Bellie’s Reviews > Tough Love > Status Update

Very good book. I want to read the other books coming up in the series. Good writing. Good flow. Great read overall.

“I’m gonna go feed the boys.”
“They’re fish. How do you even know if they’re all boys?” I call out as he heads for the living room.
“I’m gay!” he yells back. “Why would I have girl fish?”

His chest rises like it’s painful for him to breathe. Cupping my face, he gives me a long chaste kiss, holding his lips to mine. When he releases me, he crushes me in his arms, making my heart clench. How lucky am I that the first person I love loves me back? Not everybody gets to experience that.His feather duster brushes my jugular with a murmur. “Love you so much. Never wanted anything the way I want you.”

“Um, I have a confession.”
“What?”
When he tenses, I rub his shoulders to reassure him. The fact that he fears losing or disappointing me in any way only reinforces what I’m about to tell him.
“You asked me once if I’d ever been in love before.”
“Yeah?” he asks, cautiously, scanning my face.
“I haven’t. I know that now. I know because of you.”

“His puff of breath wafts my face. “You fell in love with me?”
Smirking, I rub my thumb across his pulse, thankful for all the life there that I’ll get to be a part of. “Hard. So hard.”

“Maybe one day you wake up and realize weeks of trying not to fall in love with someone you thought you shouldn’t want were actually more difficult than years of trying to convince yourself that you loved someone you thought you were supposed to love, and maybe…you realize what a damn fool that makes you.”

“You…changed the way I breathe. I don’t take a breath without knowing it marks the seconds I get to be with you or the time I’m counting until I can see you again. I didn’t know somebody could do that to a person.”

“For real?” He smiles on a puff of air.
Stroking his cheek, I find myself laughing in relief at his delight and surprise. “For real.”

“Grabbing his face, my lips tremble in front of his mouth, desperate to tell him secrets I didn’t even know I had. “I never thought you’d be mine.”

He comes up panting and breathes one word, “Yours,” before devouring my mouth again.
Yours. The word brands my heart and my soul. There is no better yours in the world than the one Graham just gave to me. The intensity behind it, the conviction, shatter me.

“Does it have to be a lesson?” “I mean…can’t we just do this because we want to? I’d rather do something because I want to, and you only do something because you want to…with me.”

“This deliberation, however, feels incredibly paramount. He doesn’t want lessons. He just wants to want me. My heart thrums at his confession, tripping on the part where he also wants me to want him back.”

“So do you,” he says then plants a kiss on my cheek and steps inside.
Wow. Why is that more embarrassing than recovering from a kiss on the mouth. It was sweet…just like him.”