Page 145 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
I covered his hand with mine. “You showing up meant something the moment you said yes. That’s already done. It doesn’t depend on a committee to make it so.”
“You’re right. Logically, I know that. Getting my brain to slow down and accept it, not so much.”
“I get it.”
He was quiet. “Help me get out of my head,” he said.
“The table probably won’t be able to take a lot of rocking, but we could use the couch.” I glanced at my small living room. “Or the floor?—”
When I stood he tugged me into his lap before I finished the sentence, one smooth motion, and found the curve of my neck with his mouth.
A shiver ran up my spine.
His arms wrapped tight around me as he nipped at the spot that made rational thought temporarily unavailable. I moaned his name.
“I want you,” he said against my skin.
“God, I want you too.”
He pulled back. Looked at me with those eyes that had always seen more than I’d given him credit for. “I don’t want to use you to drown this out. I don’t want it to be that.”
I blinked and tried to focus. “I’m genuinely okay with being used right now.”
“Delaney,” he growled as though his control might snap.
I grinned. “Marc.”
He stood, taking me with him, and landed one firm open-palmed swat on my ass that I was absolutely not going to admit I enjoyed. “Don’t be a brat.”
I widened my eyes in theatrical innocence and looped my arms around his neck. “Me?”
His forehead came down to rest against mine. “Tell me what you need. Something I can do for you.”
“I …” I thought about it seriously.“There’s a shelf that needs to be put up in the bathroom that I haven’t gotten around to.”
He pressed a quick kiss to my mouth and stepped back. “Done. If you don’t have tools, I have some in my car.”
“Theoretically, I do.”
He gave me a look.
“Half my toolbox may be missing,” I admitted.
“I’ll get mine.” He was already moving toward the door. “Now I know what to get you for Christmas.”
The words landed in a way that excited me.
Christmas. Seven months away. The casual certainty of it—the way he’d said it like it would simply happen, like he was already there in December looking back at this night—sat in the center of my chest and took up space.
The soft smile slipped through before I could rein it in, and I didn’t look away fast enough. His gaze shifted tracking the change. “As long as you don't get tired of me by then,” he said, half-serious, half teasing.
“I don’t think that’ll happen. You’ve got a lot of layers for me to unwrap, Kingsley. I figure I need at least that long to get through half of them.”
He kissed me again. It was sweet and tender. And felt like a promise. One neither of us was ready to verbalize.
Then he stepped away to go get his tools and to likely text his family to check on Chaos.
While he was gone, I fished the shelf out of my closet and grabbed the second one just like it. If he was willing to do one, why not have him do both?
