“I’m all in with this, kitten. If you’re not, you need to tell me, so I can fix it.”

Noah’s statement wasn’t a surprise, but it stole my breath nevertheless because he looked so serious when he said it as if he expected me to reply that I’m not all in as he is.

We’ve spent the last few hours being grilled by my parents and when I say parents I mean my mom. Noah was amazing, he answered everything that was asked of him without being vexed over it.

Do you plan to live together? This from my mom. I’m hoping to talk Sena into moving up to my apartment. It overlooks the entire city and she loves the view. Or, we can find a house if that’s what she wants. Noah replied. To which my eyes nearly bugged out of my skull because it’s the first I’d heard of it.

What about her work? To which he replied. Sena is the most capable person I’ve ever met, Bonnie, and her freelance business is thriving, but if she doesn’t want to work she doesn’t have to, I’d love to take care of her while she’s pregnant and after she’s given birth for as long as she wants, the choices are hers.

Again, my eyes go as circular as my gramma’s special Easter dinner plates. Not only because he’s saying things he hadn’t discussed with me, and smirking at me while he did it, but they’re talking about my life like I’m not sitting right there in the family room with them.

I also blushed to high heaven.

My villain has one of those hearts any man or woman would be lucky if he let them in. And I’m one of the lucky few.

I won’t ever take it for granted. Nor the gift of his love.

Though, I didn’t have many answers as to what we’d do now for my mom, I was on cloud nine listening to how sure Noah was with his instant replies. He’d given this parenting gig so much more thought than I have so far.

And it went further than just his little app he was glued to constantly. While I was hoping all the details would fall into place naturally, it’s Noah who was planning for our future, who sees more than just tomorrow, he sees further than that and I swear my heart exploded inside my chest.

So that was earlier, and it took me more than two hours to be able to get him alone by going for a walk.

We strolled in relative silence for a few minutes, my hand locked in his. Then I started pointing out places along the way. The stream I used to play by (note to self; don’t let my kid play near water) and my old school.

We tracked back the way we came, and we’re maybe a mile from the house when he suggested we sit somewhere.

We’re close by the old tree I would climb and the one with my initials carved into about fifty times. It’s the same tree I had my first kiss. It’s moderately secluded in a field with the road just barely in sight.

It’s there Noah put down his statement once he was on the ground with his back to the tree trunk, and me in between his legs.

“Is that what you think, that I’m not in this relationship?”

“What I think is, this was more than you bargained for. My family's reactions haven’t helped any. You left while I was running an errand, kitten.”

He said neutrally, but I heard the hurt in his voice.

Oh, my heart.

My Noah.

I rested my forehead to his before I pull back to look at him.

“I was overwhelmed, and I really did think it was better I got the talk with my parents over with.”

“Without me here. That says a lot.”

It maybe does, but not what he thinks it says.

He took my notched chin between finger and thumb firm enough to let me know he wasn’t letting go no matter how much I stayed silent. “You’ll tell me, kitten.”

My expression slackened.

He tugged my chin until I had no choice but to meet his gaze.

It burned.

It flooded me with hormones that could easily turn me into his slave.

A naked slave that lived on my knees just to service him with my mouth wide open. But now wasn’t the time to think of Noah and being naked because that only led one place and we had to have real words between us.

I half smiled. I’ve always loved his no-nonsense approach.

And his cranky impatience.

I see it warring in his eyes, waiting for my answer is not easy for him.

I prodded him a little. “I’m not one of your employees, I don’t jump when you click your fingers.”

“But you are mine.” His voice so rough, so firm I had no choice but to feel its tenor and absolute authority in my belly. “Do you need a reminder of this?”

“Maybe,” my nose knocked his. “I was in this long before you were, Noah, don’t you forget that. I fell for you on day one. I pined for my friend so much longer.”

I felt his chest depress and his hands tightened on my waist. “You never said.”

Being a simple, yet complicated contradictory woman it’s easy to forget Noah can’t read my mind and magically know what’s going on with me with my every emotion. We’ve both been swimming in a pond neither of us have been in before. Whereas he took to the water like well… a fricking perfect villainous duck, I’ve been floundering a little. Letting silly things that shouldn’t mean anything mean too much and that resulted in closing off my feelings from him in the ways he needed me to be. Namely more fucking verbal in how I felt.

Dammit, Sena, rookie mistake.

Noah is and always will be my person.

He’d known I loved him but not loved him.

Love is such a tepid word.

I’m wild for him. To the point that nothing else mattered, not when you considered the bigger picture.

Noah was my picture. He was every color and stroke of the brush I wanted to spend the rest of my forever gazing at and worshipping.

While I’m in my own head, he cupped my cheek, thumb working my cheek softly.

And the way he just gazed at me, giving me the space to work through my thoughts, never rushing me, it’s as if I see him for the first time.

