Page 122 of Chris

“Absolutely, Val.”

She grinned. “Then, that’s all I care about. Although, I would like to hear your plans.”

“With you?”

“Anything. I enjoy hearing you talk. Do you know how long it has been since I wanted to sit and have a conversation with a man? A man that wanted to hear me talk, too?”

He blinked.

Swallowed thickly, too.

“You can do anything, and I will be here to help you do that,” he said, shrugging. “If you want to put Maria back in her old school, let’s do it. Come to Canada with me, or travel back and forth—all right. Maybe I can take you out on a proper date, too.”

Valeria winked. “Maybe?”

His gaze lifted to meet hers when he murmured, “Yeah, and someday, you might let me marry you. Because that’s the thing about this. I don’t care what we do as long as you let me love you while we do it.”

She sucked in a quick breath.

Chris smiled.

“I see you, and her, and it’s all possibilities now. Unending possibilities, sweetheart. We can do anything—everything. You’re both looking for something, but I’m right here. You can stop looking now, Val, you found me.”

“Yeah, we did, huh?”

“I just wanna learn.”

“Learn what?”

He came further into the bathroom, closing the door behind him to quiet the noise so it didn’t wake up Maria in the next room. Crossing the space between him and Valeria, he kneeled beside the tub, resting his arms along the ledge so that the two of them were eye-level.

“This,” he said, tipping his head to the side when she leaned a little closer to him. Almost close enough that her lips pressed to his if she wanted that. “Us. Love, but without everything else, too. That’s what I want to do now.”

Her dark eyes drifted over his face, pleasure and happiness curving her lips as her wet fingers came to draw a line along the edge of his jaw. “That sounds like the best plan.”

“You think?”

“Perfect.”

“Like you, then.”

She dragged in a quick breath, her top teeth catching her bottom lip as she mumbled, “You always say the right things, you know?”

“Honest things, babe.”

“Still.”

“And only for you,” he promised.

Valeria nodded. “Just me.”

She closed the distance between them, her soft lips moving against his in a slow, tantalizing kiss that had his cock hardening under his slacks, and his chest pounding in his chest. Her tongue teased at the seam of his lips, ready and willing to take more of what she wanted from him. Chris wanted to give it, too.

Just kissing this woman was intoxicating.

A privilege.

It’s what he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing, too. Kissing her first thing in the morning, and right before he fell asleep. Love was strange like that, but he didn’t mind. He would happily spend the rest of his days at the mercy and whims of this woman if that’s what God had planned for him.