Calling Me Home Read Online Free PDF

at me. He pulled me into his arms. “Are you cold? I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
    It registered that he’d only just made it home after dropping me off. Where had he been?
    “No. I shouldn’t have come. I should go. I didn’t mean to push.” Jesus, I should have just stayed at home. We’d had a wonderful night, and I’d spoiled it by showing up uninvited.
    “What do you mean ‘push’? Please don’t go anywhere,” he said into my hair as his arms tightened. “Tell me why you are here.”
    I took a deep breath. “I missed you.” It was so good to be held by him. It felt so safe.
    “You did?” He kissed the top of my head. “Let’s get you inside. You must be freezing. You shouldn’t be out on your own. It’s not safe, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.
    “But if I’m pushing, you have to tell me.”
    “Pushing me by being here? Ashleigh, I’m ready to run; I’m just waiting for you to catch up, baby.”
    Everything he said made me feel better. Every moment I spent with him made me feel more certain of our future together.
    “Am I crazy?” I asked as we headed inside.
    “In general or for some particular reason? Because yes and maybe.”
    I rolled my eyes and he chuckled.
    “For missing you, for turning up here in the middle of the night. I think I’m crazy.”
    “Well, if that makes you crazy, I like crazy. I thought you didn’t want me to stay, and I don’t want to push.” His brow was furrowed as if he were trying to piece together a puzzle.
    “I know what I said, but I’ve changed my mind.” I glanced at the floor. “Dating should include sleepovers. What do you think?”
    He stuck his keys in the lock and ushered me inside. “I think that maybe you’re beginning to catch up.”
    He collapsed on the sofa and pulled me onto his lap. “I don’t want to waste another moment without you. I feel like a fool for not seeing what was under my nose for so long. Every night should be a sleepover as far as I’m concerned, but I know you have some doubts and you want to protect yourself. I get all that, and I want to go at your pace, but you never need to worry that you’re pushing. Everything else I want in life pales in comparison to how much I want you.”
    My stomach dipped and rolled at his words. Those words had been the stuff of my dreams since I was a teenager. “You’re wonderful.”
    “I’m really not. Ask Emma, or Fiona. Any of my exes. It’s different with you. You make me different. Better. I like myself with you more than I do without you.”
    I wasn’t sure that I’d ever been paid such a compliment by anyone. It was close to overwhelming. “Okay, so you’re my Mr. Wonderful.”
    “I can live with that.” He linked his fingers through mine and nestled his head against my neck. “Are you feeling better?”
    I nodded. It wasn’t possible to feel anything other than ecstatic given what he’d just said. “Much.”
    “We’ve always been able to talk, Ashleigh, and now that we’re together, it doesn’t mean that should stop. In fact, in my experience, not talking, not saying how you feel, can only lead to pain.”
    Now we’re together.
    The words played on a loop in my head, mixing with his breath on my neck, making my brain fuzzy and my limbs loose. He sounded so sure. So solid. As if it were a done deal, a one-way street.
    “Maybe you’re right.”
    “Maybe?” he asked incredulously.
    I giggled. “I mean, yes, you’re right about the talking, but also when you told me that we had this. Maybe you knew it all along.”
    “I’m pleased the penny is finally beginning to drop. I have wisdom beyond my years when it comes to how I feel about you, and how things will work out with us. You’ll get used to it.”
    “No one likes a show-off, Luke Daniels.”
    “Well, you just crossed London for me in the middle of the night. You seem to like me pretty well.”
    “Again with the showing off,” I whispered and dropped a kiss on his jaw. Obviously, I