Love Bug (The Prescotts Book 3) by Tara Wyatt (electric book reader .TXT) 📗

on her face as she stared out at the city. For a moment, he did nothing but stare as his heart hammered in his chest. She was so beautiful. So warm and kind. So sexy and sweet and funny and smart and holy fuck was he not even close to deserving of her.

But for once in his life, instead of accepting that something wasn’t meant for him, he was going to try to be worthy of it. He had to. He needed to. Because how he felt when he was with her, how he felt when she looked at him with her heart in her eyes…yeah. He needed to hang on as tightly as possible to that.

He turned and rummaged in a drawer, pulling out a pair of gray sweatpants and slipping them on. Then he sat down on the bed beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

She leaned into him, her face pressed against his shoulder. “Everything I know about Mr. 23. I’m trying to map it onto your life, to make the pieces fit together.” She looked up at him and smiled. “So Lucian was the one who drove his car across the school lawn and told those bullies to fuck off, right?”

Max let out a low laugh, nodding. “Yeah. He scared the shit out of them.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s a scary guy when he wants to be. And let me guess…Bastian was the sandcastle smasher, wasn’t he?”

“He was. Even back then, he was like a hurricane, so much energy and zero impulse control.”

She made a soft humming noise. “But you know what I keep thinking about most of all?”

Please don’t ask about the necklace. Please.

“What?” he asked, wondering if she could hear the note of caution that had crept into his voice.

“Do you really have an original, working Atari? Like, actually?”

Relief trickled through him and he grinned. “I do. You wanna play?”

“Duh.” She stood from the bed and took his hand, hauling him to his feet. “But I think you’re going to have to put a shirt on,” she said, running her hand up his chest. “Because this is very distracting.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “You’re wearing nothing but my shirt. I think we’re even.”

She laughed. “Fair enough. Come on. I’ve never played Space Invaders on an actual Atari.”

“Your wish is my command,” he said, leading her out of the bedroom and down the hall to his media room. When he pushed the door open, her eyes went wide, like a kid in a toy store. He watched her as she explored, unable to take his eyes off her, enjoying the way she was thrilled over everything in his collection. Enjoying the way she fit so easily, so effortlessly into his life.

For the first time in years, decades even, Max was happy.

14

Morning crested over Manhattan like it always did, the sun climbing slowly in the sky, shining between the buildings, rays beaming off windows and painting everything in shades of pink and orange. It was a pretty spring morning like so many others, and yet to Willa, everything felt different in the best possible way.

Max sat with his back against the headboard with Willa curled against his naked chest. She wove her fingers through the light dusting of dark brown chest hair covering his gorgeous pecs, enjoying the play of textures, the crisp hair against soft, warm skin. The simple, beautiful intimacy of laying in bed together, naked, watching the sun climb higher and higher in the sky. It was bliss, knowing she could touch him, kiss him, hold him and he wouldn’t run away. That he wanted this as much as she did. She’d been so achingly lonely for weeks now that waking up like this was a joy she hadn’t been fully prepared for.

He smoothed a hand slowly up and down her back, and she knew he was as lost in the freedom of touching her as she was with him. She snuggled into him a bit tighter, inhaling deeply, pulling the scent of him into her lungs, wanting to keep it there forever. She’d never felt like this before with a man. Never felt so whole and at peace and seen. Never felt so connected and at ease. Everything with Max just felt right. So incredibly right.

She wasn’t sure how long they sat in bed, cuddled together, watching the city come to life as the sky went from pink to light purple to a crisp, clear blue. Not saying anything because they didn’t need to. All they needed was to hold each other.

Last night had felt like a fairytale. The romantic dinner, Max’s confession that he was in love with her, the incredible sex. Playing Space Invaders, challenging each other to beat the other’s score. After a few rounds, he’d suggested that the loser would have to ditch an item of clothing. Given that they’d each only been wearing one item, the game hadn’t lasted long before he’d scooped her up and carried her back to his bed where he’d made love to her again, slow and agonizingly sweet.

He cleared his throat softly and kissed her temple. “I’ve been thinking about everything you told me, too,” he said, his deep voice quiet. “I keep thinking about what you told me, about having cancer. Will you…will you tell me more about it?”

As much as she didn’t love talking about it, she was touched that he wanted to know, so she swallowed and nodded, her cheek rubbing against his shoulder. “Yeah. It was six years ago now. I was twenty-three and I’d just finished grad school. I’d been having some irregular bleeding and some pain, so I went to the doctor. They did some tests and it turned out I had cervical cancer. They did more tests to determine what stage and how serious, and luckily it was early enough that it was treatable. Not long after the tests, I went through the process to