Wrapped Up in You - Talia Hibbert Page 0,40

her gloves.

“Okay,” Will said. “I’m going to keep talking.”

“Yes,” she said softly, so softly the wind and the snow whipped her words away. “Please.” Because that ocean of affection she’d been so terrified of drowning in? His every word was a warm, gentle wave buoying her up. And suddenly she was floating.

“I messed things up this week, Abs,” he told her, leaning into the side of her body as she worked, letting his forehead rest against her temple. Protecting her from the worst of the cold, yes—and brushing his soft lips against her icy cheek, pressing his words into her skin like a secret. “I had this big plan—I was going to quit my job and move back home and work my way into your life, and then a year would pass and I’d be yours and you wouldn’t even know how it happened.”

She choked out a laugh as she gently wiped the tiny, mewling kitten semi-clean. “What?”

“Yeah. Because I could tell, even from miles away, that you were struggling, and I guess I thought I could sneak past all the walls you put up and be there for you, be with you, whether you liked it or not. But that was never going to work. You make choices, and they’re deliberate, and whether they keep me out or in, they’re yours. That’s one of the things I love about you. Ignoring that made no sense.”

Abbie’s pulse stuttered as she tucked the kitten close to its mother, as she turned to Will and unravelled the scarf from around his neck for another blanket. “Love,” she repeated carefully, swallowing hard, refusing to add any inflection. “Love.” Her lips shaped the word hungrily. And for the first time, leaning toward the most obvious interpretation of what he’d said felt less like hubris and more like hope.

“Yeah,” he told her, and she heard it in his voice, felt it in his gaze. Maybe it had always been there. Maybe the way he looked at her, like he could see every little thing—like he wanted to see every little thing, no matter how tough or awkward or difficult—had always been love.

And then he confirmed that possibility, with the same brilliant ease he did everything. “Yeah, I love you, Abs. It took me a while to figure out what it was—by the time I did, you were off to uni, and then you found someone else, and I felt like I’d never done anything so stupid as let you go, and it was too late. I just hope I’ve made up for it by loving you ever since.

“Because I have. I’ve loved you every second we’ve spent apart and every week we’ve spent together. I love you when you’re hurting, and I love you when you’re careful, and I love you when you’re not sure if it’s safe to love me back. I know you can’t help worrying, but I wish I’d told you from the fucking start that—that there’s nothing you can do to make me stop. I’m tried and tested, Abbie. I’ve been halfway around the world, loving you. I’ve been an usher at your fucking wedding, loving you.” He laughed, sounding genuinely disbelieving. “I literally cannot stop. And I should’ve told you before, because if there’s anything I can do to make you feel even the tiniest bit safer, I want to do that. I do. So I’m sorry. And that’s everything. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Abbie said, very, very softly. And then she was silent. She waited while Gravy’s second kitten was born, grateful beyond belief that it was done quickly. She wrapped the little snuffling thing up next to its mother and its sibling. And then, very quickly, with her filthy, gloved hands held safely out to the sides, she turned to face Will and kissed him.

He must’ve been surprised, because he made this baffled noise in the back of his throat, and it took him a split second to kiss her back. But he did. He couldn’t touch her either, was still holding the brambles aside, and so they spent a long, hungry moment pressed together, mouth to mouth and body to body, holding each other with nothing but every emotion they poured into that kiss.

I love you, she thought, fucking wild with it, dizzy with it, breathless with it, and hoped he could taste it on her tongue, hoped he picked it up when he bit her lower lip, hoped he could feel it in the aching rock of her