Page 106 of Badd Love
“What do I offer?"
"Happiness."
My eyes fucking misted again. "I…I do?"
"Yes."
"But…how?"
"By beingyou, sweetheart."
"But…" I blinked hard. "But…but how…but how is that enough?"
"It's all there is." He sat upright, lifted me in the water, and rotated me; I took the guidance and shifted to straddle him face-to-face. "You're enough, Lindsey. Who you are is what I want."
"Just being who I am is enough?" I asked.
"Yes."
What a radical fucking idea.
But then, looking at Rune and Duncan, I knew that this was the truth I'd been missing, or overlooking, or just hadn't considered. Duncan was enough for Rune, and vice versa. He didn't have to achieve anything or be anything, and neither did she. The same applied to Mom and Pop Rigby—the only healthy relationship I'd ever seen, until Rune met Duncan and I started to see how the rest of Dane's family operated.
I am enough.
He was searching my face. Searching my soul. “Talk to me, Linz. What're you thinking?"
"I'm enough."
"Yes, you are."
"It shouldn't be such a radical concept to me, yet it is."
He ran his hands up my thighs, ending with his thumbs pressing into the soft concavity where my thighs bent to meet my hips. "You weren't raised to feel that way."
"I may need some reminders, now and then."
"Every day of your life, I hope."
I sat astride him and knew, in that moment, that I'd finally found my home. The place where I belong: here, with Dane.
I felt the last of my many shackles fall away, then, because I looked at Dane and knew that I was enough, exactly as I was. I didn't need to do or be or become or have anything more.
That freedom was intoxicating.
Arousing.
My heart pattered in my chest as I felt my newfound freedom spread through me. It was a palpable, physical feeling, a literal epiphany. ]
I am enough.
I would be enough, with or without Dane. Even if, for some horrible, tragic reason, he and I didn't end up working out, I would still be enough. The thought of not being with Dane, however, made my entire being recoil in horror.
I had to show him how I felt. I had to make him understand the gift he'd given me.
Sex wasn't enough.
Tab A into Slot B would never be enough.
