Block Shot (Hoops #2)(122)

A rueful smile tilts his beautiful mouth.

“I can admit that now,” he says, sharing a look with me. “She may not be in love with me, but she loves me. She chose me when I needed her to. Tonight is not the first time she has saved my life, and I won’t have anyone, not even you, Mama, speak against her.”

He shifts his tired, intent stare from my mother to me.

“Good people may do bad things, wrong things,” he says. “But they are still good people, still capable of doing amazing things, and Banner has more than proven that.”

“Zo,” I choke out. “You don’t have to—”

“I have not always done the right thing, either, Bannini,” he cuts in softly. “I forgive you. Forgive yourself, and then forgive me for keeping you from the one you do love. The one who loves you. I knew it as soon as he stepped foot in your house that night.”

A harsh laugh briefly disrupts his shallow breathing.

“Hell, I don’t think he even knew at that point how he felt,” he says. “And in a way, I’ve been fighting it ever since.”

I stuff down a sob. I didn’t realize how much I needed this. How the burden of my infidelity was like a stone tied around my neck, something I’ve dragged around for months. The weight lifts and I feel freer than I have in such a long time. And my heart swells with the same affection I have had from him from the beginning, from that first day in the Bagley office when he plucked me from obscurity and set me on a course that determined a future exceeding even what I had ever dreamed.

“Thank you, Zo.” I lean down to kiss his cheek. “For everything.”

He is already drifting off again, succumbing to the medication they have given him to force rest on his body. I turn to find Mama watching me with wide, wet eyes. There is not forgiveness there, not yet, but at least now there is more understanding.

“We should go,” I say stiffly. “Let him rest.”

Mama slips a rosary from her purse, tagged with a silver cross, and wraps it around Zo’s hand prone on the hospital bed. We walk out at the same time, both stopping when we see Jared seated on the floor against the wall facing the door. He pulls himself up, standing to his full, imposing height. I don’t think about Mama beside me or even Zo on the other side of the door. I just know where I belong. I link my arms behind his neck and press myself into the familiar strength of his body, almost bursting into tears when he presses me tighter, buries his head in the hair at my neck. We stay that way for long minutes. I hear the quick steps of my mother’s retreat, leaving us alone, but I don’t pull away. Not yet.

“She’s still not a fan of me, huh?” He laughs into the curve of my neck and rubs my back soothingly.

“She’s not exactly a fan of me right now either, but she’ll come around.”

“I hope she does, but if she doesn’t, we’re still happening.” His expression sobers. “Too many people, too many times, have come between us. Not again.”

This man, this beautiful, unattainable man is mine. And he loves me like a Mack truck—the huge ones that just keep coming and don’t stop for anything in their path. Being the object of such singular focus can be overwhelming, but it’s also the best feeling in the world.

“Are you saying you want this for good?” I ask, more confident than I’ve ever been.

“For good?” He frowns and gives a quick shake of his head. “For good is too sanitized. I want your dirt and your pain and your darkness. Your weakness and your flaws.”

He sprinkles kisses over my cheeks and nose, leaving adoration everywhere he touches me.

“I don’t want you for good, Banner,” he says. “I want you forever.”

I gasp at hearing the future in his words, of the picture he’s painting.

“I love you,” he tells me again. “I didn’t even think I was capable of saying that, much less feeling it, but I feel it for you.”

He shifts to look down at me.

“I couldn’t say that word even to myself for a long time because I thought I had to be absolutely sure of you.”

“And are you?” I slip my arms around his waist. “Sure of me, I mean.”

“Yes, but mostly I’m sure of myself. I love you, and even if you didn’t love me back, I would still want what’s best for you.” He flicks a look over my shoulder at the closed hospital door. ”I think that’s the way he loves you. He loves you enough to let you go.”

“And could you let me go?” I ask, mischief and hope twined around the question. “If I tried to get away?”

He looks down at me, those glacially blue eyes glinting with the possessiveness that I never thought I would want but from him turns me on.

“Why don’t you try to get away from me again and we’ll find out?”

We both laugh into a tender kiss because we know how much he enjoys the chase.

And that I’d let him catch me.





39





Banner





Girl, you better wake up! The world is watching and waiting!

Before I can grab my phone and silence the app, a muscled forearm reaches across me, plucks it off the bedside table, and hurls it into the wall.

“Uh . . . maybe not the best way to silence my phone,” I mutter into my pillow.