Page 63 of Her Loving Hero

“I don’t know,” she wailed. “Maybe?”

“Probably,” he smiled. “I really think that’s what’s going on.”

“I’m a mess,” she groaned.

“You’re my mess, and I love you Miss Hoag.”

She slapped her hand over his mouth, wishing with all her heart that she could have stopped him from ever having said those words. “Don’t. Don’t ever say that again,” she implored.

He gently moved her hand. “I love you Emily. With everything I have inside me. I. Love. You.”

“So, you never want to have sex again? Are you high?” She shoved against his chest.

“I think you should be able to wear white on our wedding day, like your grandmother did. So, we should wait until after we’re married anyway,” he said solemnly.

Emily shoved up from the floor and hugged herself. “That’s wrong on so many different levels I don’t even know where to start.” Now he’d done it, she’d never be able to stop crying ever, ever again.

Wyatt got up to stand beside her. “Tell me why that’s wrong.”

She looked wildly around the room, saw her afghan, grabbed it and marched out into the living room and curled up under her blanket into the arm of the sofa. She knew he’d follow, but at least she was emotionally fortified with Grandma’s afghan.

How dare he say that! How dare he!

“What did I say that was so wrong?”

“Wyatt, I’m crazy, I keep saying my inside words out loud. I’m the furthest thing from a virgin in the world. I have panic attacks. And I’ll never be able to have sex. Why in the hell would you even think about hitching your wagon to this crazy train?”

Wyatt sat down beside her, a box of Kleenex in his lap. He handed her one and she blew her nose. Mr. SEAL boy even had a plastic pharmacy bag to dispose of the used tissues.

“Just because you’re prepared for dirty Kleenexes, don’t think you can solve my problems. You can’t. I’m unsolvable.” She yanked the box away from him and huddled in such a way that she was facing away from him. She didn’t want him to see her crying.

* * *

“Emily, you’re not crazy,”he said quietly as he sat down beside her and touched the soft fringe of the blanket.

She plucked a Kleenex out of the box. “I’m not sane either.”

“No, you’re scared, and you’ve been hurt in the worst way imaginable. You’d be crazy if you weren’t uneasy.”

Blonde hair popped out of the fort blanket, and finally she peered at him. “But it’s you Wyatt, I trust you with my life. But you scare me. Or your body does. Intimacy does.”

He smiled easily and stroked the backs of his fingers down the petal softness of her cheek. “It does?”

“Well not kissing,” she blushed. “I really like kissing.”

He leaned forward and she drew back. “You don’t want me to kiss you?” he asked in surprise.

“Not after I’m a crying, I’m a red-faced mess.”

His eyes glinted. “But otherwise kissing would be okay?”

She nodded. “You know it’s become one of my absolute favorite things.”

“Emily, have you thought about the fact,” Wyatt’s voice grew huskier as he considered what he was going to say. “Have you realized that I would kiss you other places?”

He trailed the tips of his fingers along her collarbone. “Here?”

“You have,” she said. Her voice heated.