Big Daddy Wants Me

17: Kyle.

Remember her by? Just like that, I slam back down to earth with all the force of a burning comet. I don’t want to remember Waverly—I want her by my side for every day of my life. I want my ring on her finger and her thighs clamped permanently around my skull like earmuffs, and I want to bring her coffee on our deck every morning.

Waverly smiles up at me, pink-cheeked and breathless, her bare chest rising and falling as water droplets streak down her body. I’m blocking most of the spray, but she’s still getting rained on down there, and Christ, she’s so beautiful that it’s hard to look at her. Can’t believe what she just did for me, and how good it felt.

That damp, mussed hair—a darker shade of blonde when it’s wet. Those freckles and those plump pink lips and those eyes. Those big, blue eyes that haunt me whenever I’m alone. I don’t want the memory of this woman, I want the real thing.

“What?” My head crackles with static, while my heartbeat has slowed way down. Each anguished thump rattles my ribs, while the hot shower pounds against my back. “What do you mean, when you’re gone? You’re leaving?”

Waverly’s smile fades. She shifts her weight where she’s still kneeling at my feet, her fingers twisting together in her lap. “Well… yeah. Eventually. That’s what tourists do, right?”

And I know she’s not playing games or trying to punish me for my careless words. She’s not that type. It’s worse than that—Waverly has really taken what I said to heart.

Fuck. Me.

Just a tourist. Those are the stupid words I hurled at her earlier, when she’d come out looking for me in the middle of a mountain storm, risking her own hide to make sure I was safe. She crashed into me on that dark trail, so small and vulnerable in my arms, and I lost my damn mind.

Yes, I was so worried for her that my brain shut down. Yes, I’d have died if anything happened to Waverly.

But that’s no excuse for what I said—and now my dream woman is talking about moving on, leaving me behind in this valley to mourn what could have been.

“No.”

The word rasps out of me, and now we’ve got matching husky throats. What a pair. Smacking the shower off, I lean down to help Waverly to her feet, scanning her body for injuries one more time. Need to be sure.

“But—”

“No.” Leading Waverly out of the shower, I pluck her towel off the hook and wrap it tightly around her body. It’s no good warming her up only to let her stand around shivering now.

“No, tourists don’t leave?” Waverly scrubs a droplet of water off her eyebrow, her face scrunched up with how confusing I’m being. The steam’s thick in this room, and I can’t breathe. So long as she’s leaving me, I’ll never breathe right again.

“No, you’re not a tourist.” Waverly sighs and looks away. I catch her chin and turn her back to me. “You’re not just some person passing through Starlight Ridge, Mari. You’re mine.”

And maybe this little speech would be more impressive if I weren’t naked as the day I was born, but damn it, I’m making do. Can’t waste another single second of time with Waverly thinking… what she thinks.

“Yours,” she says flatly, fiddling with a loose thread on the towel. Her shoulders sag. “While I’m here, anyway.”

“No.” Lord give me strength, because it’s not Waverly’s fault that she’s having trouble believing me right now. I’m the one who stomped around all summer without saying a word about how I feel, just hoping she’d figure it out by osmosis. I’m the one who screwed everything up when we were finally making progress. “You’re mine, for as long as you want to be. For as long as you’ll have me.”

Waverly’s laugh is strangled. “Kyle, what are you saying?”

“Marry me.” The words tumble so easily from my mouth, and they’re unplanned, but I don’t take them back. Not when they feel so right, so good, and hearing them out loud makes the tension bleed from my shoulders. Why hide how I feel? Why try to play it cool? I’ve tried that for the last few weeks, and now Waverly’s talking about leaving. “Marry me and stay. That’s what I’m saying.”

Her chin wobbles. My little artist looks like she doesn’t know whether to laugh, punch my shoulder, or cry.

“That’s insane,” she says, her toes scrunching against the bathmat.

“Maybe.”

“People will say we’re crazy.”

I nod. “They surely will.”

“You barely know me.”

Fuck that. Drawing Waverly against my chest, I wrap my arms around her body and kiss the top of her head. “Yes I do.”

Because sure, there are details I don’t know yet, and surprises left to uncover—but I know Waverly. When we first laid eyes on each other all those months ago, something deep inside me sighed with relief, already knowing that she would be my home.

“Oh my god,” she mumbles now, letting me lead her out of the steamy bathroom and over to the sofa. The bed might be more comfortable, but the sofa’s near the fire. Warmth comes first. “Oh my god. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

A smile breaks over my face, my cheeks aching with relief. I bundle my girl down onto the sofa, dragging a knitted blanket off one arm to toss it over her legs. “Is that a yes?”

Waverly presses her lips together and nods. She’s squirming on the sofa, fidgeting with nerves and excitement, and when our eyes clash—lightning strobes outside the window.

“I love you.” On second thought, I tear that blanket away and throw it at the wall. The towel follows, because f**k bundling up in layers to keep warm. That’s what skin-to-skin contact is for. “Christ, I love you so much. More than I ever thought possible. Come here, sweetheart.”

Waverly sniffles and smiles, but she’s shoving at me too, pushing me to sit down on the sofa and let her crawl into my lap. That weight settling over my thighs anchors me to the moment; lets me live in this dream. “Seriously, Kyle. I’ve never seen you this chatty.”

Yeah, well, turns out I’ve got a lot to say—to Waverly, anyway. Thunder rumbles outside the cabin, rattling the walls and drowning out my heartfelt confessions to everything but her ears. I tell her how wrecked I was the first time I saw her; the way I’ve barely thought about anything else but her for months; the way she’s woken me up and made me feel alive again.