He dropped his hands when her bottom lip started trembling, and his gut dropped. He was fucking this up, but he couldn’t stop now. “I’ve loved you since you suggested I should spend a night with my Legos instead of you just because you knew how excited I was to win that eBay bid.” Now his eyes were getting watery. Shut up, numb nuts. Shut. Your. Mouth. “I’ve loved you since you convinced me to watch Glow Up with you and then didn’t stop saying ‘ding dong’ for the next two hours straight. I’ve loved you since we lost three hours we could have spent making love debating the pros and cons of cotton versus linen sheets.” He sucked in a breath, trying to replace all the oxygen from that rush of words, a desperate sense of dread sinking into him as her first tear fell and then another and another. “I’ve loved you since that moment just before I got knocked out in the gym—and I’ve spent the past months scared to death I’d never be able to find the words to convince you to give me a chance and love me back even a fraction of as much as I love you. So yeah, I’ve loved you forever and I always will.”
She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “You can stop now.”
“I can’t yet. Please.” She deserved to know everything and honestly, he couldn’t stop the words from coming even if he’d wanted to. They were pressing against his chest, begging to be let loose and freed. He took a deep breath and rushed on. “I fucked it up. I am fucked up. You were right—my daddy issues are bigger than Harbor City. I see that now. And I tried to show you I love you the way I thought my dad showed he loved me—by making decisions about our relationship that I had no business making on my own in the name of caring. But now I see it all. That man has never loved me, and nothing I do is ever going to change that. I know because that’s not how you treat people you love. You understand their needs and accept their limitations and take pride in their accomplishments. You lift them up; you don’t tear them down. All things you’ve taught me. When my mom died—”
His voice cracked with emotion, and the tears in his eyes started rolling down his cheeks, but Griff wasn’t going to stop; he would never stop giving this amazing woman all of his words. He took her hands, lifting them up and pressing them against his chest where his heart was beating a million miles an hour.
“When my mom died, I couldn’t deal with the prospect that she’d left me all alone. So I’ve spent the last two decades convincing myself that my dad’s hateful words were hiding his love. He pushed me because he cared. But I was wrong, and I’m ready to deal with that now. I’m ready to really love someone, learn to love the right way—if that person is you, Kinsey. I can’t promise I won’t fuck up again, but I’m a fast learner and I know I can learn how love is really supposed to look, if you’ll just give me a chance. Please tell me I haven’t fucked things up too much and you’ll forgive me. I swear I’ll keep talking until I find the right words to convince you—”
God, her tears were free-flowing now. He’d ruined it, ruined it all with all these words. But he couldn’t stop now. He was just rusty at sharing his feelings, that’s all, because he refused to accept he was too late. He just needed to find the right words. “Please don’t give—”
“Shut up, Griff,” she said, her voice breaking as she pulled her hands free and took a step back away from him. “That’s more than enough words.”
And that’s when he knew with the sense of certainty that only comes with disaster that he was too late.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Kinsey
Kinsey never thought she’d want to have Griff stop talking. He had a great voice, all low and rough, that sent shivers of anticipation down her spine. This time, however, she’d heard enough.
She sniffled, annoyed that she was still crying, but there was just too much emotion for her to be able to put it away. It had to get out. “We only met because of a toilet in the kitchen.”
He blinked a few times. She couldn’t blame him. It was a weird start to their story, but that’s what it was. Their story.
“And Morgan offered up her apartment,” she went on, trying to wrap her brain around how one random decision had changed her life so significantly. “Then I met you and you called me a disaster.”
“I meant that I was the disaster,” Griff rushed in. “I was already in love with you, and you were engaged—or so I thought.”
“Stupid Todd,” she muttered, taking his hand because she just couldn’t go another second without skin-to-skin contact with the man she loved.
“Exactly.” He nodded, rubbing the pad of his thumb across her knuckles while looking down at their hands as if he couldn’t believe he was touching her again. “Stupid Todd.”
“And then there was the bet and the dates and the best sex of my life.” Honestly, her toes were about to curl in her shoes at the memory of what he could do with those big hands of his, not to mention everything else. “I thought you’d seen me and respected me.”
He stepped closer until there was no space between them, curling his other arm around her and resting his chin on the top of her head, wrapping her in him. “I did and I do.”
“Then why did you decide that you had to break up with me?” she asked, barely getting the words out past the raw hurt and undeniable hope clogging her throat.
His chest vibrated under her cheek with the power of his frustrated growl. “My dad said that I should let you go so you didn’t get arrested. Without someone to sell the formula you stole in your bed, it would be harder to prove the theft. It was a mistake. But if I admitted his words weren’t meant to help me, I’d have to face the fact that none of his words were ever meant to help, Kinsey. And I wasn’t ready to face that. I’m sorry. Can you give me another chance?”
It was all she needed to hear. The truth of it settled over her, warm and sure and as comfortable as a hand-knit blanket on a cold night. Her heart ached for the little boy who just wanted his dad’s love. God, she hoped that man got stuck in a dark alley with her someday. Still, she wasn’t about to let Griff off without a stern warning.
She pushed against his chest, enough so that while they were still pressed together, she could look up at him, let him see on her face the seriousness of her words. “If you break my heart again, I’m going to go find Mac and slip him a twenty to knock you on your ass in the ring again.”
“Knowing Mac, he’d do it for free.” He dipped his head down and brushed his lips across hers, teasing her and making promises she knew he could deliver on. “No heartbreaks. No acting like a Neanderthal and taking your agency. No being a dick—well, at least not often.”
One of the things she’d always loved about science was the certainty, at least on one level. If a person mixed vinegar and peroxide, they’d get parachutic acid. Blend bleach with rubbing alcohol and the result would be chloroform that could kill a person if they inhaled too much. Combine Griff Beckett and Kinsey Dalton and there were fireworks that would last a lifetime.