Restraint - Adriana Locke Page 0,93
loving yourself first. And Holt helped me love me before I loved him.
“Do you?” he asks. “Do you love me, Blaire?”
An ambulance whizzes by, its sirens blaring. I don’t give them a second thought. I just watch the man in front of me.
“Yeah. I do,” I tell him.
Before I know what’s happening, my face is cupped in his hands, and his lips are on mine.
The kiss is tender but rough, gentle but aggressive. It earns him a round of applause from the people on the sidewalk.
He breaks the kiss and rests his forehead on mine.
“You know, just because I said I love you doesn’t mean you can just kiss me like that,” I joke.
He chuckles. “What will it take to get your permission to kiss you like that then?”
“Tickets to every Kelvin McCoy concert in the area would help,” I say begrudgingly because I can’t resist the joke, even if I am still not sure what’s going to happen between us.
Holt drops my face and sighs dramatically. It makes me giggle.
“I’m serious, Blaire. This is it for me. You are it for me.” He smiles. “I love you. I love you. And it ate me up all night that I let you leave without telling you. I sat in my house, alone, and for the first time, I hated it.”
My bottom lip quivers as I take in the honesty of both his gaze and his words.
“I realized something else last night,” he says.
“What’s that?”
“Remember how I told you that my grandfather knew he was going to marry my grandmother the first time they met?”
I nod.
He grins. “I knew you were the one for me the first time I ran into you.”
I can’t help but grin back at him.
My heart fills again, my body coming alive at his words.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll fight for you, fight to convince you to love me back every day of my life if that’s what it takes to win you over.”
He’s already won me over. He just doesn’t know it yet.
My phone buzzes in my hand. I look down to see a text from Yancy.
“I have to get back to work,” I tell him.
He groans.
“I’m sorry. We all don’t run our own companies,” I tell him.
He closes the gap between us again as though he can’t stand for anything but inches to be between us. I don’t mind. I’ve never minded.
He takes my hand in his and locks our fingers together.
“I have two questions before you go save lives,” he says. “First, do you forgive me? And if you don’t, will you give me a chance to earn back your trust?”
I contemplate his question, but I already know the answer.
I messed up too. I should’ve communicated better. I shouldn’t have left and given him the chance to explain.
But I didn’t.
“I forgive you. Do you forgive me for leaving?”
“I never held it against you, sweetheart.”
I smile.
“My second question is this: what do you want, Blaire?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes. Honestly.”
I feel a bubble of energy spread through me as I look up into his handsome face.
The only thing I’ve wanted was him.
“I want what I’ve wanted since you asked for my phone number. I want you. I want you just like you are.”
His cheeks split into a big grin.
He sweeps me around into his arms. My hands go around his neck, and my gaze meets his.
“I don’t have all the answers,” he says, “but Wade told me I didn’t have to have them.”
“We can find them together.”
He presses a simple, sweet kiss to my lips.
“Can I take you to dinner?” he asks.
I grin. “Maybe.”
“Do I have to play that game where I name three things about you? Because I think I’ll be even better at it now.”
I laugh as his lips find mine again.
Thirty-Three
Blaire
“Will you stop it?” I swat Holt’s hands away from me. “Give me a freaking minute.”
“I don’t want to give you a minute.”
“Clearly.”
He pouts beside me. I know that because I can see him out of the corner of my eye. But I don’t dare look over and take in the whole image because I’ll never finish typing out my email.
“Why do you have to work so much?” he whines.
“Funny how the tables have turned.”
The setting sun paints the prettiest picture outside of my apartment. The sky is ablaze in purples and pinks and bright oranges. It’s my favorite time of day. I love it even more tonight with Holt.
I didn’t make it the whole two hours I had left at work. Luckily, Yancy is a