It’s a dream, it has to be a dream—that’s all I can think as I rouse from sleep, feeling the weight of her still in my arms.

I brace myself for the impact, the falling out of the sick joke my brain is playing on me. Until I open my eyes and realize it’s all real.

She’s here—in my arms, her chest rising and falling as she sleeps peacefully nuzzled against my chest.

The events of last night replay in my head on repeat. The way my feelings just flowed from my mouth. The look in her eyes as I told her the incredible woman I see every time I look at her. The way we made love for hours afterward, neither of us able to get enough.

It’s always been this way with us, this easy comfort. Even after all the time we’ve spent apart, I still feel it with her. There’s no awkwardness, no blank silence. She knows me and I know her, and I love that she doesn’t hold back with me.

She gives me everything, and fuck if I’m not eating it up like a starving man who would die without her. Because quite truthfully that’s how I feel.

I look at her and wonder how I ever kept my feelings for her bottled inside. How I tortured myself for years, not wanting to be the one to ruin our friendship when I admitted to her how I had stupidly fallen in love with my best friend. How I ever walked away from her. How I ever thought that would be the solution.

But I was young and irrational. I believed I was doing her a favor in some weird way. I had convinced myself that we’d both be better off. And I tried to be. I really did. But she was always there, in the back of my head haunting me.

I buried myself in my school work, partied harder than I probably should have, and spent way too much time trying to screw Melanie out of my head. It never worked. Every time I looked at the girl beneath me, it was Mel’s face I saw.

It ate at me, and to be honest, it fucked with me for a long time. But like most things, time eased the pain and the guilt. Little by little I rebuilt, and I found happiness in some ways.

Even when I found out about Michael and knew there was no way I couldn’t go home for the funeral, I wasn’t really all that worried about seeing Melanie again, or at least that’s what I told myself. I had moved on and so had she. We weren’t the same kids we once were. I naively believed I could look at her and not feel everything I had bottle up for nearly half my life.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The moment my eyes found hers for the first time in six years, it was like being run over by a car. The pain and regret that trampled me were almost unbearable.

I knew right then and there that I wouldn’t be walking away from Melanie Anderson for a second time.

Mel stirs in my arms, pulling me from my thoughts. I look down to see her green eyes flutter open, a smile instantly pulling at her mouth.

“Morning.” I press my lips to her forehead.

“Morning,” she grumbles, her voice still thick with sleep. “What time is it?”

“Just after nine. Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” She smiles wider, sliding her palm up my bare back, her touch the most incredible thing in the world.

“I’ve got just the thing.” I kiss the corner of her mouth before rolling out of the bed.

She whines from the loss of my body next to hers.

“It’s too cold. Come back.” She lifts her arms and wiggles her fingers at me.

It takes everything in me to not climb right back into that damn bed and pull her against me.

“I would but then I’m afraid I’d never leave,” I admit truthfully.

“What’s wrong with that?” She pushes up on her elbows.

I chuckle, watching her eyes trace my body as I slide on my boxer briefs and make my way across the room.

“Get dressed when you’re ready, I’m gonna go start breakfast.” I stop in the doorway of her bedroom. “On second thought,” I flip my gaze back to her. “Don’t bother with the getting dressed part.” I wink.

“You’re so funny,” she mocks. “We’d never make it through breakfast,” she calls after me.

She’s probably right. Just the thought of her sitting at the kitchen table naked has my mind and body reacting as if she’s already there.

Shaking it off, I focus on feeding her first. With the way things went yesterday we barely came up for air, let alone food. I feel drained and ravenous, but I’d still put being inside of her over eating any day.

“You need some help.” Her arms come around me from behind just as I hear her voice.

I expected her to lounge in bed for at least a few minutes, but I’m actually pretty happy she didn’t. I’m like a giddy fucking teenager right now. I want to spend every single second with her.

“Sure.” I turn from the refrigerator, leaving it open to pull her into my arms. “God, I love seeing you like this.” I push her messy hair away from her face, loving how bright her eyes are.

In all the years I’ve known her I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so happy. Knowing I put it there does something unexplainable to me.

“Do you have bacon or sausage here?” I ask.

“No such luck.” She sticks out her bottom lip, and I immediately lean down and pull it into my mouth. She rewards me with a soft moan, and it takes everything in me to pull away.

