I didn’t repeat myself. Instead, I said, “I don’t want you to change who you are for me.”

“Tess—” he started but I shook my head, sat straighter, and interrupted him.

“I can layer up so I don’t get cold in your truck and I can deal when you get so pissed you throw a beer bottle. I don’t want you to change for me.”

His head dropped and he looked at his boots but not before I saw his eyes close slowly.

“You know,” I told the top of his head. It came up and he looked at me. “You walked into my kitchen a month ago and I didn’t want to have one thing to do with you. But when you told me you threw a chair in reaction to learning what happened to me, I knew somewhere I’ve never known with another man that you would never let anything harm me. And wherever that somewhere is, it’s deep and it’s real and after nearly a decade of not feeling safe, not for a day, in that moment in my kitchen I finally did. So now”—I gestured to the couch—“here I am. So if you throw a beer bottle or two or shout the house down, I’ll deal.”

His eyes held mine for long moments and then his long legs brought him to me in less than a second. I was plucked out of the sofa but right back in it and stretched on top of a Brock “Slim” Lucas who was kissing me harder than he ever kissed me, sweeter than he ever kissed me but unfortunately not longer.

When he released my lips, I lifted my head, fought for breath, and watched his warm, quicksilver eyes roam my face.

Then I asked breathily, “So, is this Thanksgiving gig traditional as in pumpkin, apple, and pecan pie or can I get creative?”

His eyes stopped roaming, locked on mine, and he grinned.

Then he said, “Do whatever the fuck you wanna do. They’ll eat anything.”

“Both then,” I muttered musingly and I felt Brock’s body start rocking with laughter under mine.

Then I felt Brock’s body rocking with laughter over mine because he rolled me to my back while rolling on top of me.

Then my glasses were no longer on my nose but on the coffee table and I felt Brock’s laughter in my mouth because he was kissing me.

Then I felt a lot of other things given to me from Brock but none of them had one thing to do with laughter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Thanksgiving

A week and a half later…

“YOU WANNA TELL me, sweetness, how dessert for seventeen people translates into seven pies and two cakes?” Brock asked.