Her breath hitched. She leaned back against him. Ever so subtly, it would be imperceptible to most. Not to him. He was attuned to her every move; he’d feel the reverberations if she shivered.
Dammit, he had to touch this body he knew so well, and ran a palm over her butterfly tattoo, her skin warm as she shuddered and leaned into his touch.
“Look at me, my Heart.” She turned over her shoulder. Her eyes darted back and forth between his, searching.
He lost himself in her amber gaze as it bubbled with tears, vaulting over her lids and cascading down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Tyler, I’m so sorr—”
His lips dropped to hers. His tongue demanded entry. He peeled her watering can out of her hand and reached around her to set it down, his chest brushing her breasts and arm as he did so, maintaining their connection. He may as well drop a match on that trail of gunpowder threading through his veins. There was no mistaking the way these plush lips he’d nipped and ravaged countless times parted, or how he wanted to drink in her warm pepperminty taste, hinting of coffee.
“I’m worried like hell that I’m losing you.” He swallowed gruffly, caressed a knuckle down her cheek as he rested his forehead to hers. “Don’t bail on us when everything is right here.”
She swallowed, too. Picked at a piece of glitter on his shirt. Effing glitter. Her fault it was all over his house.
He held the envelope up. “Charlie wants to hire you to be my site’s principal investigator.”
Goose bumps rose on her skin, and she rubbed her arms. He dropped the packages and slipped out of his shirt, draping it around her shoulders, where it belonged, and pulled it tight as if wrapping her in a blanket. Like a reflex, her nose went to the collar.
“Why?”
He shrugged, grinned. “She said you’re gonna need a job.”
She raised her eyes heavenward. “She told you?”
He softened, his knuckle gliding across her cheek and wiped away a tear. “Why’d you do it?”
She exhaled shakily. Picked at invisible lint on his chest. “Because it was worth it.”
“So are you.” Her eyes held his.
“Because I lo—” She cut herself off.
His gaze firmed on hers, nerves raging across his skin, his fist so tight on the plastic bubble in his hand, it cracked. “Say it.”
She swallowed, licked her lips as if to torture him, her eyes flitting from his fists to his face.
“Because I love you,” she whispered.
His lips collided with hers again. “I love you, too.”
He walked her backward to her railing, lifting her up and setting her rear on it so he could push his hips between her thighs.
Don’t close yourself off, Tyler Jake.God, how his momma’s words of wisdom made so much sense, now. He’d once sworn he’d never let a woman hurt his boys again. And he’d kept his promise. Because Heart only completed them. She’d sacrifice everything for them.
He dropped the broken plastic pieces, taking her hands, finding her finger and slipping the cheap toy from within over her knuckle—
She yanked back and he stumbled forward at the abrupt severance, her lips softened from his harsh kiss, eyes wide and shimmering as they dropped to her hand where a plastic prize machine butterfly ring sat on her finger.
“What are you saying?” she croaked.
He gazed at her and took her hands in his. “I’m saying I want attachments. Lots of ’em. I’m saying that I miss giving you shit about impulse buys, and that my boys like your baking and getting their asses handed to them in soccer—”
Seth snorted in the distance, and her eyes darted around him to his truck. He glanced over his shoulder to see both boys rubbernecking out the window, crammed together.
“Did she say yes yet?” Stevie shouted.
“I’m workin’ on it!” he called back.