What He Never Knew (What He Doesn't Know, #3)(97)

Sarah shook her head, like she would never believe that I wanted her, that I was hers entirely. And I didn’t know how long it would take to make her believe it, but I fully intended to find out.

She melted into me again when I lowered my lips to hers, wrapping my arms all the way around her and lifting her off the ground in a slow, movie-like twirl, which made her burst into laughter as soon as her toes were on the ground again.

“That was cheesy,” she said.

“You think that was cheesy? Just wait. You’re in for a whole lot of cheese.”

“I’m vegan.”

“Have you ever been kissed in the rain, Sarah Henderson?” I asked, ignoring her comment.

She cocked a brow. “No…”

“Well, come with me, then. Because you are the kind of girl who deserves to be kissed in the rain.”

She tried to fight me at first when I laced my fingers with hers and tugged her toward the kitchen doors, but I kept pulling, kissing her at every stopping point along the way until we were outside. The rain soaked us both as soon as the back door kicked open, and she gasped at the cold sensation, eyes blinking rapidly as she adjusted.

“It’s freezing!” she said on a laugh, but I pulled her into me, stopping the shivering of her teeth when I captured her mouth with mine. I kissed her with the rain pouring down around us, a bolt of lightning lighting the sky above. And I knew in that moment that she was the missing puzzle piece I’d been looking for all along.

I’d just had to walk the busted up, broken down road to get to her.

I picked her up again, twirling us in the rain before bending her back in a dramatic dip with my lips pressed to hers. Time seemed to stop with my arms around her, my lips pressed to hers, her hands fisted in the wet sleeves of my dress shirt. And when I pulled her back to stand upright, our chests heaving, the rain still pouring around us, I couldn’t help but smile at the woman who’d saved me, who’d chosen me, too.

“You know,” I said after a long moment, pulling her closer to warm her from the cold rain. “I’ve been writing a song for you, too.”

Her brows shot up. “You have?”

I laughed, nodding. “I started writing it after that first night I met you. But… it’s changed. It’s changed so many times since then that it doesn’t even sound cohesive now.”

“Well,” she said, running her hands up my chest, up over my jaw, back into my hair. “Maybe you’ll figure it out one day, and you can play it for me then.”

“It might take me a lifetime,” I warned, tightening my hold around her waist.

Sarah smiled, lifting on her toes and touching the tip of her nose to mine.

“That’s just fine by me.”





Sarah



Later that night, after my last shift at the restaurant, Reese held me with one hand while the other unlocked his door. Rojo bounded out as soon as it was open, licking my leg as she ran past me and into the yard. I chuckled, and while I watched Rojo, Reese watched me.

I felt his eyes on me like all the wonder of the universe was streamlined in a single gaze. He watched me with reverence, with care, with absolute awe. And I blushed, a smile creeping up on my face as Rojo ran past us back into the house. I finally met his gaze, and he pulled where he held me by the hand until I was in his arms.

“You should have taken a picture,” I whispered against his lips. “Would’ve lasted longer.”

He smirked. “I just can’t believe you’re here, that tonight happened, that you… that we…”

“Are moving to New York together?”

Reese chuckled. “Yeah. That.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” I said, eyes falling to my fingers as I trailed them down the buttons of his dress shirt. I stopped at the one right over the middle of his chest, tucking my fingertips under the fabric. “I know it’s a lot… you’d be uprooting your entire life here, and we haven’t known each other long, and—”

Reese’s knuckles traced up my arm, my neck, until they tenderly tilted my chin up so I’d look at him again.

“You’ve rendered time useless in my life, Sarah. One moment with you, and I question how I ever lived before I knew you existed. One month with you, and I lived more than I had in years. One summer with you, and there’s no going back to the man I was before. Not that I would ever choose to.” He shook his head, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “There is no life to uproot here. You are my life now.”

He lowered his lips to mine before I could even sigh, or smile, or blush, or insist I wasn’t all that he thought I was. And when he kissed me, that thought disappeared. I believed him — I believed in his care, in our love, in what we had survived before we knew each other and even more in what we would accomplish together.

There wasn’t a single question in my mind that Reese wasn’t just my first love, but that he would be my only.

And every part of me hummed with the desperation to keep him forever.

My hands fisted where they held his shirt, and I pulled him into me, deepening our kiss as I pressed up on my tiptoes. Reese’s arms surrounded me, warmth and comfort and care encompassing every inch until I was completely wrapped up in him. He pulled back, pressing a kiss to my forehead before holding me with a content sigh, and my heart kicked to life, beating hard and haphazardly against my rib cage.