me when I’ve given you no reason to do so?”
Colette’s heart ached for the lonely boy who’d lost both his parents too young, for the lonely man who couldn’t associate love with anything other than loss and pain. She dropped her hands to his chest and splayed her fingers wide. “Because inside here, beneath the walls you throw up to keep the world at bay, there’s a fine, loyal, good man. Because when you touch me I come alive inside. Because you want to make me happy, even when I frustrate you. Because you’re patient and kind and generous. Because you’re a wonderful father. You’re the other half of me. And because the thought of being without you makes me feel like there’s a hole in my chest.” She hauled in a breath, feeling the steady thrumming of his heart beneath her palms. “I love you because you’re you, Stephen, and because when I’m with you I can be me.”
“I love you too,” he said in a soft rasp. “God help me, I love you too.”
The deep confession from his beautiful mouth, those three little words she’d waited a lifetime to hear, set her heart singing with joy. “Tell me again.”
“I love you, Colette.”
It was so much easier to say than he’d thought it would be. As if the simple exchange of those three tiny, bare words stripped him of all the insecurities and doubts that had plagued him since childhood. And then she smiled at him, renewing his resolve to be the man she wanted. The man she needed him to be.
Stephen gathered Colette up against his chest, hauling her close enough that he could feel her heart beating against his. “I love you,” he repeated, the words, now freed, clamoring to be said again and again. Shouted from the rooftops. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.”
Nothing he said would be enough to demonstrate his depth of feeling. He’d simply have to show her. Now. And every moment of every tomorrow they ever shared. Dipping his head, he hovered over her sweet lips, sensing her warm smile that curved in response. He backed up just enough to see her hazel eyes, a smile of his own catching at his mouth.
“Don’t tease me like that,” she breathed, looping her long arms about his neck and trying to pull him back down. “You know I’ve been wanting for days to kiss you again.”
He bent toward her, until nothing but their heated exhalations separated their lips. “Not nearly as much as I,” he said. “I’ve been starved for your kisses, aching for you every hour, every minute, every second that we’ve been apart.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” she gasped breathily.
His laugh rumbled low and deep. “I’m trying to decide whether I want to kiss you shallow, slow or deep.” He lifted his hands to her lovely face, cupping her fragile jaw within his palms. “I’m trying to decide whether to start here,” he murmured against her trembling mouth, “or here.” He slid west, his lips and breath hovering near her dainty earlobe. “Or here,” he breathed as he moved his hands to the back of her head, angling her head back and nuzzling the juncture between her neck and shoulder. He rubbed his whiskered chin against the delicate ridge of her collarbone. “Or even here,” he teased, and her little gasp sent an arrow of need straight to his groin.
He withdrew enough to peer into her face. Her eyelids had drifted to half mast, her rosy lips parted and her breath coming in shallow pants. He felt her arousal, the eager responsiveness of her body, with every hungry inch of his. And still he tarried.
“I plan to kiss you from head to toe,” he promised. “To lick every freckle, taste every crease, and savor every delectable inch of you until you squirm and shout and beg me for more.”
She shuddered within his arms, and the fan of her lashes lifted. He felt the heat of her gaze to his knees. “I’m waiting,” she whispered.
“I’m here,” he said, dipping to gather her up into his arms for the second time that night. “And we’re not coming up for air until Emma’s got a little sister to torment and tease.”
EPILOGUE
“DADDY’S home!” squealed seven-year-old Emma as she launched herself off her stool and raced from the kitchen out onto the tiled marble that led to the front door.
“Daddy, Daddy!” echoed Evie as she raced her older sister toward her father’s knees,