Chapter 39
Gage
I sat down hard on my ass, stretching my legs out in front of me while still holding onto Bree like she was the one thing tethering me to this earth. Maybe she was. I wasn’t about to let her go for even a second. Because I’d been telling the truth earlier-who the hell knew when we’d see each other again? I swore to myself I’d make it happen as quickly as possible, but the reality? It could
take weeks. Maybe longer.
She was starting college soon, and that alone would be brutal for her. New schedules. New people. New teachers. Every part of her world was about to tilt on its axis, and she’d have to fight
like hell to find her footing. And me? I was heading into my senior year, with Coach determined to
break me down and rebuild me into something scouts would salivate over. My days would be spent sweating my ass off, my nights buried in practice films, and every damn second crammed with pressure.
It was a perfect storm waiting to rip us apart.
“Come here, gorgeous,” I said, my voice low, motioning for her to sit down with me.
She dropped her little purse on the blanket, and instead of curling up beside me like I half
expected, she surprised me. She straddled my lap, swinging one leg over until she was sitting right
on me, warm and perfect, with those blue eyes locked on mine. A tiny flicker of nerves lingered in
her gaze, but it only made her more heartbreakingly beautiful. Her hands slid over my shoulders, dragging down across my chest, and I reveled in the heat of her touch.
“Are you comfortable?” I asked, shifting her closer, not wanting even a sliver of space between us.
Her lips curved into the softest smile, one that cut me open in the best way possible. “I’m always
comfortable in your arms, Gage,” she whispered.
Jesus. Those words destroyed me. No game, no defenses, no filter. Just pure honesty.
“f**k yeah, you are,” I muttered with a crooked grin, before leaning in and capturing her lips in a kiss
that was half desperation, half worship.
She molded against me instantly, answering my hunger with her own. My hands slid around her waist, gripping, pulling her impossibly closer until she was pressed against me like she was made for this exact spot. Her soft sigh slipped into my mouth, nearly unraveling me, but it also knocked
some sense back into my head.
I was moving too fast.
For the first time, I wasn’t panicking about that truth. Because deep down, I knew this wouldn’t be the last kiss. There would be plenty more. Tonight. Tomorrow. Hell, I wanted forever with her. But
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right now, I needed to say what had been sitting heavy on my chest for weeks.
I pulled back reluctantly, just far enough to look at her face. She kept her eyes closed, her lashes resting softly against her cheeks, her whole expression serene in that way that made me want to memorize every line of her. Those damn blue frames framed her like art.
“So, I need to tell you something, gorgeous,” I said, my thumbs stroking circles into her sides. “And I don’t want you to say anything back. Not right away. I don’t want you to feel obligated, okay?”
Her eyes fluttered open, questions swimming in them. She tilted her head slightly, furrowing her brows in that way she always did when she read-when she was trying to predict what came next in a story, whether the characters were going to fall or rise. Except now, she was looking at me like
I was the story.
“I’m doing this for selfish reasons,” I confessed. “I need you to know this. Not because I want to wring something out of you you’re not ready to give, but because if I don’t say it, it’s going to eat
me alive.”
She swallowed, and I felt her body tense just slightly where it pressed against mine. Her nerves were building, I could feel it, but for once in my life, I wasn’t nervous at all. I was calm. I was steady.
I was so goddamn sure of this that the idea of failing didn’t even register.
“Okay,” she whispered, her voice so soft it was almost carried away by the breeze. But I heard it.
“Okay,” I echoed, nodding once, grounding myself with the weight of her in my lap. My chest
expanded as I dragged in a deep breath, and then I just… let go. Let my heart speak.
“I’m crazy about you, Bree,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended. Heat instantly bloomed in her cheeks, and it only spurred me on. “I’m so f*****g captivated by you it’s not even funny. These past
six weeks? They’ve been the best six weeks of my entire life. And I can’t let you leave tomorrow
without knowing this.”
Her eyes flickered between mine, wide and glistening, like she was trying to see if I meant it. I
wanted to grab her face, shake her, make her see. But I stayed still, knowing my words would be
enough.
“I love you, Bree,” I said, and this time the words burned on the way out, scorching my throat and
leaving me raw. Her eyes widened, her lips parting in the tiniest gasp.
“God, I’m so f*****g in love with you. With everything you are. With your strength, with your
intelligence, with the way you walk into a room and change the whole damn energy without even
trying. I’m in love with your compassion, your softness, your edges, the parts of you that scare you.
Every messy, broken, brilliant piece-I want it. I want you.”
The air shifted between us, heavy and electric.
It was liberating, spilling it all out. Like a weight sliding off my chest and sinking into the earth
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where it couldn’t choke me anymore. I hadn’t planned on it sounding this raw, this stripped down, but maybe that was the point. Love wasn’t rehearsed. It wasn’t neat. It was messy and terrifying and the most honest thing I’d ever said in my life.
