I focused on his face, his clear skin, and the stubble that had clearly grown a little from his last shave. His eyebrows had a tinge of darkness to them. They were light but nowhere near as light as his hair, which made sense to me. My hair was black, but my brows were naturally light brown. Unlike my brows, Damien’s were thick and nicely shaped. No doubt thanks to Bronagh getting her hands on them. His lashes were light and long, and they framed his stunning grey eyes that seemed to penetrate my very soul with one glance.
I knew every curve of his face, every flick of his hair, and every possible way he could smile. I saw him every single night in my dreams. I could draw him from memory alone … I had done so enough times. This man was under my skin and had been for a long time. This conversation between us was overdue, and I could only hope I could do it justice and give him the respect he deserved.
“I want to try.”
Damien tilted his head. “Try what?”
What’s meant to be will be.
I exhaled a breath. “I want to try bein’ with you … if you’ll have me, that is.”
Silence.
Oh, God.
A long period of deafening silence.
“Damien?”
He was staring at me, long and hard, and I found, at that moment, I would have paid any price and done anything to know what was going through his mind.
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my now sweaty palms on my leggings. “Now you’re freakin’ me out.”
“Sorry,” he said, unblinking. “I feel like this isn’t real.”
I looked down at Barbara when she meowed, then flicked my gaze back up to Damien. “It’s very real.”
“Are you saying … that you want to date me?”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
“I am.” I swallowed. “But this is where things get complicated because I’m not ready to just be your girlfriend. I’ve so much goin’ on right now, but I don’t want that to be another excuse as to why I should shut you out any more than I’ve already done for the past year. I’m takin’ initiative ’ere, and followin’ advice given to me by seemingly everyone. That bein’ said, I want to go slow.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that we go on dates and we get to know each other because, let’s be honest, we’re different people than when we were eighteen. I want us to build up a trust, a better connection than we have now … I want everythin’ that couples do before intimacy happens.”
Damien licked his lips. “You mean everything we should have done before we had sex when we were kids?”
Exactly.
“Is that okay?”
“Are you kidding?” he exclaimed. “You bet your ass it’s okay … but …”
My stomach tightened. “But?”
“I want to know why you want this.”
I flushed. “What kind of question is that?”
“A valid one,” Damien challenged. “You’ve been ditching me all year, keeping me at arm’s length since I came home. You’ve been guarded, but now, suddenly, you want to try with me. I want to know why.”
I thought about that. Hard. Simply saying I was incredibly attracted to him didn’t seem a good enough answer. Not to me. I looked at Damien and repeated his question in my mind. Why did I want to be with this man? And just like that, the answer came to me.
“Because I’m tired of bein’ scared to accept that you could be it for me. I’m tired of worryin’ what could go wrong if I accepted you back into me life,” I answered, my voice tight with emotion. “I convinced meself that everythin’ that happened between us was your fault … and it wasn’t, Dame. I’m sorry for never admittin’ that before now.”
Surprise lit up his features.
“It wasn’t my fault?”
“No, not entirely, like I’ve always said it was.” I answered. “You were upfront and honest the whole time, and I shouldn’t have used what you said during sex against you. I seduced you, even when you told me it wasn’t a good idea. You told me what would happen. You said I wasn’t a sex only type of girl, and you were dead right, but I didn’t listen. I saw how you looked at me that night, and I used your attraction for me against you because I wanted you so badly. I was aware of what could happen, of what evidently did happen … but I thought I could deal with it if it came to that.”
“But you couldn’t?”
“No, I couldn’t.” I cleared my throat. “I wanted to hate you; you have no idea how much I wanted to. I tried to tell meself that I did; I made it clear to everyone else that I despised you … but I didn’t. I just hated what happened between us because it hurt me so bad. But just know that it wasn’t all your fault. I was more to blame, but I didn’t want to admit that to anyone. Especially meself.”