know. I want you to be my wife. I want to spend the rest of my life with you — making love, laughing, crying, learning and growing. I never want to spend another night without you. Please let me have you forever.”
Kyla’s eyes widened. “It’s too soon,” she said, though there was no conviction in her voice.
“Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. Just tell me what you want,” he said, pushing forward the slightest bit, connecting their bodies together, but just barely.