Page 47 of Ask for Moore
“Stay with me.” My words were half plea and half demand, and I couldn’t stop the chain reaction she had unleashed in me. “Stay in Mooreville and let me worship you like this every day for the rest of my life.”
Waverly’s body bowed so hard beneath me that, for just a second, I was scared she would snap in half.
“Yes!” Waverly’s scream was raw and ragged as her inner walls clamped around me so hard I had no choice but to come right along with her.
My heart pounded and my mouth went sandpaper dry as I let go and filled her, my eyes rolling back in my head at how fantastic she felt, how perfect we were together.
It took me a few moments to realize that I didn’t know if her yes was just because of her orgasm, or if she meant that she’d stay in Mooreville with me. Panting and shaking, I rolled onto my side and pulled her in tight against my chest, not willing to let her go until I knew the answer, one way or the other.
Stroking her hair, I pressed a kiss against her temple as she struggled to catch her breath.
“So—” My throat tightened, and my voice cracked. I swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump of emotion suddenly clogging my throat.
“Hmm?” Waverly’s voice was thick as honey with a sleepy edge to it. She stretched luxuriously against me, basking in the post-orgasm afterglow.
“Was that yes a general exclamation, or...” I let the thought trail off, unsure of how to word the question I really wanted to ask.
Waverly feathered several kisses along the column of my throat, then the angle of my jaw, and finally brushed a feather-light kiss against my lips with a drowsy, satisfied smile.
“It was a ‘yes, I’ll stay in Mooreville with you for as long as you’ll have me,’ kind of yes.” Her cheeks blushed bright pink for a second, and then the enormity of what she had just said hit me.
I let out a joyful whoop and rolled Waverly so she was resting on top of my chest. Then I kissed her, long and hard, crushing her to me as if I was a little bit afraid that this was all a dream that could dissolve in the blink of an eye. But if this was a dream, it was one I didn’t ever want to wake up from.
“For as long as I’ll have you?” I arched a brow at her and shook my head with a soft snort. “Try for as long as you’ll put up with me. But I promise to do my best to make every day wonderful for you.”
Waverly laughed and scrunched her nose at me, the corners of her eyes crinkling with mirth. “I’m more than happy to ‘put up with you,’ as you like to call it, for the foreseeable future, Ryland. I’ve had the best time of my life here in Mooreville with you.”
My heart felt lighter and more whole than it had ever felt as I pulled Waverly into another deep, passionate kiss. I had never said what I was about to say to any other woman, but with Waverly, it felt right, and I couldn’t stop the words from spilling from my mouth when I ended the kiss.
“I love you, my little queen.”
24
Waverly
At first, I thought I had imagined what Ryland just said, but then I saw the thread of nervousness in his dark eyes as his smile wavered, and I realized he was waiting for me to reply. This gorgeous, caring, intelligent man had fallen in love with me…and he was worried that maybe I didn’t feel the same.
“I have never said those three little words to anyone else, except maybe when I was little to my parents before they passed.”
“I kind of get it because I’ve never told another woman that I loved them, but I also understand that it’s totally different for you because I’ve been surrounded by people who love me for my entire life. Please know that you don’t have to use them now, Waverly.” The anxiety in his gaze was quickly replaced with concern for me. “I know it might not seem that way since I pushed for you to stay in Mooreville, but I can wait. As long as I have you, I can be patient. Hopefully, you won’t mind if I say them to you. Now that I’ve broken the seal, I don’t think I can hold them back.”
His patience—and love—were exactly what I needed to give me the courage to open myself up to him more.
“Losing my parents when I was so young was hard.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “And being shuffled from foster home to foster home didn’t help, especially when some of my experiences in the system were horrific.”
“Like whatever happened to make you claustrophobic?” he asked, stroking his thumb against my cheek.
I had only ever shared the story with my social worker, who promptly moved me to another foster home before starting an investigation into the one I’d been staying in. But if I wanted things to work with Ryland, I couldn’t hide big pieces of myself from him. “When I was twelve, I was staying in a home where I was the only foster kid. The parents had older children that didn’t live with them anymore, all boys. I was the first placement they got, the only young girl they’d been put in charge of.”
“Fuck.” His hand slid to my shoulder, gripping me tightly as his body tensed.
“It’s not what you’re thinking.” I took a deep breath to settle my nerves, but it didn’t do much good. Nothing would, other than finally getting this out so we could move past it. “They were older and had some unusual beliefs. Like the kind where they thought women were the root of all evil and having your period meant you were unclean. That you could contaminate others. Which meant you needed to be kept separate from anyone else in the house.”
“How in the hell did they manage to make it through the foster parent licensure process in the first place?” he growled, his dark eyes lit with fury.
I shrugged. “They were pretty good at hiding their beliefs from outsiders. I had no idea they were going to lose all reason when I asked for some pads and ibuprofen, and I’d been staying with them for three months by that point.”
He quickly realized what that meant. “It was your first period?”
