"I went into that barn." I put my hands on his hips. "Because I wanted to see if it was all in my head," I say, looking down. "I wanted to see if it was just a stupid schoolgirl crush." I swallow. "I wanted to see if you were everything my head remembered." He shakes his head. "I walked in and saw you sitting there, and you looked up at me." My hand goes to the middle of his chest, making sure that this moment affects him as much as it does me.
"You took my breath away." His voice is but a whisper.
I blink away the tears. "You were sitting there, and you were so much more than I remembered," I say. "My heart was going so fast when I saw you look over at me. I tried to act cool, but all I wanted was to walk up to you and kiss you. I wanted to feel what it would have been like to kiss you."
"I looked at you, and I wondered what it would be like to kiss you." He comes closer. "I wondered what it would be like to hold your hand." His hands cup my cheeks. "I wondered all this, and then the truth would come over me. The truth that you were perfect and so fucking wrong for me."
"But what if I’m not?" I ask. "What if I’m not wrong for you?" He shakes his head, and I know if I don’t take this chance with him, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life. "What if I’m the right one for you?"
"Chelsea," he says, almost as if he’s pleading with me to stop talking.
"Mayson, you are a man with honor." My hand feels his heart beating, matching mine. "You are respectful. You are kind. You are funny." He looks at me with his eyebrows pulled together. "In your own way. You sacrifice yourself without thinking twice about it."
"You can stop now," he says, his breath hitting my face.
"Those," I say, "are the reasons I have fallen in love with you." He gasps. "You don’t have to say it back. I don’t expect you to say it back. If I’ve learned anything in the past couple of weeks, it’s that tomorrow is not guaranteed. There is no time to tell you how much I love you." My hand moves up now from his chest to his face. My thumb rubs underneath his chin. "When you showed up, I was so scared to touch you." I swallow, ready to give him everything. "So scared I wouldn’t be able to save you." One tear escapes now, and I bend to have it drop on the floor. "So scared I would be the one who couldn't save you and you would die before I got a chance to tell you that you, Mayson Carey, you are perfect."
"Chelsea," he says. "You don’t mean it."
"I mean every single word, Mayson. I mean it from the bottom of my heart to the tips of my fingers." I turn my head to the side and look up at him. "And I’ll remind you of this every single day that you let me." I swallow now. "Let me love you, Mayson."
I don’t wait for him to answer me. I just inch my way closer to his lips. "I love you," I say softly, and then my lips fall onto his. I close my eyes and just feel him all over me. His tongue slips into my mouth as my hand goes to the back of his neck.
"Chelsea," he says as he moves his head from one side to the other. "I’ve dreamed of this moment," he says. "I’ve dreamed of kissing you." He kisses me so softly it feels like a dream. "Every single day."
"I’m here," I say, and one of his arms wraps around my waist. "I’m always here." His mouth falls on mine again.
"So wrong," he says between giving me kisses. "So fucking wrong." His hands cup my face, not letting me go. "So perfectly fucking wrong."
"Or," I say, my tongue sliding across his lower lip. "Or perfectly right."
Chapter 19
Mayson
"Perfectly right." Her voice is strong, and she never wavers.
I push her hair behind her ears. "You need to stop," I say, and she shakes her head.
"You need to listen to me." She holds my face, leaning in to kiss me. The fear that was in her eyes when she got here is now gone. "I’m not going anywhere, and neither are my feelings."
Her hands go from my cheeks now to my lips. "Trust me."
“No one," I say, my hand going to rub her face like she is rubbing mine, I look into her eyes as I say the next part. "No one has ever said that to me before,” I say another secret that I’ve never shared with anyone. "Not even my mother."
She blinks away tears as she looks at me. "She loved you." She smiles at me, and she furiously blinks away tears. "How can she not? Look at how perfect you turned out to be."
"Chelsea." Her name is on my lips all the time lately.
"Don’t you dare," she says, leaning in and kissing me, and my heart fills for a whole different reason. "Don’t you dare say anything."
"Will you let me even if I wanted to?" I lean forward and kiss her jaw.
"No," she says, and the timer rings. "Do you want to help me cook? Maybe it’ll be a stress release."
I swallow, and I don’t tell her that her in my arms is the only stress release I need right now. I don’t tell her that just kissing her makes everything better. I tell her none of that because she deserves better than me, no matter what she says. "Sure," I say, and she steps away from me, going to the fridge and grabbing stuff. "What are we going to do first?"
"Well, one, wash your hands." She points at the sink and laughs. "God, I just sounded like my grandmother."
Walking over to the sink, I wash my hands and turn around to see her at the stove. "How are your cutting skills?"
"It’s okay, I guess. I’m used to just cooking for myself," I say. "I’ve never complained."
"Okay, chop this." She puts the celery and an onion in front of me. She turns and walks over to the pot, putting the chicken in the water to cook.
"What is your favorite thing to eat?" She grabs another bowl and starts to cut apples.
"I don’t think I have a favorite," I say. "When we are away, our food is usually bland and in a bag."
"There has to be something you would eat every day if you could." I swallow because I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that, and I am also pretty sure I shouldn’t tell her.
"I guess I’m more meat and potatoes than fish and rice," I say.
"Well, then I’ll stick to meat and potatoes," she says from next to me. I look over at her. "What?" She looks over at me.
"You," I just say. "You would do that, wouldn’t you?" I ask, and she looks at me, confused. "Cook meat and potatoes every day if that is what I wanted."
"Well…" She shrugs. "I like that, too. So technically, I would be cooking it for myself. But…" She smirks. "I do a mean maple-glazed salmon."
I don’t say anything else to her because I can’t. Just the thought of having dinner with her every night is too much for me. I don’t have time to get sidetracked with her. I can’t go there, knowing that at any minute it could be taken away from me.
She shows me step by step what she is doing, and she helps me make the dough for the apple pie. "All you have to do is knead it." She puts her hands on mine as she shows me. Our fingers link with each other. "Gently," she says. She looks up at me, and everything I told myself is out the window. Her eyes sparkle as she looks at me, and her smile fills her face, making her even more breathtaking.