Love to Hate You (Hope Valley #9) - Jessica Prince Page 0,85

space. I was gonna tell you everything, Red, ’cause I couldn’t go another day without this.”

He hovered over me, resting his hips between my spread legs as we fed from each other’s mouths. “I love you, Hayden. Besides my family, I’ve never said those words to another person until now. But I do. I’m so fuckin’ in love with you it hurts.”

I felt a single tear break free and slip down into my hair as I whispered, “I love you too.”

“No more secrets, you have my word. From here on you, you get everything.”

I was so giddy I felt like I could have floated away had Micah’s weight not kept be grounded.

“Good.” I dragged my fingers through his hair, scraping my nails along his scalp as I told him, “I’m so happy about that, honey. But I need you to do something first.”

He pulled back and stared down at me, those green eyes shining bright with love. “Yeah? And what’s that?”

“Take me to bed.”

My man didn’t have to be told twice.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hayden

The sound of Micah’s heartbeat echoed in my ear, a comforting, steady beat that would have lulled me to sleep if my brain wasn’t so busy trying to wrap itself around everything he’d just confided in me.

He’d carried me to his room hours ago, and we’d spent the entire day making up for losing a week together. We had sex and napped and woke up to do it all over again. At some point that afternoon, he’d called and ordered pizza from Momma Gianna’s, which we’d eaten in bed before going at it once again like horny teenagers.

The sun had long since set and he’d spent the past half hour telling me everything. He told me all about the case he and Leo had been living for months. He told me about Greg Cormack’s involvement, and chills formed across my skin when I found out what a monster the man was.

He finally explained who Charlie was, going in depth about the young woman’s life and the absolute hell she’d had to live through, not only with her current circumstances, but in her past as well. I had to fight back the desire to cry for this woman I didn’t even know as he told me all about her. By the time he finished, it was easy to see how he’d come to think of her as a kind of little sister and felt such a strong need to protect her.

My heart broke for him and Leo for how they’d struggled to bring justice to one of their fellow officers. It broke for Charlie Belmont, for Sidney Callo and her daughters. But at the same time, my veins were filling with rage that this asshole was walking around free as a bird while good people were suffering.

I dragged my fingers across his chest, distractedly tracing random patterns through the small smattering of short hair as I replayed his words in my head.

“Red? You good?” I tilted my chin so I could look up at his strong, chiseled face, the moonlight bouncing off the sharp plains and edges, making him look like a Greek god. One arm was braced behind his head while the other wrapped around me, holding me in place so tightly I couldn’t move. Not that I had any intention to. “Was that too much?”

I stopped drawing on his chest and draped my arm around his stomach, burrowing in and squeezing him tight. “No,” I replied adamantly. “When it comes to you and your life, Micah, I’ll always be able to handle it. I just hate that you’ve been dealing with all of this on your own. You need an outlet. You need to get this out so it doesn’t suffocate you.”

“You were that for me, baby. You and Ivy and Sylvia were my outlet. But it was pointed out to me recently that maybe I wasn’t utilizing that to the degree I needed to. I wanted to keep all this shit from spilling into your life and tainting it.”

I pushed up, bringing both hands to his chest and resting my chin on the backs of them so I could look right into his eyes. “That’s the thing about relationships, honey. When you love someone, they become part of your life. Your job is part of who you are, Micah. I don’t want you keeping things from me because you want to protect me from it. If you do that, I don’t get all of you, and I