“I adore you,” he whispered as his lips found hers again, and he breathed his love into her as their bodies moved in perfect harmony.
Ally awakened every bit of him. His body was on fire, electrified, and as she came apart beneath him and he surrendered to his own powerful release, it was love that filled his veins.
They lay tangled together on their sides in the wake of their lovemaking while their breathing returned to normal.
“Stay with me,” he whispered.
She pressed her lips to his, and he pulled her in closer.
“Will you catch me?” she whispered with a sweet smile as she traced his collarbone with her finger.
He furrowed his brow in confusion.
“When I fall for you,” she answered. “Will you be there to catch me?”
“For the rest of your life, sweetheart. Day or night.” He gathered her in his arms and sealed his vow with a kiss.
Chapter Seventeen
ALLY’S MOTHER USED to tell her that people didn’t find love, love found them, and it almost always seemed to do so in the most unusual ways and at the most unlikely times. Her parents had met in high school, and as her mother told the story, she’d hated her father at first sight. He was too full of himself, and he looked at her as if she were his when she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be his. That was, until he’d found out that she wasn’t interested, and he’d spent the next few weeks showing her the person he really was. He’d walked her to every class, even when it meant being late to his own, and every day after school he waited for her in the library, where he knew she went to do her homework. He had inserted himself into her life without an invitation, and despite her mother turning him down for every date for the first month, he was relentless and proved himself as the loving, loyal, smart man Ally knew him to be. And only after he’d stopped being overly cocky and had shown his kind and sensitive self, had she accepted a date—and within a few more weeks, he’d become her mother’s life. In all the times Ally had heard the story, she’d never put much value in the I’m not what I seem scenario, and she’d certainly never linked it to herself in any way. Until now.
As the Saturday-morning sun crept over the horizon and showered her and Heath in a bright new day, she began to see herself differently. When she inched back against him, his chest hair tickled her skin and his hips and thighs cradled her rear, and she realized that the person she’d presented herself as when she’d met Heath wasn’t her true self, even though she’d thought it was.
It was who she’d pretended to be—even to herself.
In college Ally had taken the walk of shame once or twice; only she’d never considered it a walk of shame. She’d done what she’d wanted to do, on her terms. After college—and after being cheated on for a second time—she’d stopped wanting anything remotely close to a monogamous relationship. That was when she’d taken control of her personal life. Erecting a wall around herself, sleeping with an occasional man on her terms. She realized now that part of her terms meant without any ties to her true self. It had been her way of protecting her heart. Heath had somehow touched her in a way that made her want to break through that facade in the same way her father had removed his emotional armor for her mother.
In his sleep, Heath’s warm, even breaths whispered across her shoulder. She felt his heart beating against her back, and even in sleep he held her protectively, with one strong arm around her waist. Ally hadn’t ever thought of herself as the type of woman who needed protecting, but every ounce of her loved the way Heath had made her his. She loved the way he devoured her sexually and the way she caught him stealing glances, as if he might see some hidden piece of her when she wasn’t aware that he was looking. Even the way he called her sweetheart made her heart squeeze and her belly get warm. As she lay within his embrace, she wondered what she’d been so afraid of. She tried to dissect it, to figure it out as she did the blood work and biopsies she analyzed at work.
Strangely, it wasn’t the fear of being cheated on that rushed to the forefront of her mind. That was the one thing she’d always thought she was trying to avoid. But as Heath’s arm tightened around her, she knew that wasn’t her greatest fear. Her greatest fear was allowing herself to feel the emotions she’d never felt before and the worries that came along with them.
She was falling head over heels in love with Heath. Love, like liquid, had infiltrated her entire being, joining with her blood and settling into her bones, saturating her so completely that she knew she couldn’t easily shake it off or pretend it didn’t exist. Not that she wanted to do either. But the sense of realness, the sense of complete and utter belonging, was upon her.