“Eggs?”

“I did manage to remember to pick up eggs and flour, and everything else you need to make me waffles.” She smiles so big her eyes crinkle at the sides.

“Waffles again?” I groan in fake annoyance.

“I just love them so much.” She lightly smacks my bare chest, knowing I’m just giving her a hard time.

I love cooking for her. She knows it, too.

“Okay, waffles it is. Though, they would be much better with bacon.” I continue to give her a hard time.

“I promise next time I’ll have bacon.” She shimmies between me and the fridge door, giving me the perfect view of her little red panties as she leans down and retrieves the eggs. “Stop checking out my butt,” she warns, knowing exactly where my eyes had gone without even seeing me.

Straightening her posture, she turns, pushing the carton of eggs at me.

“Then perhaps you should be wearing more than my t-shirt. When you walk out in something like that, I kind of get the impression you want me to do more than just look,” I retort.

I love the way her cheeks flush at my words before she quickly turns back and grabs the milk.

“And what if I do?” She steps back into me as she closes the refrigerator door and then slides past me, a small smirk on her lips as her body grazes mine.

“I’m here to please,” I say, laying a small slap to her ass before she’s out of reach which causes her to yelp.

“Cole Lincoln!” She races to the counter to get away and then turns toward me like she can’t believe I would do such a thing.

The moment I catch the expression on her face, I tip my head back and laugh. I can’t help it. She’s this innocent, sweet girl and this seductive minx all wrapped up into one, and damn if it’s not a lethal combination.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” she quips, spinning around to pull flour and sugar from the cabinet next to the stove.

“If that’s what you wish.” I set the eggs on the counter before stalking toward her.

I stop mere inches from her body, her back still to me, and then lean in to whisper in her ear, “But money says you’ll be begging me to do just that before we even get through breakfast.”

“Is that so,” she responds instantly, spinning around to face me.

“It is,” I state matter of fact.

“You’re a cocky asshole, you know that?” She smiles as she says it.

“What are you going to do about it?” I challenge, loving this game we’re playing.

“Only this.”

Her hands move so fast I have no time to react. White powder fills the air as she screams and takes off running.

It takes me a long moment to realize she’s doused me in flour. It’s in my hair, falling to my shoulders, clinging to my chest.

I’m shocked and oddly proud of my girl for having such big balls, figuratively speaking, of course, that I almost let her get away with it.

Almost...

“Come here.” I reach across the table and pick a chunk of corn flakes out of Mel’s hair.

I bet she never dreamed throwing flour all over me would result in a house wide food fight that pretty much left her pantry bare and every room in absolute disarray.

“I’m going to be scrubbing my hair for days just trying to get all the food out of it,” she playfully whines.

“Maybe you should have thought about that.” I give her one of the looks my mother used to give me when I did something stupid as a child.

She thinks on that for a long moment before a slow smile spreads across her food-peppered face. “Nah, totally worth it.”

“Well, now I get to spend extra time washing you in the shower. I’d say that’s a win for me.” I wink, leaning forward to steal a bite of scrambled eggs off her plate.

She’s lucky we didn’t pull those into the fight otherwise we would have ended up with nothing to eat, considering she poured all the flour for the waffles over my head.

“Hey!” She slaps my hand away from her food.

“I’m hungry,” I groan playfully.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have inhaled your food in the matter of seconds,” she retorts, voice full of fake attitude.

“Shush it, woman, and feed me.”

“You’re so charming.” She grins seconds before offering me a bite from her fork, which I immediately take.

“And you’re so sexy when you feed me,” I say after swallowing the bite.

“Well in that case.” She shovels another bite into my mouth, laughing when the ketchup she insists on putting on her eggs ends up in my beard.

“Here, let me get that for you.” She stands, quickly straddling my lap.

At first I think she’s going to wipe it off for me, but instead, she takes the palm of her hand and quickly smears it up my cheek.

“You are a glutton for punishment,” I grind, out, pulling her head down to mine before wiping my face across hers.

“Ahhh!” she cries out and then giggles when I start peppering her entire face in kisses.

“God, you’re such a child.” She laughs.

“You love me.” I give her a full teeth smile.

“You know I do,” she says, seconds before her lips close down on mine.

