“Isn’t it obvious?”

“With you? Babe, nothing with you is obvious.” He wondered if she remembered those words from Valentine’s night, saw as she smiled that she did.

“I seem to remember someone lecturing me about fear holding me back. I guess it stuck.” She shook her long, ferocious hair back. “So. Are you scared?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

“Good. Let me scare this into you. You have about as much to worry about from my stupid ex as I have to worry about from yours. Which is zilch. I see that now. So can we both vow to let that rest?”

“Baby, I’ll vow anything you want me to right now.” Where he’d been inching toward escape earlier, he was now crowding her into the corner of the room with his feverish gaze locked on her lips. But her palm came up flat against his chest

“No, wait. Before all the blood drains south of your brain. I mean it. I won’t have jealous outbursts like that.”

“I told you that wouldn’t happen anymore.”

“Just so we’re clear. But other than that, I’m not putting any stipulations on you. I told you what I want out of life, but I want you too.” Her gaze flickered over his face. “However I can have you.”

His heart did flip-flops and sang hallelujah. Maybe they’d continue on like this for years. Maybe, after a few months of her, he’d be like Brian wanting to tear the walls down to marry the woman he loved. Even the thought of an accidental kid or two didn’t induce the panic attack it had with Raina. If ever he were going to reproduce, he couldn’t pick a better person to do it with. “Macy, I can tell you with absolute certainty that no matter how or where you and I end up, you will not have considered it a waste of your time.”

Before he knew it, she’d maneuvered him around and into her former position. Backed in the corner. Her palms met the walls on either side of his shoulders. She looked into his eyes with a directness that murdered any will to resist that might still be cowering in the corner of his brain. And oh, Christ, his c**k was already threatening to bust through his fly.

“Promise me that.”

“I should have promised you that the other night. I was just—all f**ked up.” He took a shaky breath. “Yeah. I promise.”

“I get it. And I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.”

“A lot of people probably don’t want us together, you know? I didn’t realize it, or I didn’t give a f**k before. But now I see, and I don’t care what anyone thinks, but are you sure you—”

She grasped his chin, and his entire mental process shut down. The girl had strong fingers. He couldn’t wait to feel them wrapped around—

“Ghost?”

She f**king called me Ghost.

“Huh?”

“Shut up.”

And finally, miraculously, she kissed him.

They went to her place because it was closer. Brian had taken one look at them as they emerged from the back, smirked at Ghost’s beseeching “Dude?” and told them to get outta there with a gesture at the door. Candace had grinned from ear to ear.

It almost turned into another frenzied bout of vehicular sex, but somehow they refrained. It was still broad daylight, after all.

As they toppled onto her bed at last, he couldn’t stop smiling as he kissed her.

“What?” she asked when he must’ve begun to look like a psycho.

“I’m happy,” he murmured, pulling up her shirt and gliding his mouth down her body to nip and lick at her midriff. “For the first time in…forever, it seems. I feel lighter.”

Macy sighed, drawing her knees up and bowing her lithe body toward him. “I’m glad.”

It was true. All the pain over his grandmother, it was still there, and he would always miss her. But he also knew he was right where she would want him to be, right where his parents would want him to be, and there was comfort in that.

And perhaps most importantly, for one of the few times in his life, he was right where he wanted to be.

“So you’re not moving away from me?” Macy asked, her voice soft and breathless.

He could almost laugh at the timing of that question. Lifting his head, he let his gaze tangle with hers. “Are you nuts?”

“Well, Candace said…”

“Candace and Brian have listened to me run my mouth a lot lately. And yes, I’ve thought about it. But my life is here. You are here.”

He couldn’t get undressed fast enough, couldn’t get her undressed fast enough. But the moment he slid into her clenching, needy pu**y, he dragged out his strokes, unwilling for this to be over too quickly. Making love to her like she’d obviously wanted on their disastrous rendezvous in Fort Worth—he was ready for it now. Macy’s sighs and whimpers filled his head, clearing out the chaotic thoughts of the last few weeks, bringing a calm and a rightness he’d never known nor anticipated ever knowing. And when she gently brought his head down and kissed him, her tongue swirling around his in the same perfect rhythm her hips tilted to receive him, shit, he was in heaven.

Something was still different, though. She was different. He couldn’t pinpoint why; he just trusted the bond they shared enough to know there was something going on in her head despite what was happening with their bodies.

He smeared his lips across her cheek and whispered in her ear. “Are you okay, baby?”

She nodded in her stoic way. But he couldn’t let her shut him out right now, not when she was so open and beautiful and vulnerable. Not when it was so obvious in her kiss that she was yearning for something, yearning hard for it.

“If I could give you anything, what would you ask me for?”

“I…don’t…”

“You know. Look at me. What would you ask me for?”

Her beautiful eyes opened, her gaze meeting his directly. The words came, the ones he wanted to hear, and he knew they were true. “Your love.”

“Hey, that’s easy. Don’t you know you already have it? So it’s all good. Right?”

The little throaty sound of relief that escaped her as he spoke was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard. Her fingers clenched tighter around the back of his neck, and he dropped his forehead to hers. “I do love you, Macy. I love you.” His lips captured hers. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Given the tears that slipped from her eyes then, he wondered if maybe those words had been a burden on her for a long time. He’d been such a f**king idiot. But whatever else happened, those little words would keep him going forever. Whatever else happened, for at least one moment in his life, Macy had loved him. But he would do his damnedest to turn the moment into a lifetime. He smiled down at her. “Well, don’t cry about it.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well…you know.” Macy watched him as he flipped on the blinker to turn into her parents’ driveway. The desire to touch him, squeeze his hand, reassure him in some way, was overwhelming. She rubbed her damp palms on her jeans instead. What was she so nervous for? It was just her parents. He was the one under the gun. But…still. Oh God. She hoped this went well. This had to go well.