“I’m not going to resent you. In fact, you saved me. I don’t want to go back,” he told her roughly. “Jesus, you’re stubborn. Aren’t you listening to what I’m saying?”
She was definitely hearing him, but part of her was afraid this was all just a very good dream. He wanted to stay here, marry her, and build a life together? “I am listening. I’m just afraid that this is all too good to be true,” she told him quietly. “I never planned on you, Dante.”
“I never planned on you, either, sweetheart, but you’re the best damn gift I’ve ever gotten,” Dante rasped, holding his arms out to her.
Sarah didn’t think, she just leaped, catapulting herself into Dante’s strong, capable arms with a squeak of elation. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she closed her eyes, breathing in his masculine, musky smell that always made her feel like she was home, no matter where she was. She felt his arms tighten around her, holding her like he’d never let go.
“Thank fuck,” Dante said in a harsh whisper against her ear. “Now tell me,” Dante demanded, his voice vibrating against her temple. “I want to hear it in person.”
Sarah didn’t hesitate. “I love you,” she said obligingly. “I don’t know why it happened or when. I just do. I can’t help it.”
“I don’t want you to help it,” Dante replied in a low roar, moving her forward until her back was against the wall. “I love you, too. I love you so much that I can’t think straight. Maybe if I would have actually had a brain cell left in my head, I would have realized that I really didn’t want to go anywhere.”
Sarah smiled against his shoulder, her heart thundering like a jackhammer. He loved her back.
He pushed slightly away from her and lifted his forest-green shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. Then he pulled her T-shirt over her head and released the front clasp on her bra, pulling it down her arms until it dropped into the growing pile of clothing at their feet.
“What are you doing?” she asked, bemused.
He unsnapped her jeans and then his own, jerking the denim down her legs and taking her scanty panties with it. “I need to hear you say it while I’m inside you,” he said, his breath coming heavily between his lips.
“What if I don’t want to say it right at that moment?” she asked him teasingly.
“You will,” he grunted, pinning her against the wall with her hands over her head. “Tell me,” he demanded arrogantly.
Sarah’s body flooded with heat and her channel clenched hard. Looking into Dante’s fierce gaze, she knew she wouldn’t last long. She would say it. More than likely, she’d be screaming it. “Tell me first,” she requested.
“I love you,” he said readily, his head lowering so that his warm breath wafted over her temple. “Now say you’re going to marry me.”
She was. Oh yes, she was. She wanted this delirious pleasure for the rest of her life, and she wanted this demanding but sweet man to be the father of her children someday. But mostly, she wanted him to be hers.
Shivering as his fingers moved down to stroke the wet, sensitive flesh between her thighs, she squeaked, “I want to marry you.”
“And you love me,” he declared hoarsely. “Tell me.” His fingers found and caressed her clit.
Sarah’s head fell back against the wall, giving Dante better access to her neck, and his tongue stroked over her skin, leaving a path down her neck that had her squirming. “I love you,” she moaned, pulling his head down by his hair to kiss him.
He stopped teasing her and lifted her by the ass until she could feel his stiff cock probing between her legs. Immediately, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and he released her wrists, positioning himself and plunging into her channel at the same time his tongue was invading her mouth. He wasn’t gentle as he matched his pummeling thrusts to the thrusts of his tongue, but the last thing she wanted right now was tenderness. Sarah wanted affirmation, proof that this was happening, that he’d really come back because he loved her. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she speared her fingers through his hair, her body clamoring for everything he had to give.
He pulled his mouth from hers, his chest heaving. “Say it,” he urged forcefully, pounding his cock into her tight sheath again.
Sarah was on the precipice, ready to tip. “I love you, Dante. I love you so much,” she choked out as her channel starting to clench around him. Wrapping her arms around him, she held on tight as her body started to tremble with the force of her climax.
“There’ll never be another woman for me but you,” Dante groaned, burying himself deep inside her, his hot release flowing out of his body and into hers.
Sarah panted as she went limp in Dante’s arms. He walked with her to the couch in the living room and collapsed with a masculine sigh, bringing her down with him. Sarah rolled to his side, her body trapped between his unyielding, muscular body and the back of the couch.
Luxuriating in her warm haven and the feel of Dante against her, she traced the muscles on his sculpted chest, her face glowing with exertion and joy. “I just want you to be happy,” she said solemnly, still worried that Dante was giving up a job he loved. “You love your job.”
He wrapped a muscular arm around her and rolled to face her. “I am happy. Happier than I ever thought I’d be. And I did like what I did in Los Angeles, but I wasn’t happy. I think I was obsessed with it because it was all I had. Patrick used to tell me if I didn’t slow down, I was going to burn out by the age of thirty. I’d spend some nights in the office when I didn’t need to, going over evidence that I’d already been over a hundred times before. Now I wonder if it wasn’t because I had nothing at home to look forward to. I had friends, but I was only ever really close to Patrick.”