Three hours later we’re lounging on the couch in front of the television, the evidence of our earlier food incident nowhere to be found. Once we finished showering, among other things, we cleaned the house together, laughing and dancing to old music we used to listen to as kids.

To say today has been one of the best days of my life would not even come close to doing it justice. But that’s Mel. Every day with her is my new favorite day. Just when I think I can’t love her more, I find myself falling even deeper.

“This is so weird.” Melanie pulls my attention from the movie we’re watching to where she’s snuggled into my side.

“Why is it weird?”

“Because why would she believe she was really capable of all those things if she wasn’t?”

“People can be manipulated in a lot of ways and made to believe tons of different things.” I shrug.

“I don’t know. It just seems farfetched to me.” She sits up next to me, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You never did like mental thrillers. I have no idea why you wanted to watch this.” I chuckle at the confused look on her face.

“Because I’ve heard so much about it, and I wanted to see for myself.”

“Well now you have, are you ready to shut it off?”

“God yes, you don’t mind?” She breathes out a sign of relief.

“Not at all. I wasn’t really paying attention anyway,” I admit. “I was too busy concentrating on the feeling of you pressed against me to give any shit about the movie.”

She smiles, shaking her head as she uses the remote to shut the T.V. off.

“Can I ask you something?” She falls serious, readjusting her position on the couch so that she’s sitting facing me, her legs crossed in front of her.

“Of course.”

“How many women have you slept with?” she asks, twisting her fingers in her lap.

“What?” I choke out, taken aback by the abrupt shift in conversation.

“I wanna know,” she insists, looking at me with those big eyes of hers.

“How many people have you slept with?”

“Three, including you.” She answers without hesitation. “Steve, Nate, and now you.”

“You lost your virginity to Steve?” I blurt out, not even meaning to say it out loud.

“Why do you seem surprised by that? We dated for fourteen months. What did you think we were doing?”

“I tried not to think about your relationship that way, thank you very much.”

“But you must have known,” she insists.

“Maybe deep down I did, but I liked to imagine you were saving yourself for me,” I say, knowing what an asinine thing it is to lay on her.

“Well you didn’t wait for me,” she snips, quickly shaking if off. “I’m sorry. That’s not fair. Let’s get back on track.”

“What are we talking about again?” I try to deter her by joking.

“Don’t try to worm your way out of answering, Cole Lincoln,” she playfully warns. “How many women have you slept with?”

I wish I could throw her a number as quickly as she did me. I love that she hasn’t been with many people, though, I choose to pretend she’s only been with me. But my answer isn’t quite so easy.

“That many?” she asks when after a full minute I’m still thinking.

“Mel, this is a bad idea,” I say, not wanting to ruin this perfect day.

“No, I want to know.” She refuses to let me off the hook, and I know there’s no way she’s going to let me out of this without giving her an answer.

“Around thirty?”

“Are you asking me?” She crosses her arms in front of her chest.

“Thirty two, I think,”

“You think?” She openly gawks at me.

“Don’t look at me like that, Mel. I can’t change the past.” I let out a frustrated breath.

“I know, I just—I didn’t think it would be that many, or that you wouldn’t know for sure,” she says weakly, looking down at her lap.

“Hey.” I tip her chin up so she meets my gaze. “None of those other girls matter. Not one of them. Every single person I have ever slept with was my weak attempt to fuck you out of my system.” She winces at my statement. “And not one of them holds a candle to the real thing.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“The hell I am. Look at me, Melanie.” I demand when she drops her eyes again. She does as I tell her to, meeting my gaze instantly. “You are it for me. You’ve always been it for me. Every single one of those girls, their faces were yours. I pictured you every time even when I tried not to. You were always here.” I grab her hand and place it palm down on my chest, right over my heart. “It’s always been you.”

“I love you.” Her statement catches me off guard. I was preparing for a fight, not a proclamation of love.

“I love you. Always have, always will,” I say, pulling her into my lap. “There was never anyone serious, no one could ever fill the void that stuck with me when I left you behind. Only you.”

“I felt the same way you know?” She trails her fingers along my jaw. “With Steve and even Nate, I found myself wishing they were you, picturing they were.”

“Baby.” It’s a groan on my lips before I’m pulling her mouth to mine.