“I’m desperate to keep you with me,” I admitted, my voice rough, raw, stripped of every defense I’d
ever used before her. My fingers dug lightly into her hips, anchoring her against me. “I don’t want
us to be apart for even a second, but if we have to? We’ll work through it. We’ll do the
long-distance thing. We’ll text, we’ll FaceTime, we’ll grab every stolen moment we can. I don’t give a s**t how hard it is-we’ll figure it out. I’ll travel for games, maybe even play against your school, and I’ll make damn sure to steal time with you when I can. Holidays, weekends, late-night study
sessions-whatever it takes.”
Because it didn’t matter where I was, so long as I stayed in her orbit.
“And it’s just for the first year,” I pressed on, even as I caught the way her eyes glistened, how tears
were already threatening to spill. My chest clenched, but I didn’t stop. She had to know this wasn’t some fleeting crush. “One year, Bree. Then when I go pro, money won’t be a problem. I’ll fly to you. Hell, I’ll fly you out to me. You can sit in the stands wearing my jersey, screaming my name until I
hear it over the roar of the crowd. And I’ll do the same for you. I’ll be there to clap for you, to brag
about you, to make sure everyone knows you’re mine.”
Her laugh-sob broke in the middle, her head ducking as she brushed her hair back from her face,
but I wasn’t done. Not even close.
“We’ll do it all, gorgeous,” I swore, my voice low and reverent. “The house, the picket fence, the
dogs, the cats, the goddamn horses if you want them. We’ll build the life you dream about, one
brick at a time. We’ll have kids if you want them, or none if you don’t. Doesn’t matter. What matters
is you. And when football finally chews me up and spits me out, when I’m too old to play? I’ll coach
the little league, or I’ll get a job at your school teaching P.E., hell, I’ll wear a whistle and embarrass
myself if it means being near you. We can have whatever we want, Bree. Whatever you want.”
Her lips trembled, tears spilling freely now, and it nearly tore me apart.
“Gage-”
“No.” The word was sharp, cutting her off before she could talk herself down, before she could put up a wall I wasn’t about to let stand between us. I pressed my palm gently over her mouth, my hand swallowing her face as I leaned in close, my forehead brushing hers. “Don’t. I’m not asking
you to convince me of anything. I’ve thought about this every damn day since the second I laid
eyes on you. I know what I want. And it’s you. In every version, in every future, in every possibility-l
want you. I don’t care what that looks like.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and I caught it with my thumb before it had the chance to fall. My chest felt too tight, my throat raw, but I had never been so calm in my entire life.
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“I love you, Bree Morgan,” I said, steady as steel. “More than I’ve ever loved anything. And I swear to God, I’ve never felt this way about anyone else. I want you as my girlfriend, as my fiancée, as my wife, as the mother of my kids, as the woman I grow old and gray with. I want every version of us- messy, perfect, flawed, beautiful. I want it all.”
Her smile broke through the tears, wide and trembling, the kind of smile that wrecked me, the kind that burned itself into my bones. Her hands shook slightly where they rested on my chest, but she didn’t pull away.
“And that’s why,” I murmured, stroking her cheek with the pad of my thumb, “you’re not going to say
anything right now. You’re going to take this, hold it, mull it over, figure out what you want. Because
I can wait, Bree. I’ll wait forever if I have to. But tonight? Tonight, we’re not gonna think about the future. Tonight, we’re gonna live.”
Her laugh burst out, soft and wet with tears, her head shaking as she leaned in and kissed me like she wanted to fuse herself to my skin. I kissed her back, letting myself drown in her, letting every ounce of love I felt bleed into the way my lips moved against hers.
“Thank you,” she whispered against my mouth, and I smiled against her, kissing her again, softer this time, but no less consuming.
When she suddenly pulled back and stood, I blinked up at her, probably looking like a lovesick i**** with hearts in my eyes. And then she reached for the hem of her dress, tugging it up and over her
head in one smooth motion.
For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
One thing was feeling Bree’s curves under my hands, imagining the shape of her body through fabric. But seeing her? Standing there in that delicate black set, the soft fabric clinging to her like it was made for her? It nearly killed me. Tiny silver stars glittered across the fabric, drawing my eyes to the swell of her breasts threatening to spill out of the cups, to the curve of her waist, to the flare of her hips and the strength of those thighs that had carried her through six weeks of camp. She was softness and strength, delicacy and power, all wrapped up in one woman.
“You coming or what, Adonis?” she teased, a wicked little smirk curling her lips when she caught my stunned expression.
And then-like the devil she was-she turned.
That ass.
That perfect, heart-stopping ass swayed in front of me, and I was a dead man walking. She sprinted into the water, shrieking at the first bite of cold, and I snapped out of my trance like a wild animal.
With a growl. I tore my clothes off leaving them in a trail behind me and charged in after her every
Chapter 39
muscle in my body screaming for her, for us, for this night that would change everything.
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