I lift her chin so our gazes connect. “Iris, I wouldn’t have even had a chance at recovery if it weren’t for you. I wouldn’t have had a hope of getting my career back if you didn’t step up by my side when you did, when no-one else believed in me. You realize that don’t you?”
Her chin trembles. She speaks quietly. “You lost your football career so now you have to settle for me…” The idea seems to make her endlessly sad.
My forehead furrows with anger, because she’s not understanding me. “I’m not settling for you, Iris. I’m actively choosing you.” I reach to cup her face. This time, she doesn’t push me away. “I choose you, Iris. I’d choose you over everything. Because before you let me into your world, my life was a string of cars and trophies and empty symbols of my success. But you shifted my priorities.” I need her to hear me when I say this, “You’re the first thing I think about when I open my eyes, and I love watching you fall asleep at night. I find myself more concerned about your happiness than my own, willing to make all kinds of sacrifices to keep a smile on your face. When you have a bad day, I want to be there to lift you up. On your good days, I want to share that joy and celebrate with you.” Her lips part and a shuddered sound escapes. “The good. The bad. The ugly. I want it all. With you.” I lean down, daring to brush my lips against hers. “So this is my goddamned declaration of love, Iris. I fucking love you…And I’m hoping you feel something for me.”
Iris pauses. “I thought I was falling for you. But I was wrong.” She hesitates. “I’m done falling. I am flat-on-my-face in love with you, Jude Kingston.”
I grab her beautiful cheeks with urgency. My erection kicks between us. “Baby, I love you.”
“I love you, too, Jude.”
I can’t hold back a second longer. I claim her lips. I taste them. I kiss them. I own them. And she wraps her arms around me like she owns me, too.
“I know a whole lot of nothing about serious relationships,” I tell her honestly. “But I know about you. I know that if I'm lying in a ditch and I can't move one more inch, I can trust you to drag me out of there and nurse me back to health. And if you stumble and fall, Baby, I will pick you up and throw you over my shoulder and tromp through a minefield with you in my arms. I'm not leaving you behind, Iris. I'm never leaving you behind again.”
Tears run down her cheeks. She kisses me like she can’t stop. “Oh, Jude.” Our lips meet passionately. “I want to spend my whole life loving you. Taking care of you. Being there for you.”
Hearing her say that makes me kiss her again. She kisses me like she wants to pour all of her soul inside of me.
Foreheads pressed together, we whisper apologies and love words into the air. I brush away her tears and she presses kisses to my jaw and I fall that much deeper in love with her.
She glances around at our lush floral surroundings. “This is all really romantic, Kingston. The flowers, the sexy suit.” I tighten my arms around her. She adjusts my lapels. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
I look around, too. “You like it?” I rub the tip of my nose against hers.
Iris grins. “Yeah. I like it.”
My grin rivals hers. “Good…Because I bought the greenhouse.”
She blinks. “You did what now?”
“I just bought this greenhouse from Walker,” I tell her. “This little piece of farmland and the structure on it. Walker’s helping me get some guys to run the operations…I bought this greenhouse for us.”
Iris blinks again. She stutters, clearly at a loss for what to say.
I chuckle and kiss her forehead. “This is my investment in you. In your dream. If you’ll accept it. I still want all those things we dreamed about, Iris. I still want to be your partner. In business. In love. In life.” I take a breath. “We're building this life together and we're gonna stamp both of our names on it. This isn't just my dream. It isn’t just yours. It's ours.”
“I want that, Jude. So much.” Her eyes twinkle with sincerity.
Needing to make a confession, I pull in a breath. “I don’t know if I’ll make a good boyfriend, but I’m willing to learn. How to treat you, how to love you. Because I do love you, Iris. And I know that I broke your heart but if you open it for me again, just a little, Baby, I promise to spend the rest of my life holding all your broken pieces until they stick back together. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy, to make sure that someday soon, you agree to be my wife.”
She falters against me like she’s about to lose her knees. “I’ll have it. I want all of it. All of you.” She looks all the way into my soul. “You’re so strong, Jude. I don’t care what anyone says. There’s nothing you can’t do.” From that grin on her face, I know exactly what she’s saying.
The pit of my stomach tingles with hope. That impossible football-shaped dream of mine once again bobs its stubborn, stubborn
