Live For Me (Blurred Lines #2)(38)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Well, where do you want to live? You can go to college anywhere you want, right? Haven’t you always wanted to see Florida?”

But I shook my head, violently. “No. That’s too far away.” I couldn’t imagine being that far from Maine and everyone I loved. From him.

“Too far from what?” He was stroking my hand now softly, slowly.

“From home. From you.” I sounded miserable. I felt miserable. I didn’t even care if my words sounded pathetic or juvenile. The thought of being hundreds of miles away from Devin, never seeing him ever again, tormented me.

“Good. Because I don’t really love Florida. I would have bought a condo there if you wanted me to, but it’s not my first choice.”

I swiveled to look at him. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not going to let you go to Florida without me.” He gave me a sly smile. “What would be the point in that?”

“Don’t tease me,” I said in warning, even as hope sprang up eager and obnoxious. “It’s cruel.”

Devin leaned over and kissed me. “I’m not teasing you. Not now. Not about this. Tiffany, all I want is to be with you, because I love you. Do you realize that?” His gaze burned into mine. “I love you. In a way that is so huge and overwhelming, I am not even exactly sure what to do with it.”

I stared at him in wonderment. Devin loved me. He felt it, too, that overwhelming and all-consuming love that had been growing and growing between us. It was the kind of emotion that never left me. It went everywhere I was, infiltrated every thought, sat in my chest like a helium balloon.

My throat felt tight. “I love you too.”

He gripped my hand harder, his expression intense, searching. “I’m really glad to hear that. Say it again.”

With a sigh, I cupped his cheek, slid my hand back into his hair. “I love you,” I said, the tremor gone from my voice. I spoke with confidence, and deep, boundless emotion. There was no need to pretend it was only friendship or hide from my feelings. “I have never been happier than I have been here, with you.”

“I came here to run away,” he murmured. “It was meant to be both an escape and a punishment and instead I found you.”

Setting the box down carefully, I shifted closer to him. “I came here to be alone. But I’m so glad I’m not.”

“I’ve lived selfishly, but you make me better.” He took my face between his hands. “You’re so sweet, do you know that? I look at you and I think how is it that you found your way here, to me, in the middle of nowhere Maine, when I live in a city with eight million people. I had no idea that first night that you would burrow into my heart and make a home there.” He smiled. “Like a chipmunk. That’s what you are.”

I laughed softly. “Wow. Thanks.”

“Chipmunks are adorable and so are you.”

I couldn’t be annoyed with the comparison. I knew I wasn’t traditionally beautiful, but that he saw anything adorable in me thrilled me. I could see he meant it. He looked besotted, a mirror to my own image.

“First an owl, then a chipmunk.”

“I’m not very romantic, am I?” he said, his voice gruff, his forehead resting on mine. “This is different from what I’ve felt before. All I know is that you’re here.” He thumped his heart. “And I think that if you were to leave me a piece of it would be torn out and I would bleed to death.”

“That sounds pretty romantic to me,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

“God, don’t thank me. That makes it seem like I’m doing something for you, a favor, when the truth is, it’s the opposite.” Devin rubbed his lips over my temple and I closed my eyes briefly.

He felt so good, so masculine, so loving. So mine. It seemed unreal, like this couldn’t be happening. But it was. His touch was possessive, his kiss tender.

“I look at you and you’re content, grateful for your life, and I think I don’t have any right to be an ass**le about anything.” The next kiss he gave me was deep and passionate. “God, I love you.”

“I love you too.” Our lips met again and again and I poured my heart into each one, wanting him to feel and read and understand that he had me for as long as he wanted me. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“It’s happening. This has been happening since the minute not that I laid eyes on you, but the minute you spoke. You captured me with your words.”

“And suddenly now I can’t think of anything to say.”

“Just kiss me then.”

So I did.

He guided me down onto the floor and his hand worked its way under my shirt, our kisses getting more frantic, urgent. My legs wrapped around his ankles and I realized I was lifting my hips to meet his, desire overcoming reason.

Emotion and arousal were taking me to a place of no return, our touches more greedy and desperate than seductive.

I pushed at his shoulders before we went any further. “Devin,” I breathed. “We have to stop. All your friends are in the other room.”

“So? They won’t hear anything.” He bent down to kiss me again in the dark.

“But they’ll know. I can’t go back out there… after.”

“We don’t have to go back out there until the morning then.”

“Then they’ll really know!”

“Are you embarrassed for them to know we’re together?” he asked, eyebrows drawing together.

“No, of course not. I mean, I’m sure they’re going to be really surprised, but if you’re okay going public, I’m fine with it.” I was. It might actually make it tolerable to be in their company if they knew that I wasn’t just Devin’s weird little housesitter who had no purpose in being at their party. “I just meant I don’t want them to know we’re having sex right now.”

“We are?” He waggled his eyebrows. “I must be doing it wrong then.”

Laughing softly, I smacked his arm. “I’m serious.”

“But if they weren’t here, you’d have sex with me?” he asked carefully.

I nodded, swallowing hard. I was just a teeny bit terrified, but I loved him and trusted him.

“Holy shit, okay. I thought we were just making out. I can kick them out.” He was already halfway to standing up.

“What? No!” I sat up, laughing breathlessly. “You can’t do that. We’ll just have to wait until they leave in two days. In two days, right? Or are you really going to celebrate New Year’s Eve on a jet crossing each time zone?”