Page 65 of Tension

She shrugged. “I was just talking. I could stay a silent partner.” Chris didn’t know what silence was.

I stepped closer, lifted her chin with one finger until she met my eyes. “Do you want half?”

She smiled and nodded.

“Then my Honey gets half,” I said. “Just be ready for the whole thing one day.”

She looked confused, but intrigued.

“Today wasn’t my first time getting down on my knees for you,” I added quietly. “And it damn sure won’t be my last.”

VEL

“Honey, calm down, please.”

Chris was running around the house, trying to make it look like she didn’t live here.

Like she didn’t help me pick out and set everything up.

Her touch was everywhere, and I loved it.

“We just got in a relationship. What are your parents going to think seeing us already living together, and this is their first time meeting me?”

“Do we live together?” I asked with one eyebrow raised.

She paused, a throw pillow under each arm, and looked at me like I was asking a stupid question.

“You the one still holding on to your apartment.”

It had been a few weeks since the last incident, but the flowers and gifts showing up at her job hadn't stopped. Chris had been with me almost twenty-four seven, and because she wasn’t comfortable working, she was taking a break.

The police had nothing; they couldn’t even track the items arriving at the hospital. Whoever it was paid cash and used different delivery services.

Her apartment finally got cameras, so nothing was happening there, but I still wasn’t comfortable with her going back.

“Vel, I don’t want to have this conversation again.”

“No pressure,” I told her, raising my hands in the air.

She still felt like she needed a backup, so I wasn’t going to push. She would make the realization for herself that this was forever.

We gone be holding hands in our graves.

I walked over, grabbed her shoulders, causing her to stop.

“My parents know that I'm a grown-ass man, and they respect the decisions I choose to make for my life. I have chosen you, and guess what?”

I pulled her to the couch and sat her in my lap.

“They already love you.”

“They only know what you have told them; they haven't met me yet,” she whined into my shoulder.

“Trust me, you are worrying for no reason. Can you just relax while I finish cooking?” I stood and made her sit back down on the couch.

As soon as I was far enough away, she got right back up.

“No,” she told me while she set the pillows back how she had them before.