Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
“Drinks to start?” the waiter asks.
I order some sodas, and then we look over the menus, but I’m more interested in watching Harper. She has a beautiful smile on her lips, and she is resilient despite what happened. I look at her and see all the strength of a ferocious mother, with all the beauty of my perfect woman.
“I dreamed about this,” she says, meeting my eyes sassily.
It’s like she’s silently saying, Don’t think I’ve forgotten you said we’d talk.
“Us, having a date together.”
“So did I,” I say huskily.
She gasps as our drinks arrive, and then I tell the waiter we need a few more minutes to decide on food.
With a sense and bravery, Harper reaches across the table and takes my hand. She gazes at me steadily.
“What do you mean, you dreamed about it, too?”
I swallow, knowing I can’t go any further without giving her answers.
“The fight, when I left, wasn’t about Eva.”
“No?”
“It was about you.”
Her fingernails dig into me as her hand tightens around mine. “About me?”
I’m trembling all over, but trying to contain it, trying to prevent the explosion from ripping out of me like a ticking bomb.
“Something happened when you turned eighteen,” I say. “One day, I visited your place, and there you were… no braces on your teeth. No awkwardness… or, if it was there, it was suddenly cute as hell.”
She grins, her eyes sparkling, as the fire crackles nearby and bathes us in its heat, but we’ve got enough heat of our own.
“I saw you, and I felt it, Harper.”
“What?” she whispers.
I could stop it now. Not erase everything I’ve said but undo it. I could steer the conversation in a different direction, but my instincts within won’t let me. The pounding. The roaring. The longing for the future… the never-ending need.
“I felt like I’ve been waiting my whole life for…”
The waiter appears, cutting me off.
“I’ll have the steak, medium rare,” I tell him, to make him go away, though I keep my tone as polite as possible.
Harper offers him a tight smile. “I’ll have the steak, too. Medium. Thank you.”
She turns back to me once he’s gone, eyebrows raised expectantly.
Our hands fuse together as if nothing could make us let go. Even if Adam walked in here….
“I’d been waiting my whole life for a woman I really wanted. A woman who would give me kids. A woman I could marry… have a family with.”
“You want kids?” she murmurs.
“I want them… with you.”
Her other hand flies across the table, so she’s clawing onto me with both hands. “Is this a joke?”
“Not even a little bit.”
I pause, our gazes fusing just like our hands, so much affection blazing between us. It’s difficult to believe I ever wondered if she felt the same. It’s difficult to believe I’d ever hold any of this back.
“I did my best to fight the feeling for weeks, did my best to tell myself I was going through a midlife crisis. Or a near midlife crisis. Anyway, I couldn’t. Wherever I turned, there you were, my woman, so beautiful, so tempting, so mine.”
She blinks, her eyes glistening. “Say it again.”
I smile, not smirk. I don’t have to hide any of this anymore… not from her, anyway. With Adam and the danger I’m feeling and thinking, I should hide it all, every last impulse, but I can’t, not with my Harper.
“You. Are. Mine.”
She makes the cutest, most endearing noise, a pleasure-filled sound trapped within happiness, with joy flaring in it, pure joy for our future bursting inside of her.
“I own you,” I go on, voice getting husky.
I didn’t plan on letting out the force of my need, the shivering certainty of it in my voice, the hunger plain, surging, and real—impossible to fight.
“Every part. Your body, your soul, your future, your womb. Maybe that most of all. You’re going to give me at least three children.”
She quirks her eyebrow. “Only three?”
I laugh in a carefree way, despite everything that’s happened and might still happen. It’s the sort of laughter I hadn’t experienced in a long time, since before my woman turned eighteen, and this obsession gripped me.
I’m letting all the negativity go.
“Four, five, six…”
She grins. “Seven, eight, nine.”
“Are you sure you can handle that?”
“I can handle whatever you can,” she shoots back, then her expression falters. “What about the fight?”
I nod. We can’t ignore the bad aspects of this, even if the good, the right, and the destiny-driven perfection are too tempting.
“I went to Adam and told him how I felt. I told him I wanted to date you. I explained I’d be honorable and respectful, and if you chose me, I’d always do my best to support and protect you.”
Her mouth falls open. I fight the urge to lean over and kiss her. It’s not because I don’t want to—need to—but I know I wouldn’t be able to stop.