Really see him.

His wicked mouth twitched at the corner with silent understanding.

My body tightened like a claw, my heart so raw it hurt.

He’d never hidden his feelings. Not of friendship and now he felt more for me and it’s there. Oh, bless my socks. I saw it all as he waited so patiently.

His eyes told me stories I longed to hear.

They said he had time, he’d wait because he loved me.

My mouth fell open a little. I felt Noah everywhere, drawn into his warm scent and strong arms, down to my nerve endings and into my soul. But it’s that look, as though there will never, ever be anything more important to him than me, that does me in.

It stuttered my air ways before I grabbed a full breath again.

That beloved look was heaven. It’s everything.

“You get it, I see?” He smiled running his nose down my jaw.

And I do get it, finally. It was never a problem for Noah, what he felt was what he felt, he accepted it. The plot twist being, I got everything I longed for and it was my own hurdles I’ve had to get over to enjoy and trust in the happiness I was feeling. What a fricking shock. I landed Noah fucking Fierro, the born-gay and I became my own heart-block. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so true.

What we had wasn’t so unique. People who were not on the same destiny signup sheet could still fall in love. We were prime examples. But what Noah and I had was so much more than love.

It was attachment.

A deep bond of trust and attraction that grew so slowly over time (for him) and galloped for me, that when we finally met in the middle it’s taken us a few steps to become synced.

I took a fortifying breath and leaned my shoulder into his chest.

“Noah?”

“Yeah, kitten…”

I started to grin. I felt light inside. I mean, it’s not a newsflash, but it feels brand new somehow. As if something inside me was unlocked and I had all my answers and I was … good. More than good. Elated. Light and full of bubbles.

“You’re so fucking crazy about me, lion, aren’t you?”

He rumbled a laugh through his rib cage, nipping the corner of my mouth.

“Yeah, I am. Are you gonna tell me now, or keep me waiting?”

I twisted in his arms, getting up on my knees I straddled his lap. He helped by using his hands on my ass to pull me in.

It’s soft, my kiss.

Peppered over Noah’s lips at first, then smoothed over his stubble, the bristles tickled and added to my enjoyment as my heart rammed into my ribcage.

I took my time memorizing his face with my lips.

“I love you so very much, Noah Fierro.”

I never in a million light years dreamed I’d be under my favorite tree in my home-town declaring my unending love to Noah. It’s not possible to love someone as much as I love him.

And for a second, I assumed he didn’t hear me until he let go of a breath he must have been holding for ten minutes because I feel the exhale against my own chest. “Again.” Two large palms cupped my face, tipped my head so I had to look into the deepest set of two blue eyes, not that it’s a hardship, my eyes love being on Noah always and that’s when relief flooded into me.

He wanted me to repeat it. “Tell me again.”

We cozied up together unhurried and lazy. For once he let me lead. I nibbled and played my lips across his face, memorizing every line and bristle, letting our mouths break often before returning to a different spot to repeat my affection. I had so much affection stored inside me waiting for the day, dreaming of the day it could escape. I was going to drown him in love.

I murmured, “I love you,” many times, feeling more powerful and sure each time. And each time I declared it, Noah groaned and stroked his thumb against my jawline. “I love we made a baby together, your baby inside me.” He looked up at me from under those sex-heavy lids.

Those astute eyes of his that I love so much softened and cleared.

They roamed all over my face, taking me in, landing on my watery eyes with tears I’d refused to let fall until he used the pad of his thumbs to softly smooth under my eyes and catch them, wiping them out of existence.

“I’ve never felt anything like this before. I didn’t know it was possible.” My mouth quirked at the edges and he saw my amusement because Noah smiled back with understanding before adding, “I don’t just mean the incredible sex, you, smartass, and I don’t mean because I’m queer…or straight-for-you. Loving someone this deeply, it’s utter madness and it fills me. I love you, kitten. I love you. I am madly, deeply, unequivocally in love with you.”

Inside, my organs felt like they were on a fast spin cycle with my poor southern heart stuttering all out of excited sorts.

I wanted to say so much in the following minute, but I couldn’t.

It’s impossible to follow that. Noah won at romance declaration.

He leaned in and kissed the tip of my nose, across my cheek. “Do you know how many times I’ve said that … to anyone?” The steady look in his eye told me I knew the answer. I knew. And my heart free falls again and I became more pliant in his arms, leaning my forehead against his.

“My everything. My villain is my everything.”

We shared a look of understand with no beginning or end. A look that existed solely for Noah and I being on the same page at the same time. Our connection of friendship and now something deeper that’s just ours and it seemed impossible to fall deeper in love.

And yet we did in that moment.

