“I fucking love you so much it hurts, Logan and I can’t fucking have you. Is that what you want to hear?”
He rubbed her clit once more, creating fireworks of painfully good pleasure that soared through her body. Her toes curled, her nipples ached, and she felt her knees begin to buckle as she rode his fingers and came harder than she ever had before.
Chapter Thirty
Was she fucking crying? You’ve got to be kidding me. How can a woman cry out in ecstasy from an orgasm one minute and the next be crying…in pain? The water was no longer hot, and it was obviously time to get out. He shut the water off and pulled her towels off the rack. He gently began to pat her dry. Starting with her legs, he worked his way up her body, passed her luscious sex that was pink and red from his heavy assault, and up to her shoulders where he wrapped it around her, securing her arms inside. “Why are you crying?”
“Why did you make me tell you that?” she pushed her finger into his chest. Ouch. “I didn’t want to tell you that. It changes nothing, do you hear me?”
Damn, yeah, loud and clear. But screw this, he was tired of being Mr. Nice Guy and he wasn’t letting her off the hook. “Stop running away from everything, Gabriella. You are not shutting me out of your life like you did your parents. It’s not happening.”
“Me? You live in New York, Logan! I have to shut you out, don’t you get it? If I don’t, all that will happen will be me sitting here pining over you, praying for something to happen between us and it’s not happening.” She threw her arms up at him and walked off.
Fuck, she pushed his buttons. He stormed after her, wanting to put this argument to rest. “It could.”
“No, it couldn’t. I’m not giving up Lolita. She has been my dream. I can’t do it. And I’m not asking you to give up yours.”
“You don’t have to ask. We don’t have to give up our careers in order to be together, Gabbie.”
She looked so beautiful sitting on the edge of her bed, it tortured his heart. Is this what love felt like? Anger and passion, tenderness and longing? And so many more emotions he didn’t even know how to categorize them. This is why he’d never been in love before because of this messy emotion shit. Well…and because he’d never met anyone like Gabriella. Who was sweet and classy, calm—mostly, except for right now, and who would spare her feelings so he could have New York.
“Well, it’s not like I could move to New York and open up Lolita. Think of the competition.”
“Look, I’ve had enough of this arguing with you back and forth. This is what’s going to happen, whether you like it or not. I’m moving back here.”
“What?” God, was she even madder? “You can’t do that. Not for me.”
“I know. But it’s my decision. Here’s the thing, okay? I’m not going back. Not just because of you but because my heart isn’t there. That’s not where I want to be. It’s a great place, I enjoy visiting and spending time with my dad, but New York isn’t me. My dad knows it isn’t me. But when I come out here and see the mountains and the stars, Colorado is me. You’re me. And I’m not letting you go…if you’ll have me?”
Tears started to fall down her face yet again and he knelt onto the ground in front of her. “Don’t cry, Gabriella. You are the only woman I’ve ever loved and the only woman I will ever love. You’re my best friend. You know me. I know you. We are great together. Please, tell me, you’ll be with me?”
Silence.
“Come on, I’m desperate. Say something,” he demanded.
“But you want kids and I don’t.”
Fuck. There was that, but he wasn’t entirely certain she could follow through with that conviction even though she claimed she could.
“I do want kids. A whole bundle of them. But I want you more. I want you more than anything and if that means no kids, I can live with that.” Was it a good time to tell her he thought she would want some someday? Screw it, as long as they were pouring their hearts out. “Besides, I think down the road you might change your mind. You would be a great mom. A mom who would be nothing like Tammy Crawford.”
She sniffled. “You would’ve been so proud of me, the Kingston kids came to Lolita’s a week or so ago and I let them paint in the back shop. Dakota spilled the paint and I didn’t even hyperventilate.”
“See? This will all take time, but you and I are meant to be together and after these hellish few weeks without you, nothing is making me let go of you. You are mine, Gabriella. Only mine.”
The next two days, because Lolita was closed, Logan and she never left her condo. They stayed together the entire time, making love and catching up—doing all of the things they did as best friends and now all of the things they would do as a couple. They had just finished watching some action-adventure movie and were still nestled into the couch. Logan behind her with his arms wrapped around her torso and she with her legs threaded through his.
Life was good.
This was good. She felt whole again. Complete with him here.
“Why didn’t you tell me right away you were coming back? Why’d you wait so long to say something? That may have saved our entire argument.”
“I wanted to know that you wanted me.”
She turned and looked him in the eye.
“Don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s easy. If you didn’t reciprocate my feelings, I would have gone back to New York. But you did. Of course, I had to force it out of
