I had no idea what he would write.
I told him he could just add his signature and that would be good enough for me.
But I’d wanted him to say more.
I didn’t open it because I was afraid I would be disappointed. What if he just wrote thanks…or something like that.
I almost thought it was better if I never looked. Just knowing he signed it was enough for me.
But the curiosity would haunt me forever.
So, I opened the page and saw his scribbled handwriting, his big signature at the bottom, the same signature I saw all over his paperwork all the time at work. I read the message.
To Emerson,
My baby,
My best friend,
My brightest star,
And the woman I love.
-Derek HamiltonI knocked on his door, my eyes still wet and red from the tears I’d shed in the car. His book was in my hand, the other two in my purse. I didn’t go home like I planned because I couldn’t go to my apartment…not now.
Not when this was the only place I wanted to be.
I knocked again when he didn’t answer quickly enough.
His footsteps sounded a moment later, and he opened the door, in just his sweatpants. His hair was a little damp like he’d just gotten out of the shower, his five-o’clock shadow gone because he’d just shaved it off. His brown eyes shifted back and forth as he looked into my gaze, reading the emotion in my eyes.
“I love you too…”
He didn’t have a reaction, as if those words didn’t affect him the way they affected me. “I know you do.”
My breathing hitched at his words because there wasn’t a better response than that. He knew I loved him without needing to hear me say it because I wore it on my sleeve, displayed it in my eyes, showed it in every single thing I did. He saw that, he recognized that, and he appreciated it.
He moved closer to me, and his hand gently moved to the book in my hands. He pulled it away and let it hang at his side. “I thought you already knew how I felt about you.”
“I did. I just…didn’t know if you knew.”
He set the book on the table against the wall near the door and continued to look at me.
I closed my eyes and felt the emotional catharsis. “God, it feels so good to tell you that I love you, not to hide it anymore, not to pretend that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you. Because I do. I want all my nights with you. I want all my years with you.” I felt the tears leave my eyes and streak down my cheeks.
His thumbs were on my face, wiping away the tears.
I opened my eyes and looked at him, looked at his intense stare as he watched me cry rivers for him. “You’re the perfect man, and I can’t believe you’re mine. I don’t know why I’m so lucky to be loved by you.”
He cradled my face in his hands, coming close to me and looking into my face, my eyes and my lips. “I was thinking the same thing, that I’m lucky to be loved by you.”I closed my eyes as my head rolled back, exposing my neck so he could kiss me with those sexy lips, leaving my skin sensitive and warm, slightly wet from his tongue. My hands glided down his arms, my nails clawing his warm skin, breathing hard even though this wasn’t the first or second round.
He moved down over my stomach and my hips, slipping his tongue into my belly button before he moved back on top of me and sank inside me, rock hard like he hadn’t already taken me many times.
I gasped like I had no idea what was coming.
He moved inside me, gliding through the wetness we made together, sliding past his own come as well as mine. He pressed his head to my forehead and moaned loudly as he pushed himself deep inside and slid back out.
My arms hooked behind his shoulders, and my ankles locked together around his waist, rocking back with him, feeling his hard body rub against my clit and bringing me to another climax almost instantly, my hips bucking hard against him as the fire spread through my veins. My nail nearly drew blood. “Derek…” I was madly in love with the perfect man, the man I couldn’t even have dreamed of, couldn’t have created with my imagination. He was perfect in every way. Even his flaws were perfect. He brought me joy that I couldn’t have anticipated, and I’d never felt so safe, like I was with the one person in the world who would never hurt me. My daughter said things that broke my heart once in a while, and I’d gone out with men that ended up being huge disappointments. But Derek was a man who wasn’t afraid to love me, to put himself in terrifying situations to be with me. He would do anything for me. I could feel it.