Play with Me (With Me in Seattle, #3)(81)

“You are!” His head snaps up, his eyes pissed off. “I tell you every f*cking day how much I love you, Megan.” He moves closer to me, his face inches from mine. “Every single day, I say it. I show you. I make sure you know that I am completely in love with you.”

I swallow hard, my eyes wide, and just watch him as he unloads, while my heart is breaking. I feel tears gather in my eyes.

“But you can’t say it back,” he continues. He throws his arms up and stalks away, but then turns back to me, his mouth set in a grim line. “You can’t tell me that you love me, yet you just stood on a stage before two hundred of my nearest and dearest and told another man that you love him.”

My mouth drops and a tear falls down my cheek.

“I saw you,” he spits out. “I saw you tell him you love him after he whispered in your ear and kissed you, which almost earned him a punch in the jaw.” He rubs his mouth again and then plants his hands on his hips and another tear falls down my cheek.

“I’m so in love with you, Megan, I can’t see straight. You mean more to me than anything. More than my family, more than football. More than anything.” He shrugs and holds his hands out to his sides, as though he’s showing me everything he has.

“But you can’t say the same to me, even though I know you love me. I just don’t think you love me the way I love you.”

He closes his eyes and sighs, and then looks down at his feet. He’s standing before me, in his suit, and I want so desperately to take him in my arms and tell him how much I need him.

How much I love him.

He slowly raises his head and pins me with his sad blue eyes.

“If you can’t love me the way I love you, maybe we’re just wasting our time.” His shoulders sag and he runs his knuckles down my cheek. “Good luck to you, Megan.”

He turns on his heel and walks down my stairs and to his car, and I’m stuck.

What the f*ck just happened?

He reaches his car, opens the door, and I spring into action.

“Wait!”





Chapter Twenty-Seven


Will



I open my car door, my heart in my throat, and have to physically stop myself from running back to her and begging her to forget everything I just said.

I’ll take whatever she’s willing to give me, for the rest of my life, if I can just have her.

But not ever hearing the words come out of that sweet mouth will make me resent her eventually, and that’s something I never want to happen.

Ever.

I love her too much for that shit, so it’s best to cut our losses now.

“Wait!”

She sounds panicked. I clench my eyes shut and grip the car door tightly. Just go back to the house, babe.

“Will, wait.” She’s at my side now. I look down into her tear-filled hazel eyes and it takes everything in me to not gather her to me and tell her everything will work out.

Because I don’t think it will.

“Meg, look…”

“No, you look,” she cuts me off, her hands in fists on her lush little hips, fire coming out of her eyes.

I’ve pissed her off.

“You don’t get to drop that bomb on me and then just ride off into the sunset, never to be heard from again, Will Montgomery. And if you think you’re breaking up with me, you have another thing coming.”

I love it when she’s pissed. But the knot in my stomach hasn’t eased yet.

“Will,” she starts and takes a deep breath, “I love you more than you will ever understand.”

The breath leaves me, and I can just stare down at her, my jaw dropped to my knees.

“What?”

“Of course I’m in love with you, Will.” She swallows and closes her eyes. Before she can say another word, I take her face in my hands, the touch of her skin a balm to my frayed nerves, and make her look at me.

“I don’t want you to say those words just because you’re afraid I’ll break up with you without them.”

Her eyes smile up at me and for the first time in the past few hours, a calm settles over me.

“You’re smarter than that,” she murmurs in her sweet voice. “And you know me better than that.”

I pull her up into my arms, nudge the car door shut with my foot and carry her inside her tiny house.

I plan to sell this townhouse and move her in with me as soon as possible.

Which means next year, because she’s so damn independent. God, I love her.

I carry her into her living room and sit on her couch, cradling her on my lap. Her eyebrows climb into her hairline.

“I thought you’d be taking me upstairs.”

“Later,” I respond and trace her lips with my fingertip. “First, talk to me.”

She sighs and bites that lower lip.

“I couldn’t tell you I love you because in my life, that’s always meant that people would leave.” She shrugs and blinks, trying to hold back tears, and it’s like a fist clenching my heart.

I hate it when she cries, because she rarely ever does.

“Go on,” I whisper and smile down at her. I love the way her small body feels in my arms, all soft and small and like she’s meant for me.

“I think I loved my mom when I was small. I don’t really remember,” her brow creases as she thinks. “But I was taken from her, and honestly, I’m thankful because that was for the best. But then I was tossed from foster home to foster home. I met Leo in the first one, and I latched onto him like he was a lifeline, because for me, he was.” She looks up at me with pleading hazel eyes, begging for me to understand, and I think I’m finally beginning to.