I blinked. My chest starting rising and falling rapidly.

My God. Did he just say all that?

“Babe,” Jamie prompted when I remained silent. His hand left my hip and cupped my face.

“I skipped so many steps,” I whispered, scooting closer as my fingers spread along the back of his neck.

Jamie’s eyes searched mine for meaning. For understanding. “Steps?” he asked.

I nodded. “To get here with you. How I feel …”

His face relaxed. Jamie knew what I was saying. He was following me. “Yeah,” he murmured, sliding his thumb along my cheek and smiling softly. “Think we skipped ’em all, babe.”

Oh, God. We? He was going to kill me.

“I am so happy I hit you with my car,” I confessed, watching his brows lift and disappear behind his hair. “But not really, you know? Just …” I inhaled a shaky breath. “It started everything. It got us going. That bet.”

Jamie’s mouth lifted in the corner then. He understood.

Still, I kept going. I had so much more to say.

“I have no idea how long it would’ve taken me to quit fighting you and what I was feeling if it wouldn’t have happened and I don’t like thinking about it,” I continued sharing, getting the rest of this out quickly. “I don’t like thinking about the past few weeks without you, Jamie. I don’t. I hate it. My only regret besides hitting you with my car and almost hurting you is that I didn’t do it sooner.”

His eyes went round.

“I had so many opportunities to run you over. I should’ve jumped on those,” I explained. “Moving day at Brian and Syd’s when you refused to get on your bike and allow me to back out of the driveway, I could’ve done it then. I should’ve. God, I could’ve been skipping steps months ago. Can you imagine where we’d be right now?”

Jamie’s eyes were shining so bright they were lighting up that hospital room.

“You sayin’ you wanna skip more steps with me?” he asked, beautiful grin stretching across his mouth as his hand slid to the back of my neck and curled there.

“I’m saying I just wanna keep going how we’re going, no matter how crazy it feels or too fast or whatever, I love what we’re doing,” I replied. “I love every part of it, Jamie, and I don’t wanna slow down. I feel like I have months to catch us up on and I’m gonna do that. It’s my fault we aren’t further along. Not yours. I’ll get us there.”

“Babe,” he murmured, sounding ready to argue.

“I’ll get us there. I promise,” I urged, holding firm to my plan, moving closer until our foreheads kissed and whispering, “I’ll give you all of my truths, I will. Just don’t hurt me, okay?”

I felt a rush of air leave Jamie’s body. His fingers on my neck squeezed, and I could read in his eyes what he was wanting to say, that I was crazy for thinking he could hurt me. That he ever would. But he didn’t say those words.

He slanted his head, leaned in, and pressed his lips against mine, murmuring three words inside our kiss.

“Get us there.”

And I knew he was talking about me telling him all of my truths while moving us further along to our catching-up point.

But I also knew that was Jamie’s way of promising me he’d be participating in that. Fully participating.

Dream Jamie was amazing but he had nothing on the real thing. Absolutely nothing.

I slid my hand to his cheek and kissed him back, soft and slow, then I shifted in his lap so I was turned sideways again, both of my legs thrown over his and my head ducking underneath his chin. “Can you sleep?” I asked. “What time is it?”

He inhaled deeply, curling his arms around me tighter. “Late,” he said. “I didn’t get here ’til after eleven.”

“Are you tired?”

I felt the shake of his head against mine. “Gonna stay up awhile. I’m sure your parents are gonna wanna know who the fuck I am. Guy they don’t know holding their daughter …”

“Oh, they know who you are,” I told him. “I had to explain that group text I sent out the other night. Both of them got it.”

Jamie’s chest rumbled with a laugh.

“Probably seemed strange,” he said.

“Nah.” I smiled, hiding my face so he couldn’t see. “I mean, my dad didn’t have much opinion about it, except that he wasn’t too happy getting a text like that. That was understandable, though. He doesn’t think anybody’s good enough for me, but my mom got it. She understood the importance of claiming a man in the name of love. Women just get that stuff.”

Jamie’s arms around me tensed. I smiled bigger, flattening my hand to his chest.

“Night,” I whispered.

His head shook against the top of mine. “Always dropping shit like that and then passing out on me,” he murmured, and I could hear he was smiling, too. “What the fuck, Legs?”

“Shh.” I snuggled closer.

He grunted deep in his throat.

After that, I fell asleep and slept soundly in Jamie’s arms, only waking hours later when my father woke up and made that fact known to the entire room.

“I suggest you take your hands off my daughter before you lose ’em both,” he ordered, voice threatening and louder than I’d ever heard. “I might look bedridden, son, but I assure you, I am not.”

Introductions were a little tense after that, needless to say. But once I informed my father of Jamie’s apparent love for firearms, something I found out when I was snooping around his house after our lovemaking by the fire—he had a gun cabinet in his office among the trophies—it was as if Dad hadn’t caught Jamie passed out with his hand clutching my ass.