Page 82 of As Long As You'll Have Me
I look up at him and smile shyly. “I like how much you tell me you like me.”
“Then I’ll tell you every day, beautiful. Because I like you a lot.” He rolls over and presses a kiss to my forehead. “I’m going to go get cleaned up. Do you need anything?”
I shake my head and curl up onto my side. He rolls out of bed and heads for the bathroom. After a few minutes, hereturns and I slip out of bed to use it myself. When I come back, he’s slipped into a fresh pair of briefs and is lying in bed. Moving in next to him, I close my eyes, thoroughly exhausted from back to back orgasms. I wrap my arm around his chest and he shifts so he can scoop an arm under my shoulder to cradle me.
“Thanks for coming over to wrap presents with me,” he comments as he leans down to pull the blanket on his bed over the both of us.
“Of course. Sorry we didn’t get them all wrapped,” I reply with a yawn. I don’t know what time it is but it feels late.
“I’m not. I’d much rather do what we did over wrapping gifts anyway.” My heart does a flip when he kisses the top of my head.
“Hey, Miles?”
“Yeah?”
I tip my chin up to look at him. “I’m really glad I’m not your therapist anymore.”
This earns me a smile and another kiss. “I’m really glad you’re not either, doc.”
30
MILES
A week later, I’m driving towards her place, the back of my truck full of gifts and expertly wrapped packages. After falling asleep next to one another, we got up, had breakfast, and she helped me load the half wrapped gifts into my truck so I could take them back to the firehouse. Carter was less than enthused about being forced to help me wrap them, but a couple of the other people on our shift helped which sped things along. Thankfully for me, it was a slow call day and we managed to get everything wrapped. Off once again from the firehouse, I’m on my way to pick her up to go with me to Fresh Start.
I can’t stop thinking about how perfect last week was. I’d been dreaming about having her as mine since early in our time working together but actually living it? Better than anything my brain could have conjured up. The way she felt against my hand. How she felt as I claimed her as my own. The things it did to me hearing her ask for what she wanted.
‘I like how much you tell me you like me.’
I smile to myself as I recall her words and the smile on her face as she said them.
I turn the steering wheel to pull into the parking lot of her building and hop out. Reaching for my phone in my back pocket, I pull open our texts and tap the photo I used as her contact card. It’s the one I snapped of her sleeping on my lap with me smiling in the background.
“Hey, fireman,” she hums over the line after I wait for her to answer. In the background I can hear her shuffling around her apartment.
“Hey, beautiful. I’m outside.”
“Okay, I’ll be right down.”
She hangs up quickly as I walk towards the front door of her building. When I reach it, I see her on the other side and open it for her. When she sees me, she smiles widely, causing my knees to suddenly feel weak.
“Hey, you,” she says into my chest when I pull her into a hug. She’s carrying a gift bag in her hand that has tissue paper sticking out of the top of it.
I kiss the top of her head and breathe her in. “Hey. How was your day?”
She shrugs. “It was good. Not much going on with Christmas in a few days. I normally take the few days leading up the holiday through the first of the year off. It’s like my version of an annual vacation.”
“So what you’re telling me is you’ll have plenty of time on your hands the next week and a half?” I gruff, tucking my nose into her neck and kissing the soft spot behind her ear.
“That I will, fireman, that I will,” she giggles. She sets the bag on the ground and loops her arms around me, clasping her hands behind my back and looking up at me. “The fresh shave looks good on you.”
I bring a hand to my chin and give it a rub. I shaved earlier today so I was clean shaven for the photos I know Ivy is going to ask for on Christmas day. Plus, my scruff was getting a little too long for regulation.
“I’m glad you like it. I was thinking about growing a mustache.” This causes her to scrunch up her nose. “What? You don’t like mustaches?”
“Mmm, I wouldn’t say that. I’m trying to picture you with one and I’m just not sure. I’d have to see it before I can give my personal assessment.” She nods with conviction.
I take her hand in mine and smile. “Always so professional.”
