Jameson (In the Company of Snipers #22) - Irish Winters Page 0,68
and this was the beginning of a new kind of life without end. With Maddie. Only Maddie. He knew it then. This wasn’t the last time. It was just the first of many more comings to come. He’d just met her, but he loved her.
Jameson bowed his forehead into her neck, panting as hard as the steam from a freight train, his legs shaking, but damned if he was ready to let her go. Not now. Never.
His dad had always told him that he’d know when he met the right woman. That all the others were just question marks in his book of life. That the real woman would be an exclamation point. And here she was, the exclamation point that felt more like a match that had been lit, bringing him life and light and love. Yet he didn’t dare say the profound L word. There’d be plenty of time for that later. Because there would be hundreds and hundreds of laters. She was his, and, judging by the way she had just taken him into her body, he was hers.
Unmanly tears filled his eyes, and Jameson needed, wanted her to see the real him. Easing away from her neck, he faced her and told her, “I don’t usually do this, but I’m crying, babe. I’m crying like a little kid in the best candy store ever.”
Her breath hitched like he knew it would. “Oh, no. Did I hurt you?”
He had to smile at how she always assumed fault. “No, but you get me, and this is the first time any woman has ever seen me for who I am. I’m sightless, yet here you are, loving me.” He hadn’t meant for that word to pop out like it had.
But Maddie didn’t deny it. Instead, she cupped his jaw and ran a thumb under his eyes. “I’m crying too. You’ve made me happy. It’s almost like you really care about me.”
“I do.” He tilted his neck and his face down to where they were still connected. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care one helluva lot about you.”
“I think I…” She stalled.
“Say it, babe. It’s me, remember? You can tell me anything.”
Like the warrior she truly was beneath that timid shell, she squeezed him with all those wonderful feminine muscles, sending the last of his brainpower into the netherworld below his waist.
“I think I love you, Jameson Tenney,” she said with sultry, sexy conviction. “I know it’s too early, and we just met and, you probably have lots of girlfriends, but I—”
“Only one. You. Shut up and kiss me,” he ordered around her silly, flapping lips. With every last beat of his heart, he delved into her warm, wet mouth, licking her into a silence that turned to moaning and groaning, until he took hold of the situation. They came together that time, both soaring with a hiss and a growl, then falling back to earth like the brightest, best Fourth of July fireworks ever.
Utterly spent and completely boneless, he took her down to the tiled shower floor with him while the water rained down over them. There was nothing more to hide, but there was something to say.
“I wish I were brave like you,” he told her honestly.
That earned him an unladylike snort. “Me? I’m not brave.”
“Yeah, you are. You had the balls to tell me you loved me. I wanted to, but I didn’t want to scare you, so I didn’t say it. But I’m telling you now. I love you, Maddie Bannister. Think I fell for you the second you charged through Mark’s door and straight into my arms.”
“That was just yesterday morning,” she breathed, sitting on his lap, their legs spread straight in front of them, her toes pointing North, his pointing East.
He pulled her naked self against him, content to sit there and hold her until the warm water ran out. It was his turn to be brave, and maybe a little foolish. “Marry me.”
She twisted on his lap. “Really?” Surprise and a hint of shock ruled her voice. “You want…? Are you sure you want…?”
“You,” he breathed. “Yes, I’m sure. Never been more sure. I’m a SEAL, Maddie. I know what I want, and I go after what I want, and I want you. Not just for tonight or next week or the rest of the year. I want all of you. For the rest of my life.”
He could tell she was shaking her head and looking down at herself, maybe wringing