She blinked once, hard, and took two stumbling steps forward. “I thought you said I should cry.”
“Yes. Absolutely. Cry if you need to, but don’t ignore what the tears are about.”
“What? Abram—”
I held a hand out to stop her advance. “I’ve been thinking, and I know you have too. A little less than two weeks, twelve days. You can’t trust someone you don’t know, and trust takes time.”
Mona’s frown deepened, her lips pinching together. “We don’t have time.”
I laughed lightly, because her words were a direct echo of my desperate thoughts. But we were both wrong.
The one thing we finally, finally had was time.
“We have all the time. We have the rest of our lives.”
“I’m confused. You want to be exclusive. Now you say you don’t know me? Are you saying—are you saying you don’t lo—that you don’t feel the same as—as—” She crossed her arms, her chin jutting out, a flash of vulnerability and hurt behind her eyes.
It was the vulnerability that had me heedlessly crossing the short distance, as though yanked, compelled and panicky to touch her before she could build any walls between us.
“No. No. Absolutely not.” I held her face in my hands, ignoring how the gentle touch made her flinch, and stifled the urge to take back my words. Instead, I committed to honesty, no matter how much the thought of losing her now scared the hell out of me. “I love you. I’m crazy about you. I want you, only you. But, Mona—” I touched my forehead to hers, “—God, I don’t want to rush a single moment. I want a first date, and a second date, and a third, and a twenty-third, and an eighty-seventh. I want phone calls and text messages. I want to hear about a day in the life of Mona DaVinci, every day.”
I leaned away, needing to see her eyes, my heart giving a sluggish, painful beat at the conflicting emotions there.
Despite my pledge not to rush, I hurried to add, “I want to get mad at you, and fight, and make up—I can’t wait to make up with you. It’s going to be so great.”
That pulled a hesitant little smile from her and she swallowed, her gaze less stormy. “That does sound nice.”
I grinned at her reluctant reassurance and didn’t miss how her attention shifted to the left side of my face, the deeper of my two dimples.
While she was distracted, I pressed my mouth to hers, stealing a tender kiss and whispered solemnly, “I want to take care of you, when you want me to, when you need it. I want to trust you’ll be there, that I can count on you to take care of me too.”
She sniffed, nodding, her fingers gripping my forearms. “That also sounds nice.”
“Good.” Cautiously relieved, I let go of her cheeks. Smoothing my hands down her shoulders to her sides, I pulled her against me. She came willingly, going soft, lax, just as she’d done before, and my body hummed happily in response.
Well, happily and hornily.