I Remember You.

Chapter 42 - Confessions & Tattoos.

Lorelei Anderson...

Holy shit. I always thought that I would know how to react if Kevin ever confessed how he felt about me. As you can imagine I have thought of this moment far more than what is deemed healthy. I feel sick yet oddly calm. This reaction is nothing at all like I had dreamt about.

It was better.

Far, far better.

Hearing his words - "...as hard as I know this is going to become, I don't care, I can handle anything as long as I know you are by my side and that you love me, even just a fraction of how much I love you!"

A part of me; revelled that he had understood just how much I had needed him to be the first to admit this. Of course, he hadn't said as much but I know this man better than I know anyone else and he is incredibly intuitive, in-fact I would go as far as to say he was on par with his daughter in that respect. It wasn't that I thought he would laugh at me if I had admitted it first, because that simply isn't the man he is. No, it was much more than that – it was the fact that I would have had to be the most vulnerable in the situation because at the end of the day this is all new to him. I have had years of feeling this way which brought with it a comfort.

"Say something sweetheart!" He now looked unsure of himself, and I felt my heart leap with excitement and a wave of undiluted love. So, I did the only thing I could think of.

I sat up, leaning towards him and wrapping my arms around his strong thick neck and whispered against the shell of his ear, "I love you too, handsome! So much it feels like the entire world will burn to cinders if I don't have you!"

Gently he dropped his tattoo-gun on the small table once he had eased his foot off the pedal and brought his hands up to my face, carefully pulling me back to look in my eyes, "you really mean it?"

"I do! I have loved you for more than half of my life, although that love has changed over the years but there is always one constant that feels almost like it is a part of my DNA and that is the sense of home I feel when I am near you,"

"Sweetheart!" He closed his eyes as if he were revelling in my admission.

"It's ok, handsome. I know that things were really different for you. I mean come on, let's address the elephant in the room – I am significantly younger than you, any type of romantic or sexual attraction before now would have been creepy and trust me as much as I had wished it to be different, I do understand it. I don't blame you; I am not angry with you – this is just the hand we have been dealt, but you want to know something?"

"Yes-?" He choked out.

"I wouldn't change one single minute of our past because I have some amazing memories, memories that I wouldn't trade for the life of me. It is 'our' history and there is something calming about that,"

It is true – there is this sense of calmness that comes from our joint past. I wouldn't trade anything for that. I wouldn't want it to be any other way because it has all led this to feel like such a natural progression of what has been building over the years.

"You are truly, remarkably, incredible, sweetheart!"

"I'm nothing special handsome-"

"Yes. You. Are." He growled, running the pads of his thumbs across the arch of my cheek-bones and it sent this delicious arc of arousal to manipulate my nerve-endings. "I have always admired you – the way you have always seemed to be so sure of yourself, never caving to peer-pressure, even when my own daughter tried to lead you astray, you stuck to your own convictions if they didn't align with hers-" he explained smiling obviously thinking of some of the mischief that Draven and I got up to when we were younger, "while my attraction to you is relatively new, I need you to know that I did always like you. I knew that you were an amazing young woman who has been nothing but loyal to my daughter-"