“Hush, you, and explain to me how you, this amazing, gorgeous woman, who never ever has a witty comeback or ever speaks her mind, has never had a guy buy her flowers.”

“I feel that was a bit of a dig.”

He feigned innocence. “Me? Dig at you? Never. I like you, remember? You’re my first girlfriend in, like, forever,” he said as a Valley girl, and she had to admit, she was eating this part of him up. She loved this goofy, silly, playful Vaughn. Hell, she loved everything about the guy.

“Okay, Valley High,” she teased, and he nuzzled her neck. “But I don’t know, I mean, it never happened. My high school boyfriend was that, a high school boyfriend who dumped me when we got to college for some cheerleader or something. I even lost my virginity to him. You’d think I’d get a flower.”

“What a douche.” He pulled his head back, looking down at her. “I banged you three times, and I bought you a room full.”

“Maybe I wasn’t that good back then?”

“I don’t know, I think you were made to have sex.”

“Funny, I think that about you.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm.”

“But yeah, and then Martin, who I thought was it. We were together for a while, but it was always me doing everything. I did everything to make him feel special, but he never did that for me.”

“Want me to find him and beat him up?”

She grinned. “Nah, he’s married, kids, the whole nine. He told me he couldn’t handle me after my mom died, that I changed.”

His playfulness left as his lips pressed together, but he never looked away. His eyes held such sorrow for her—not pity, a genuine sadness for her. “That’s not fair.”

“You know, I didn’t think so either, but I had so much going on with Rodney and all my mom’s stuff that the pain was becoming normal for me. I mean, I don’t miss him or yearn for him. So there’s that.”

“Probably ’cause you miss and yearn for me all the time?” he said with a wide grin and a wink.

She scoffed. “No, that’s my other boyfriend.”

“Excuse me, Brianna Soledad, I am your one and only man, not boyfriend. I’m too hot to be a boyfriend.”

With a deadpan look, she looked at him. “You know, that ego of yours, you stroke it enough for both of us.”

“True, but if you need something to stroke, I got you.”

Pressing herself into him, she laughed. “You mean this little limp noodle?”

Taking ahold of it, he gasped exaggeratedly. “First, little and me don’t go in the same sentence. Second, it’s limp because you aren’t doing anything with it.”

Rolling her eyes, she wrapped her arms around his waist. “I just want you to hold me.”

Laughing against her hair, he kissed her before hugging her tight. Vaughn picked her up off the ground and kissed her jaw. Usually, she would get annoyed by the way he was holding her—she wasn’t a child—but in a way, she loved it when he did. He did it as a form of being close to her instead of teasing her. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry that Martin, the douche, did that to you.”

Her heart swelled as she leaned into him, nuzzling his neck. “Eh, it’s life.”

“Still. I wish I would have found you earlier.”

Her breath caught as her heart slammed into her chest, her lips curving against his neck. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You wouldn’t have pushed me away?”

“Oh, I would have.”

She snickered, expecting nothing less of him. “At least you’re honest.”

“But if I was that guy, I would have been there for you, even if we weren’t this.”

Her eyes itched with tears as she whispered, “Really?”

“Yeah. I’ll always be there for you. No matter what happens.”

Pulling back, she cupped his face before staring deep into his eyes. “Stop being sweet. It’s freaking me out.”

He scoffed. “It is not. You’re eating it up.”

She groaned, letting her head fall back. “I am. Ugh!”

Laughing, he met his lips to hers as their arms wrapped around each other, holding each other so close she was sure they would become one. If someone had told her that they would be in this moment a week ago, she would have told them they were crazy. Hell, if they had told her the day before that she would be wrapped around Vaughn with all kinds of hopes for a future with him, she would have laughed in their face. Pulling back, she ran her fingers along his cheek, along his chin, the coarse hair on his jaw making her wild as she held his gaze. Her heart ached for him, and it was something she hadn’t experienced before. She had never ached for someone. But she was aching for him as he held her in his arms, his hands at her ass while her legs were wrapped around him.

“What?” he asked, probably because she was staring at him like she was unhinged.

“This is real, right?” She smiled sheepishly as she leaned her head to his. “You aren’t going to, like, go out that door and then ignore me tomorrow, right?”

He shrugged. “Hadn’t planned on it. Wanna make it a game? You’ll get a lot of presents that way. Like cat and mouse, but not really. That made no sense. Okay, yeah, no, I’m not going anywhere. When I walk out that door, I’ll be back, or you can come to me. Or we can meet for food. I like food. I’m rambling, make me stop.”

She pressed her lips to his and squeezed her eyes shut. He held her tightly in his arms, and she had never felt safer. She knew this was real; she felt it in her bones. But she was a realist too, and she knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Playboy, no-relationships kind of guys didn’t settle down just like that. This wasn’t a movie or a romance novel; it was life. But as he held her, she kind of hoped it would be that easy. That something in her life could go right for once. Laying her head on his shoulder, she closed her eyes as she yawned loudly.

“Tired?”

“Exhausted. I stayed up all night and then got an early wake-up call. Couldn’t sleep because I didn’t know what this guy who was pulling out all the stops was going to send me. So I stayed up, and then said guy had so much sex with me, I think he bruised my vagina.”

Chuckling, his body rumbled against hers. “I mean, this guy sounds pretty fucking great.”