I shook my head. “No.”
She laughed and turned around to kiss me. “Let’s rinse and get in bed,” she whispered. “We have another hour until check-in.”
We toweled off and barely made it to the mattress. I slid over her body, both of us still damp.
I pulled the blankets over us and caged her under me, warming her up. She nuzzled my Adam’s apple with her nose and wrapped her arms around my neck, and I felt like my entire universe was here in this bed, like everything that mattered was somehow right here in this dusty garage in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere.
Nothing could convince me this woman wasn’t made for me to love. I think my soul recognized hers the second I laid eyes on her. Our bodies knew it the very first night.
The power she had over me terrified me. But it also gave me clarity.
There is a peace in knowing the one thing you can’t live without. It simplifies all things. There was her, and then there was everything and everyone else. And only she really mattered. It was easy to know it.
I just wished she knew it too.
I hovered over her, kissing her softly. I brushed her wet hair off her forehead, and she gazed up at me with those beautiful brown eyes, smiling, and I couldn’t not say it. It came out like an exhale, like something that was always there, only now I was finally giving it a name and breathing it into the universe and acknowledging that it existed.
“I love you,” I whispered.
And then everything changed.
Chapter 31
Alexis
The words drained me like a plug being pulled from a basin.
I wiggled away from him and sat up against his headboard. “Why did you just say that to me?”
He sat back in the bed. “What?”
“That you love me. Why did you say it?”
“Because I feel it?”
“You can’t feel it.”
He looked amused. “Well, I do. And it’s not a big deal. If you’re not there yet, it’s fine.”
But it wasn’t fine.
“What are you doing?” I said. “We’re not doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“This!” I gestured between us.
“Alexis—”
I shook my head. “No. We talked about this. You knew this wasn’t going to be a relationship. You knew this wasn’t going to last. I get the job tomorrow. It ends after that, so why throw that word around? What is the point?”
He blinked at me. “The point is that I’m in love with you.”
My jaw set. “No.”
I got off the bed and started putting my clothes on.
“Are you leaving?” he asked, disbelief in his voice.
“Yes.”
“Because I told you I love you—”
“No. Because you think you do. And you shouldn’t.” I pulled on my yoga pants. “I should have ended this months ago. I should have gone with my gut.” I pulled a shirt over my tangled wet hair.
Daniel was off the bed, jumping into jeans. “Alexis…”
I grabbed my bag and walked out of the room.
“Alexis!”
I ignored him.
I came out into the sunlight to my car, and Daniel followed close on my heels. “Hey!”
“Daniel, this discussion is over.”
“We haven’t even had a discussion. How can it be over?” he said to my back.
I chirped off my alarm.
“Stop!” He grabbed my wrist.
I whirled on him and yanked my arm down. “No! You knew this was a temporary situation. You knew this wasn’t going to have a happy ending.”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “Look, I didn’t plan this either, but it’s happening now, and I can’t pretend that it’s not.”
“It’s not. Our lives don’t work,” I said. “They don’t work together.”
He shook his head. “How do you know? You’ve never even tried to make them work. You won’t let me meet your friends or your family. I can’t know where you live. Give me a chance. Let me try. I can come to you. I can do everything.”
I shook my head. “And how are you going to do everything, Daniel? When you have to be here to run this house.”
“I won’t buy it. I’ll move to Minneapolis to be near you.”
My heart broke. The declaration pushed the air right out of my lungs.
“I’ll get an apartment if you don’t want to live with me,” he said. “I’ll get a job over there.”
I let out a puff of air. “Daniel, you can’t leave Wakan. They need you. You love it here—”