When You Are Mine (The Bennetts, #1)

by Kennedy Ryan

“I want you to be my only.” Cam stripped every barrier away from his eyes, leaving them wide open and vulnerable. “The only other person on earth I belong to, and who belongs to me. And then we can start a family from scratch. Something we never had.”

He was a good man. His edges were rough, his mouth was foul, and before he met her, he’d been a player. But when he looked at her, he made her feel that everything he’d ever wanted in the whole world was standing in front of him. If she had still been a praying woman, she would have asked God if He could please, please, please make her feel the same.

“A flower that had no soil, no roots, the worst conditions to grow in, but just sprouted out of thin air, beautiful and exotic and perfect?”

She wasn’t sure when the tears began, or how long she wept into his once-crisp shirt. She only knew that with each stroke of his hand on her back, another layer of pain, another layer of shame, fell away, until she was bathed in the waters of her healing, baptized in her own tears. Made new. Made whole.

While she had been nestled in the protective circle of his arms, the world had faded, a blurry reality they could hide from.

“Is it simple that I’m in love with you?” He couldn’t hold it back, even with the guilt eating him. To be this close to her again after so long was rapture and torture. “’Cause it feels pretty complicated to me.”