No one explained love at school. We learned ABCs first, and how to count to ten, and then came the hard lessons of history and geography, science and if you’re lucky you learn how to be a decent human being, kind, helpful with manners, but no one tells you how to love, that as a human is ingrained in us.

We searched for love, and we loved hard, we yearned for it instinctively right from birth, sometimes it’s painful, other times it’s downright gutting to love someone. But then you get those rare moments of loving another person so big, so strong it consumed you from the inside out, the happiness so wild and fulfilling you don’t have to question the why’s of it.

You simply love.

I saw Noah and I loved.

For me it was that simple.

Soon the small, gentle loving kisses we were giving to each other turned to something more.

Noah nipped my lower lip.

I sucked on his top lip.

We both dived into a kiss so hot I could almost feel my clothes burn off and it had nothing to do with the midday sun beating down on top of us.

He squeezed my ass and I moaned. “I need you.”

“You have me.”

I have no shame at this point when I pumped my crotch against his and felt how incredibly hard he was. It shorted my brain and I went to town grinding him.

“Noah, give me something,”

I’ll take 500 orgasms, please. Or one big one.

My body ached and about as needy as I’ve ever been.

We’re in the great outdoors. And while we are secluded it would take only one car to drive by to see us, I couldn’t bring myself to care.

I need him.

“I’ll take care of you, kitten,” he rasped, and I trusted him to, “no one will see you come hard for me,” he licked over my lip, a tempting erotic touch of the very tip of his tongue and it spirited heat to my lower region, my fingers gripped the side of his head. “No one will ever see you like this but me,” he said it on a growl as he slid his hand down into my shorts, bypassing my underwear and cupped me.

Oh, Jesus and Mary on her donkey.

He didn’t immediately start moving his hand and I was out of my mind instantly for the caress. Something. Anything to make the ache go away. I pumped my hips in hopes to encourage him, because he is only a man and as we girls all know the male species sometimes need a little cajoling in the right direction.

Noah had other ideas.

He was busy sucking on the side of my neck. And while it’s incredible, firing sparks through my skin, I needed something else lower south.

“Noah. God. Please,”

“I’m going to,” when his fingers parted me he found me soaked. So, soaked I’m probably dripping in his palm.

“Fuck. Fuck, that’s my girl.” I thought he would have gone for my clit, but he went right in, pushing two long fingers inside me, making my back break in two and my belly bottom out with instant cracking pleasure.

The hand trapped in my shorts was a tight fit, he couldn’t pump his fingers hard, he barely moved at all, but the intrusion was a flash fire everywhere.

The way he stroked directly to the epicenter of where it felt so incredibly good and he didn’t stop there, he tormented that magic spot over and over until I was blinded with raging want, pumping my hips like it’s his cock I’m riding in time to his thumb-banging my poor wanting clit.

I’m so one-tracked minded in that moment, it didn’t register I’m being fingered outside against an oak tree in my old neighborhood where anyone driving by could see us. I’m too consumed in my desire and listening to Noah grunting as his teeth scrape my throat.

“Oh, god, Noah. God—I’m there, please, make me come.”

“Lift your shirt, kitten, feed me one of those nipples poking the side of my face, hurry, baby.” I did it quickly. Shirt up, bra down, and he sucked hard, making the pleasure quadruple. He moved from nipple to nipple, and when I came with my face pressed into his neck to stifle my cries It was undetermined which stimulation got me there, only that I was fire all over and mumbling his name.

Another shudder went through me when he removed his hand and I heard him licking those wet fingers.

Jesus. This man. My man.

I managed to rouse my heavy head from his shoulder, and through sex glazed eyes I blinked slowly trying to return to earth and regain a normal breathing pattern. Noah grinned that sexy mouth twitch of his.

“I think I ruined my shorts,” came out of my mouth when I really wanted to tell him how much I loved him again. It seemed my tongue was as drunk as I felt.

Noah laughed, smoothed hair back from my face.

He was still hard as a pipe between my legs but he’d rebuttoned my shorts.

“What about this?” I inched fingers down there and tapped him a little. He groaned low in his throat and peppered kisses on my throat.

“I’ll keep until we get back to the house.”

To which I reared back so fast, my eyes bulged with shock and scandal shining out of them.

“You are out of your villainous mind if you think we’re fucking in my momma’s house! She’d skin me alive. She’d skin you alive, lion.”

He found it all so comical, those gorgeous lips curved. “Since she knows she’s going to be a grandma we can assume she also knows we have sex,” he nibbled my jaw. “I want to have sex with my kitten who loves me.”

God. He undid me with a few special words.

I would have banged his brains out right there if he didn’t choose that moment to rise, to haul me up with him and begin walking us down the lane.

“I mean it, Noah. We can’t do the sex in my parent’s house.”

He just turned a wicked grin on me and curled his arm tighter around my waist.