Sucking my teeth in annoyance, I shake my head. “I really thought you were gonna agree to it.”

“Not yet,” she says. “He thought I was dating Markus.”

“What? Your dad?”

“Yeah,” she scoffs. “Then he went on about how I can’t be distracted right now. I can’t tell him yet; there was an opening to do it, but then he said that, and I couldn’t.”

“But you wanted to?” I ask because, for some reason, it matters.

She nods. “Yeah, I did. I do and I will.”

“Okay, so first chance you get?”

“I’ll tell him,” she says almost like a promise softly against my lips.

“Good,” I whisper back, moving my nose against hers. “Do you want your gift?”

“I have it,” she whispers back, and my heart just, ugh, it just hurts with love for this girl. It’s the perfect time for her to say it, to whisper it against my lips. But when she only kisses me, I try not to be disappointed. Rolling onto her, I continue kissing her as I reach into my dresser for her gift. When I have it, I pull back, holding the little box between us.

“It’s corny as shit, but I think you’ll like it,” I warn as she opens the box, the little charm falling onto her chest but the other stays in the box.

“Me with you?” she asks reading the heart, but then I pick up the other charm and hand it to her. It’s a larger heart that the smaller one fits inside of. “You always have…oh, me with you.”

When she looks up at me, smirking, I smile back. “It is very corny.”

I nod in agreement. “Yeah, but I figured when we are apart, it’ll be a reminder. I’m supposed to take the bigger one and you keep the smaller one. Since it’s my heart.”

Running her thumb along the bigger silver heart and then the smaller one, she grins up at me. “It’s perfect, Jayden. I love it.”

For a split second there, I thought she was gonna tell me she loved me.

Reaching up, she kisses my lips before reaching in her boot and pulling out a long, wrapped box. “Mine isn’t that corny, but it’s something to remind you of me.”

“I don’t need a reminder,” I say with a wink as I sit back on my haunches, opening the box. When I open it, I find a Fossil watch, one I had been looking at but didn’t have the money for a couple weeks ago when she and I went Christmas shopping.

“Read the back,” she says softly, and when I turn it over, it’s engraved.

Know that every minute I spend with you is a minute I treasure. Love, Baylor.

“Not corny, eh?” I tease as my throat gets thick with emotion.

“Okay, maybe a little,” she says with a smirk, and I grin back.

“It’s…” I say, but then I stop because it just hits me straight in the chest. The girl won’t admit for shit that she loves me, but then she does something like this. Her actions, man, they speak louder than she realizes. That’s the reason I stay, that’s why I keep on trudging on, because she does love me. I know she does. “It’s perfect, baby, just like you,” I say, laying the watch down and capturing her lips with mine. As I lay her down, my body covering hers, I don’t care that dinner is in ten minutes or that my family will probably tease me mercilessly.

Because I need to show her how much I love her.

With my actions.

Pushing her sweater up, I place a kiss between her lace-clad breasts as she gasps for breath before pulling her sweater up and over her head. Oh yeah, she wants me too. Undoing her pants, I go to pull them down but then see that her boots are in the way. Sitting back on my heels, I unzip them before pulling them off her legs and throwing them over my shoulder. Reaching her pants and panties, I pull them down, my lips trailing the skin I reveal with every tug. Kissing back up her thighs, I press my lips to her wet lips, running my tongue along her clean-shaven pussy before dipping my tongue inside her.

“Jayden, no, I want you inside me,” she whispers, and my cock jumps in my shorts. Kissing her center once more, I hover over her before my feet hit the floor and I push my shorts down, my cock springing up toward her. “By the way, I like that shirt,” she gasps, her breathing erratic, her breasts rising and falling with each shuddering breath.

Tearing my gaze from her gorgeous naked body, I look down at my shirt, momentarily forgetting what I was wearing. Jude had just given it to me this morning. It had the word “BIG” and then a picture of a rooster underneath it.

“Thanks, Jude got it for me,” I say, throwing it off and reaching for a condom.

“’Cause that’s not odd for your brother to get you a shirt that says ‘big cock’ on it?” she teases as I crawl back on top of her, pressing my body against hers. Unable to think of a retort since I want her so badly, I capture her mouth with mine, moving her leg back so I can press my hard length into her. She gasps against my lips as I sit back, directing myself inside of her. Filling her completely, I close my eyes, my nose pressed against her cheek as I still, her body clutching mine. Moving out of her slowly, I thrust back into her, her breath against my ear as I continue the motion, my release within reach.

Pressing my palm into the bed, I move her leg back, my thumb biting into the back of it as I watch myself disappear inside of her and then reappear. She sucks in a breath, squeezing me, her nails biting into my back with each thrust. When she cries out, she turns her mouth into my arm to block the sound, biting softly as her hot pussy squeezes my dick. When she arches back, sucking in breath, I run kisses down her chest, capturing her nipple, flicking my tongue against it as she continues to squeeze me with her orgasm.

She is unbelievable. Flawless and everything I could ever ask for in a woman. She makes it hard for me to breathe at times, and watching as her body flushes with color, her back arched, her breasts pressing against my chest, I know that there will never be anyone else. As I trace her jaw with kisses, she turns her head, her lips meeting mine, and I really can’t hold it back anymore. I want to stay in her forever.

As my orgasm rocks through my body, I press my mouth roughly to her jaw, sinking my teeth in, not hard but enough to give me some kind of stability as my body trembles against her. As I suck in lungfuls of breath, her hands trail up my back, over my shoulders, and into my hair as she turns her face so that our mouths meet.

“Maybe it isn’t weird he got that shirt,” she mutters against my mouth. “It’s really a public service announcement.”