Perfect Match Enemies to lovers romance - Leia Stone Page 0,33
me with a hooded gaze and I couldn’t read him; he’d shut down in the car when I asked him the personal questions and now the walls were higher than ever.
“I’ve never swam in a river before,” I confessed.
He smirked. “Not surprised.”
I scowled at him. “Whatever, farm boy.”
He swam closer to me and my stomach dropped. “Whatever, Princess.”
His dark hair was slicked back with water and the tip of his scar peeked out from the water. I couldn’t help but stare at it.
Colin’s heart. The love of my life’s heart was beating between that ribcage. So close I could touch it.
“Go on. Just ask,” Ashton said, and I realized he’d caught me staring.
“What?” I flicked my gaze up to his stormy eyes and he paddled closer to me. My knee brushed his and desire pooled between my legs and my breath hitched.
“The scar. Just ask,” he said, point blank.
Okay. Here it was. Moment of truth. “Why did you need the heart transplant? Were you born with a defect or something?”
There. I asked. I asked about it.
He watched me, eyes going dark as his gaze thinned. It’s almost as if he was thinking about what to tell me.
“Car accident. Tore three of my four chambers on impact. A cardiologist was at the scene with a surgeon’s kit or I wouldn’t have made it.”
Holy shit.
I wanted to know more, I wanted to know who he lost and how the accident happened and everything, but he reached out and his fingers touched my collarbone, causing all thoughts to leave my brain. Pinching my necklace chain, he pulled Colin and my rings up out of the water and held them in his hand.
“How did this happen?” His voice was husky and dark, and now that the spotlight was on me, I squirmed.
It was time. It was time to tell him everything, especially because I was starting to feel something for him. I didn’t want to lie to him, this was so fucked up. How had I let it go this far in the first place?
I looked down at the rings in his palm. “That … was also a car accident.”
He nodded as if he understood. “Were you in the car?”
I shook my head. “Just him. Drunk driver.”
He nodded again. “How long ago?”
I gulped. Everything was unfolding perfectly.
Tell him. Tell him.
“About a year. Two days after our wedding.” I was preparing for the moment, I was going to tell him.
He winced. “Jesus, that’s cruel.”
I nodded. “Life isn’t fair. We don’t always get what we want.”
His eyes fell to my lips and he floated a little closer, causing the breath to hitch in my throat and my heart to beat so loudly I was sure we both heard it.
Reaching out, he cupped my right cheek in his hand. “Sometimes we do.”
As he leaned in, my brain processed thoughts like a computer on crack.
He was going to kiss me.
My first kiss since Colin.
The man who had my dead husband’s heart was about to kiss me.
Run.
Lean in.
Tell him.
Don’t tell him.
He’s here.
When his lips hit mine, I didn’t expect the small moan that escaped me. I went on a date a few months ago. It was forced and weird and I was trying to see if I was ready to move on. I wasn’t. I hadn’t kissed that guy, couldn’t even conceive of it. But with Ashton, everything felt so natural. I didn’t recoil as I had expected; instead I opened my mouth, deepening the kiss.
When his tongue stroked mine, I wrapped my legs around his waist and his arms came around my lower back, pulling me closer to him.
I was hungry, so hungry for his touch that I actually ached. I didn’t realize until this very moment how lonely I had been. I was so used to sleeping next to Colin every night, having someone to kiss, to go to movies with, to touch. Then all of that was ripped away and I became an island where very few entered. Jules, John, my mom and dad … that was about it. I kept my circle tight and I was so damned lonely.
But not anymore. Like a switch had been flipped, everything inside of me came alive. Parts of me that I thought were dead, that I thought were never going to care for another man.
Taking Ashton’s bottom lip into my mouth, I sucked it hard and his breath hitched. Tilting his hips in the water, he pressed his hardness against me.