Dating the Rebel Tycoon - By Ally Blake Page 0,68
It was so unanticipated that I took a long, hard look at my life without you in it and I didn’t much care for what I saw.’
Just to make sure she was right there with him, he reached out and cupped her cheek. But she was there; she was all there.
‘I had thought heading into the bush in the middle of the night to find you was enough of an admittance of my feelings, and that all I had been trying to do was protect you from every possible harm, including myself. I look back now and wonder what time and anguish I could have saved had I just had the guts to tell you straight. Like last night…’ His eyes burned, as though he’d been sliced with a red-hot poker. ‘I should never have let you walk away before we’d managed to have this exact conversation. Thankfully this week I’ve learnt not only how easy it is for all men to make mistakes, but how easy it can be to forgive them.’
He slid his hand into her hair, caressing her ear, drawing her closer. His beautiful blue eyes smiled into hers. Her heart danced. Her liver forgot itself. And the rest of her insides skipped and tumbled, and hoped more than they’d ever hoped in their life.
‘Forgive me,’ he asked.
Her voice shook when she said, ‘I never gave you a chance. Forgive me.’
He slid his hand into her hair, drawing her closer. ‘Since we are both extremely adept at complicating the heck out of everything, how about I try something new and make things really simple?’
‘It’s worth a try.’
‘Rosalind,’ he said, his voice almost as shaky as hers. ‘My Rosie. I need you to know that I am very much in love with you. That I have loved you for some time. And I have no doubt that I will love you as long as I can draw breath.’
The second he’d said her name, warm tears streamed down her face, but she couldn’t possibly lift a hand to wipe them away. She thought she might have to resort to using a shoulder when Cameron leaned in and kissed them away, one side then the other.
Before things kept moving in the direction it was obvious they had to, she stilled him with a hand at his chest. She looked from one eye to the other, until she was certain she had his attention completely. ‘Last night, watching you wield the kind of strength that most men don’t even know is possible, I knew I loved you too.’
His eyes glinted, his chest swelled, and the hand in her hair drew her in. ‘Funny way you had of showing it,’ he murmured.
‘As it turns out, I am a funny girl.’
He grinned. ‘Lucky me.’
And then he kissed her. She melted into his arms as he pressed her back against the couch. Her delighted hands slid up the back of his shirt, her legs entwined with his, and she kissed him until she saw stars; she was lost. Wholly and completely and beautifully lost. The sensation filled her, overwhelmed her, and didn’t scare her in the least.
For she had not actually lost something, she’d finally found herself again in him.
Eons later, when they pulled apart, Rosie’s lungs burned, her lips were hot and swollen and her whole body felt heavy and languid. Cameron on the other hand had admirable strengths. He lifted her back upright until she was sitting across his lap.
His sexy eyes narrowed as he asked, ‘You did say that you loved me, right? That was one hell of a kiss, and could have been enough to have made me imagine it.’
‘I do love you,’ she repeated, the liberation of the words, of the feeling, of what it would bring her, making her feel sky high.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Then, before we go ahead and christen Adele’s couch, I have one more thing I have to get off my chest.’
Rosie pushed a scruff of hair off his forehead, and allowed herself the crazy luxury of playing with his hair. ‘This is really not the moment to confess you have a secret love of boy bands. Or that you already have three wives and they’re all called Rosalind. And there is no way I’m ever giving up my cardboard cut-out; he was a gift, and is a collector’s item, so—’
‘Rosie.’ His eyes narrowed, but the sexy grin that accompanied it only made her want to curl up and purr. ‘You’re going to have to