Only Mine (Honey Mountain #5)(88)

“Did you really come out here in your underwear to tell me this?” she croaked as she pulled back to look at me.

I nodded. “It’s your fantasy, right?”

“This is better than the fantasy.” She placed a hand on each of my cheeks. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.” I kissed the tip of her nose.

“You must be freezing,” she said, her voice laced with concern. She ran her hands up and down my chest, trying to warm my skin. But I was fine now that I was with her. Hell, I’d spend the night out here if she wanted me to prove my point. “Why do you have a bandage over your chest? And what are those bandages?” She pointed at my arm and my leg, where two small bandages covered my wounds. “Were you stabbed? Burned?” Her eyes were panicked as they searched mine.

“I’m fine. This one is the only one that matters. It’s my reminder.” I stepped back and reached for the edge of the large bandage that covered my chest and tore it away from my skin, exposing the tattoo that now covered my chest. My heart specifically.

Minx.

Her fingers gently traced over the black script, and she raised a brow.

“Damn. This is some serious groveling. I hated you so much just an hour ago, and now—”

“Now, you love me. Which means you’ll hate me again in another hour. It’s what we do.” I chuckled and reached for her hand. “I’m not a man who gives my heart away, Dylan. And maybe that’s because it always belonged to you, even before I met you. But it’s yours. Love me. Hate me. It doesn’t matter. We belong together.”

“We do, don’t we?” She pushed up on her tiptoes and kissed me. “But you said you weren’t shot in your chest? Did you get shot somewhere else?”

“I took a bullet to the calf and one to the arm.” I shrugged.

“You could have been killed,” Dylan said as she took in the bandages.

“But I wasn’t.”

She ran her hands over my chest. “Fair point. Let’s get some clothes on you so you don’t get pneumonia and die just when you finally confessed your undying love for me.”

I glanced around and waved as Hawk and Everly hurried toward us.

“Well, looky here. Looks like someone is out of the doghouse,” Hawk said as he wrapped a red-and-black wool blanket around me.

“Where did this come from?” I asked as I reached for Dylan’s hand.

“Everly brought it in the car because we knew you’d be freezing.”

“I’ve been telling him to run over here and give it to you. You’ve been standing out here in the cold for thirty minutes,” Everly said.

“My boyfriend is a Navy SEAL. This is nothing for him.” Dylan chuckled as she leaned against me.

Hawk grabbed our skis, and we made our way toward the lodge.

“Your boyfriend, huh?” Everly teased. “Wow. Dilly usually holds a grudge for a good week. This is impressive work.”

“What can I say… she loves me.” I waggled my brows.

“Well, you are half-naked, looking like every woman’s fantasy, with a tattoo of my nickname across your chest. You brought your A-game.”

“As long as I’m your fantasy, that’s all that matters,” I said, leaning down close to her ear as Hawk and Everly walked in front of us.

“You always have been.” She shrugged.

“Even when you said I had a micropenis?” I pulled her closer and wrapped the blanket around us both.

I wanted her closer.

Needed her closer.

“Yep. Even then.”

“Even when I said you had two vaginas?”

She chuckled. “Even then.”

“Same, Minx. Same.”

Because it was the truth. She’d been it for me since the day I met her. She’d wormed her way into my cold, jaded heart, and she’d never left.

And I planned to keep her there forever.





thirty-five





Dylan





We’d been back in the city for a week, and we couldn’t get enough of one another.

Christmas was around the corner, and Wolf and I were lying in bed, sipping hot chocolate, arguing, per usual.

“Those are your two choices. You pick which you want to do.”

“That’s how you ask a woman to live with you? By threatening to knock the wall down between our apartments?”

“No,” he said, setting down his mug before reaching for mine and putting it on the nightstand. He yanked me down so I was lying flat on my back and moved so quickly, I gasped as he propped himself above me. “I gave you two choices. Knock the fucking wall down or find a new place together. That’s called compromise.”

I chuckled. “That’s called being a Neanderthal.”

He rolled his beautiful blue eyes. “Time’s ticking, Minx.”

“You sure you can handle being with me all the time? That’s a big commitment.”

“I’m sure. How about you?” His lips teased my ear, and I nearly arched off the bed.

“I’m sure. I told you I was all-in.”

“So, what do you want to do?” he asked as he kissed his way down my neck.

“Well, I think it would be nice to stay here because we already have this place. But we don’t need both places. Your apartment is plenty big enough for both of us.” I was panting now as his lips moved to my collarbone, and he pushed up to look at me.