Page 126 of At First Catch

I brush my thumb along her waist beneath the shirt.

“Thinking.”

“That’s usually dangerous with you.”

I lean one shoulder against the balcony railing while keeping her tucked close between my arms. The woman I love is standing barefoot in my clothes on my marina balcony while our morning coffee cools beside us.

“I’m not used to somebody staying overnight and it feeling…” I stop briefly, searching for the right word.

Hadley waits patiently.

“Easy,” I finish.

Her brow smooths, and a gentle curve touches her lips, her eyes losing their sharp edge. And there it is again, that look she gets every time I accidentally say something vulnerable. Like she wants to hold it carefully.

“You know what’s funny?” she asks.

“What?”

“You act like you’re complicated to love.”

I scoff under my breath.

“Hadley, I bought a hurricane-damaged marina on impulse.”

“You rebuilt a hurricane-damaged marina,” she corrects gently. “There’s a difference.”

Hadley studies me carefully another moment before asking, “Can I tell you something without you spiraling emotionally?”

“That depends entirely on the sentence.”

She continues, “I think you’ve spent so much time preparing for people to leave that you never realized you’re actually somebody worth staying for.”

Nobody has ever looked at me that way before. Not as someone worth choosing permanently.

Emotion presses painfully against my chest while I stare down at her standing wrapped in morning light and honesty.

“Hadley.”

The softness in my voice makes something vulnerable flicker across her face too. She’s giving me pieces of herself just as carefully, trusting me too.

I slide one hand upward along her back beneath the T-shirt, fingertips brushing warm bare skin.

Hadley shivers lightly against me and not from cold. My pulse reacts. This woman affects me too easily.

“You know what’s dangerous?” I murmur.

Her gaze gradually rises to meet mine.

“What?”

“I can’t tell anymore if I’m trying to take this slow or just failing at it.”

A startled laugh slips from her.

“I think we passed slow around the bookstore.”

I smile despite myself before leaning down to kiss her again. The kind of kiss that lingers instead of consumes. Hadley melts against me anyway. And I’m submerged in that impossible feeling of rightness every time she’s in my arms.