Heart to Hart ✔️

28. Ripped jeans

"Alec, move a little. My arm's dead from your lumpy body," I groaned as I tried to roll him off my numb limb.

His hot face pressed against my bare chest and his hair tickled my chin. Small snores escaped his mouth. "Alec, wake up." He stirred, but instead of releasing his hold on me, he clutched on tighter.

"I'm not lumpy," he mumbled into my skin. Oh, so he had heard me. He shuffled around enough so I could move my trapped arm from beneath his shoulder and returned to his sleeping position. "You weren't complaining when this body was on top of you last night and again this morning. If I remember correctly, you actually said-"

Placing my hand over his mouth, I stopped his sentence, too embarrassed to hear them once more.

"Shut it or I'll never do that again with you."

"Oh, is that so?" He lifted his head from between my cleavage, leaving a bright red earmark on my skin, and wiggled his eyebrows. "Lies coming from someone who was begging for more," he laughed. I grabbed the pillow from Alec's side and thrashed it over his face.

Alec laced his arms around my waist and placed hot, fast kisses down my neck and across my collarbones, making me wriggle and laugh as his fingers tickled my skin. "You're a little shit, Alec Hart. A gorgeous little shit," I giggled as he assaulted my chest.

Alec slowed the pace of his kisses as his tickles turned into strokes, my giggles into whimpers.

He hovered above me and pushed the strands of my wild hair out of my face. His captivating gaze held mine and even after everything that had happened between us, I couldn't breathe. "I love you," he confessed.

My vision blurred as I stared at Alec. Air, I needed air. My mind blanked, I couldn't think straight. It was all too soon. I wasn't ready.

"Nattie, I love you. Have done for years," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I-," Tears streamed down my face. "I-." Was I happy, stunned or petrified? I couldn't tell. No one had uttered those words, at least not for me. Sure, I knew Alec loved me as his friend, but this was new territory. I was scared. Scared I would mess this up somehow.

Alec wiped the falling tears away with the pad of his thumb and placed soft kisses to the same spot. "It's okay, Nattie. I don't want to scare you," he said as if reading my mind.

I let out a shaky sigh. "You know I love you-"

"But?"

"No buts. You have been my best friend for over fourteen years. Of course, I love you." I cast my eyes down.

Alec tilted my chin up with his finger so I had no choice but to look up at him. "I know you better than anyone. That sounds like a definite but."

"This is all so new to me and I'm ruining it," I sighed, shielding my face with my hands. Here I had this perfect man in love with me and I couldn't find the words to say it back. This wasn't how I imagined I would react.

Alec kissed my knuckles and pried them away. "No, take your time."

I took a deep breath in. "It's just that you've had these feelings for a while and I'm just finding out about them. I don't want to say it and you think it's just as my friend or to say it because you said it." My voice broke as nerves caused my stomach to flip. "I want to say it and mean it because you're the most important person in my life. I'd be lost without you."

I really would be lost without him. Alec was the only person I wanted to spend every waking moment with, and that frightened the hell out of me. I watched my mother give up everything for a man and look where that left her; with a life she probably regretted and new dreams thrown back in her face.