Sex On The Seats (Love After Midnight Book 4) Elise Faber (classic literature books txt) 📖

boyfriends and girlfriends moved toward love and that many moved toward—swallowing hard—marriage.

Yes, I was also ignoring the fact that I was a coward.

Because when he’d said woman I love, my heart had squeezed hard, joy had bubbled through my veins like sparkling water, and longing had gripped every single part of me.

I wanted that.

But how?

When I just had the huge boulder sitting on my chest, telling me that I couldn’t do this, revisiting all the doubts I’d clung to for so long.

So cowardice and longing and feeling like the woman I’d been several months before.

Fucking hell.

Which was why I’d run upstairs under the guise of going to the bathroom after talking about nothing important with regards to work with Hayden. He was too observant by half, and I knew he’d been trying to give me a second to breathe and refocus by thinking about the one thing that always centered me—work.

But how could I?

Because it suddenly wasn’t the most important thing in my life.

Which was why I was in my office, trying not to hyperventilate while my friends, while the family I’d begun forming, were gathered downstairs, their laughter and conversation flowing up through the floor.

Sighing, but no closer to courage, I forced myself to leave my sanctuary and move into the bedroom.

Baby steps.

I’d just tell Archer to cool it on the whole love thing, that we just needed to keep dating and that was it, none of the pesky L-word to muck things up. We’d just keep things exactly like they were, and they’d stay great, and it would be perfect.

And I wouldn’t ruin it.

I wouldn’t—

Gaze drifting to the bed, to the bare wall above it, I nearly tripped over my own two feet. Perhaps, formerly bare was more appropriate.

No, there wasn’t anything perhaps about it.

It was occupied.

With a huge, colorful painting of . . .

Us.

It was abstract, the shapes and lines blurred together into something that wouldn’t be immediately recognizable, but it also was instantly identifiable because I was part of it. Because it was Archer with me.

I could picture the moment—him smiling down at me, his arms wrapped tight, his face so close that I could feel the heat of his breath, the individual bristles of his beard, see the tiny scar just above his right eyebrow.

Us.

My feet carried me to the bed, on top of it, my fingers tracing over the strokes of paint, and I knew.

This was fear talking.

This was fear trying to pull me back down, to shrink my life into that tiny, miserable bubble.

But I’d slipped an arm and a leg out of it and it was good.

No. It was fantastic.

Because the feelings that Archer, that our relationship invoked weren’t small and contained, they weren’t something I could just mess up and ruin. They were deep and important and not something that shoved me down, tied me up.

And as I stood there, staring at the painting, I realized they weren’t something to be feared.

He loved me.

Me.

Not some version of myself I tried and failed to be for my parents.

Not the me, who’d tried to lash out and keep people at a distance.

Just the me who was . . . myself.

The workaholic, messy and unorganized, tiny ravioli eating me.

Heart pounding, one second my fingers were running along the rough canvas and the next, they were trailing through the air as I ran out of my bedroom, down the stairs, and into the kitchen.

My heart pounded. My chest heaved.

But not from the exertion.

Rather, it was from the realization. From the sudden focus of seven people on me. From the one person who mattered the most.

Archer.

Who was straining the pot of pasta, steam filling the space between him and the pot, the air filled with the scent of Bolognese, with the sound of teasing and joy, and I burst out from that small box.

Firmly and forever.

“I love you,” I blurted.

The room fell silent.

Clang.

I jumped when the pot slipped out of Archer’s hands, but I barely had time to register the noise before he was in front of me, flour on his cheek, his eyes wide, his voice hoarse when he asked, “What did you say?”

“I love you,” I repeated, not needing courage. Not now. Not after seeing that painting, after understanding.

He loved me.

I watched his neck work, saw his eyes grow damp, his words a bare whisper as he said, “You do?”

I nodded, cupped his jaw, the bristles of his beard a rough caress on my palms. “I do,” I whispered back. “How could I not? You see all the things that others find as flaws, and you accept them as something wonderful. You love the pain in the ass, the slob, the woman who sometimes doesn’t have the courage to voice the feelings in her heart.” I slid my hand down to his chest, feeling his heart pounding against his ribs. “So, how could I not love the wonderful man who cooks for me, who cares about me, who tried to make my life easier? Who makes me Bolognese, even though it’s a pain in the ass.” His lips curved. “Who loves me, just as I am. Not changes requested or insults slung. Just acceptance and patience and”—I chuckled—“sometimes stubborn persistence.”

He stroked his knuckles along the back of my throat. “You forgot about vodka.”

I covered his hand with mine. “I didn’t,” I whispered. “I didn’t forget anything about you, and I never will.”

He ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “I feel so damned lucky you sat in that stool.”

“And that the ladies at the other end of the bar ordered too many drinks?”

Archer shook his head. “No.”

“No?” I asked.

His eyes twinkled. “No, they didn’t order too many drinks. I needed a way to talk to you, and I was desperate to get you to unleash the full force of your glare on me.”

I burst out laughing. “You’re sick.”

“No,” he said, grasping the side of my neck and hauling me close. “I’m absolutely, totally, completely, endlessly—”

“That’s a lot of -lys.”

A finger over my lips. “Shh,”