“You make me happier than anyone else ever has, and if you knew how many people I’ve met, you’d understand what that means. I know you don't know Liz, but that was the only way I knew I could get to her. If I'd told her that I thought you were the best thing on the planet, it would've made her relentless. She doesn't know what ‘no’ means. And it's no one's business but mine how I feel about you," he said quickly.

As much as his words warmed me, they weren't what I wanted. They weren't a fleck of a confirmation. They were an explanation that made complete sense to me, but that didn't ease my worry enough. "I get it. I think you’re great too," I told him with a sigh. "But that's not—"

"Is the sun the biggest object in space?" he asked me in an even, determined voice.

I had to think about that one for all of a split second before I shook my head, confused at what he was asking. "No."

"How do you explain to the sun that there are stars far away that dwarf it?" He lowered his face to mine. "I’ve liked you from the moment I met you.” He blinked, his eyebrows knitting together in surprise. “Damn, Gaby. I’m fucking crazy about you.”

Say what?

His eyes bore right into mine, drinking in the confusion that I’m sure was apparent in them. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“You’re—you—” I—what—

His fingers pinched my earlobes. “You haven’t been single for long. I didn’t want to rush you into anything, and I wasn’t about to let you out of my life even after the tour ends,” he explained in a low, even cadence. His voice was hypnotic and I was hooked. A small, frustrated smile covered his mouth. “You're an idiot if you think that you're no one special to me. You're the most special." His lips hovered over mine. "The most."

Dead. I was dead and this was the afterlife.

He slowly pulled me forward. His hand cupped my cheek; his soft lips were filled with purpose when they covered mine so tenderly I couldn't think to breathe. Sacha's mouth opened slowly, coaxing mine to do the same. Just as gradually, he angled his lips to kiss me as deeply as possible. He tasted faintly like mint.

Two hands cradled my face suddenly as he held us in one piece, like he was worried I'd try to pull away. He moaned deep in his throat when I kissed him back with the same intensity he kissed me. One of his palms drifted to the back of my neck, gripping it strongly while his other arm wrapped around my waist and brought my lower body flush against his. Every lean muscle of his upper body pressed against mine, bunching and flexing with the force of his actions.

Then he pulled away a fraction of an inch to give my cheek a wet, open-mouth kiss. "Do you need me to spell it out for you?"

I shivered and nodded, tilting my head more openly toward him. "I think so."

Chapter Twenty-Two

"You hurt my feelings," I told Sacha in a low voice after those awesomely wonderful first kisses.

I'd briefly thought about not telling him how much his words had bothered me, but I decided against it. I'd already jumped in with both feet by admitting that I liked him, and that it was him that made me feel stupid. At this point my dignity was around the block and it wasn’t going to return anytime soon.

"Gaby," he sighed, reaching forward to wrap his long fingers around my wrist. Tugging me toward him, he patted the open space between his extended legs. It didn't take a genius to understand that he wanted me to sit between them, but I couldn’t. At least not yet. Instead I sat a couple of inches away from his closest thigh. "That's the last thing I'd want to do."