“You said you loved me.” He slid his palm down to the nape of my neck. Its heat burned deliciously into my skin. “I said I love you more than anything else in the universe, including Pluto,” he corrected teasingly. “Don’t dilute the poetry of my words.” “I did that on purpose. I didn’t want to sound repetitive because what I really want to say is that I love you too.” My voice softened. “More than anything else in the universe, including Pluto.” I’d held back on telling him for so long that releasing the words into the world was its own kind of liberation.
