The warmth of his affection was clear in his eyes, and it amazed me. “Yes.”
After prepping him and murmuring sweet words in his ear I wasn’t even sure he could hear, I slid inside his body and almost choked on my tongue. “Oh sweet fucking god. Oh fuck. Colin, fuck.”
His hands clenched on my back as he adjusted, but then he began commanding me. “Go. More.”
Colin’s knees pressed up toward his shoulders, and just the sight of him in this position made me feel dizzy. “Not going to last with you like this,” I admitted on a hiss. “Feel so fucking good.”
He reached up for my face and pulled me down for a hungry kiss. “Try, ’cause this feels so good. Need you.”
I rolled my hips into him, making us both groan. As my dick slid out and pushed back in, we locked eyes and stayed that way. Our bodies knew exactly what to do with each other. It was like a dance we’d been perfecting our whole lives, and it was one I hoped to dance with him forever.
When he finally shouted out his release, I let myself lose control. I shuttled in and out of him a few more times and lost myself in the tight squeeze of him.
I was home. And I never wanted to leave the warm welcome of his body.
We lay there in a sweaty pile of ragged breaths and twisted limbs. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to speak the words of my heart, considering we’d only been on good terms for a matter of hours. But I couldn’t stop myself. I’d wanted him for such a long time.
The pink sparkly rack hanging above the fireplace caught my eye, making me wonder if I could find the same one to surprise him with one day as an inside joke.
I glanced back at him. “I love you, Colin Kearns. I love the way you talk, and I love the way you think. I want to be with you. I want us to build a life together. And I really, really fucking want you to tell me you love me too, so neither of us ever has to decorate another house with glitter and antlers ever again.”
His eyes filled with tears, and I feared the worst for a split second. “I do,” I wailed. “I really effing do.”
My heart soared. Could this be real?
“C’mere, sweetheart,” I said, wrapping him up in my arms and thanking God and the universe for snowing us in together on New Year’s Eve. “It’s almost midnight, and we have a lot to celebrate.”
I kissed him thoroughly before standing and reaching down to pull him up. We found the nearest bathroom with a shower. Thankfully, it was already fully supplied with towels and toiletries. Hopefully Ruby Granger would understand when we told her about being stranded at her place.
Showering with a naked Colin was heaven. I scrubbed him to within an inch of his life and sucked his dick a little in the process. When we finally finished, I practically had to pour him back onto the fuzzy rug in front of the fire.
I grabbed us some bottled water from my work cooler and a few decorated cupcakes from the flirt brigade before returning to him and offering him a fuzzy rug picnic.
“Tell me your dreams,” I said like a total cheeseball before biting into the cupcake.
He chuckled. “No pressure, huh?”
I shrugged and fed him a bite of cupcake.
After he swallowed, he took a sip of water. “I really want to design commercial spaces. I love having to blend style with function, and sometimes commercial spaces are the most challenging. When I was in design school, I had to do a project showing how I would design a clothing boutique. The professor gave us a list of considerations, and many of them were things I’d never thought about before. Maximizing the amount of inventory on display while maximizing the visibility of that inventory. Including efficient flow that optimized getting a customer through the store in a way that showed them as much of the inventory as possible without being too overwhelming. All the while, the boutique needed to have a country-western feel while also looking like something in Beverly Hills.”
“Whoa,” I said. “That sounds like a tall order.”
He nodded. “But it was like a puzzle. I loved it. I fell in love with trying to fit all of those different pieces into the same puzzle and also show my own personal style in the design. That was when I fell in love with designing commercial spaces.”
I looked around at Ruby’s mountain love shack that was not exactly in the mountains but at least close enough to several pine trees to at least fake it. The woman would never venture further than this from Nashville anyway, so it really didn’t matter.
“I think you should take the Greensong job and go out on your own. Use the pharmacy as the foundation of a new portfolio. It’ll keep you local, near your grandparents, and you can use it to find new clients. It’ll pay your bills long enough for you to find another project, then another and another.”
He held up his hand. “Now it’s your turn to ‘whoa,’” he teased. “I can’t afford to go out on my own.”
I met his eyes. “I can.”
His nostrils flared. “No.”
I grabbed his hand. “Wait. Wait. Just hear me out.” When he tried to speak, I shut him up with a kiss. “We can bid on the Greensong job together, designer and contractor in the same pitch. If we get it, which we will, I’ll front the costs until we get paid so you don’t have to have the capital. I have the money, Colin. It’ll be an investment, and obviously I know the Bells are good for it. They’re my family. It would give you at least six months to get your ducks in a row to drum up more work. And if you can’t, I’ll help you find something else. I have a ton of contacts in the business. And so do you, actually.”
I could see the gears in his mind turning.
“But…”
I squeezed his hand. “Baby, please. You know me. You know I take my job and my work very seriously. Don’t you?”
Colin nodded, almost reluctantly. “You’re always on time and usually under budget. I’ve never heard a legitimate complaint from any of your clients.”
“So, you could say, I wouldn’t make a stupid business decision, right?” I teased.
He sighed and looked at me through his lashes. “Ryder…”
“Say yes. Please. And if you have to come live with me in my cabin to save on expenses, well then…” I gave a big, melodramatic huff. “I guess that’s a cross I’m willing to bear. Did I mention there’s only one bed? Because we’d have to share…”
Colin couldn’t hold back a laugh. “I sleep with you one time, and now you’re asking me to move in together?”
I stopped joking. “If I told you I wasn’t joking, would you believe me?”
He studied me again, but this time the soft curve of his mouth told me exactly how he felt long before he finally spoke. “Yes. I’d believe you.”
“Does that mean you’ll think about it?”
There was that curve again. I wanted to lick it.
He snuggled against me with a sigh that sounded deep-down happy. Contented. Settled. And for the first time in years, it made me feel all those things too. “You know, my Granny Joyce is going to call in a couple hours to wish me a Happy New Year.”
“Uh… okay. And you want me to talk to her? Sort of…” I swallowed. “Get her blessing before you agree?” I could do that. God, for him—for us—I couldn’t think of anything I wouldn’t do.