17. Blake
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
blake
I F WE HADN’T PLANNED to go see the tulips today—the main reason we’d traveled here to begin with—I absolutely would have come up with some kind of excuse to detach myself from Delaney. Fake a stomachache. Say that a new episode of Knockout News just dropped. Something.
But I couldn’t do that.
So here I was, watching the sinfully sweet sway of my wife’s hips in a life-altering sundress as she walked in front of me.
Life-altering.
My life had altered this morning.
Because I would never, ever know a longing like I experienced when I woke up this morning to find not only Delaney in my arms but naked in my arms. Naked .
And somehow, I’d found the strength to keep my hand on her back. Fuck, to feel her but not be able to touch her was a new kind of torture altogether. My mind had gone blank, hazing over with lust and desire, when I realized her bare breasts were pressed against my chest. Her body was so soft, her weight so luxurious. I was left wanting her more than I ever had, and I hadn’t been aware that was even possible.
I also wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to handle it.
Because while I’d kept my hands to myself, my cock had acted with a mind of its own.
I should probably give more of a fuck about that, but I couldn’t. Mostly because Delaney had been chasing the feel of me. Hard, between her fucking legs, wanting her like the world would end if I didn’t have her. And maybe she wasn’t equally affected by our predicament—there was not a chance in the world that she’d experienced the reaction that I had—but there had been something there. Something that made me wonder if she’d walked away from me wet and wanting.
That line of thinking was so fucking distracting.
So distracting that I’d almost been able to pretend that last night—before I’d woken up to find Delaney in my arms—hadn’t happened. That the flashes of Delaney drowning weren’t real.
Because they weren’t .
They couldn’t be.
I’d dreamed of that day before, of the drowning that had fucked me up from the inside out. But in my dreams, the person I pulled out of the water had always been faceless. Even though I knew what she looked like, the poor woman I’d failed that day. I wouldn’t be able to forget her face if I tried. I never had tried, though, despite desperately wanting to. I wanted to forget everything about that day.
But that seemed selfish.
So I remembered all of it.
In my dreams, though, the details never fully translated to my brain. There was never a face, which made it worse. It felt like my mind’s way of convincing me that there were more, that the number of people I could let slip through my fingers during my career was endless. That the dreams were just a representation of my failure as a person, as a doctor, as a brother, as a best friend, and not the reminder of a singular event. That taking risks might not pay off. That there was always more than one outcome, and I should never forget that.
But last night was worse than anything I could ever imagine. I never wanted to see a face in my dreams again. Because now, the images burned into the walls of my brain were all Delaney. Her blonde hair plastered to my chest as I pulled her out of the water. Turning her lifeless form over to find her pretty face looking detached. The void in her eyes. But then her voice cut through to me, pulling me away. I hadn’t wanted to go, hadn’t wanted to leave her.
When I woke to find her there, I’d lost it. Right there, arms around me, body pressed close. She was okay, safe, saved. The relief was unexplainable. Unparalleled. So heavy it carried me off to sleep again.
Suffice it to say, the last twelve hours of my existence had crashed in tidal waves of emotions, all surrounding this woman who was my wife , and I wasn’t sure if I was surfing them very well. It felt more like I was being pommeled.
To make it worse, a new swell of feelings smacked me right in the face as Delaney squealed with delight as we approached an endless sea of bright flowers.
“It looks just like the puzzle!” she gushed, looking back at me over her shoulder with a radiance that blew me the fuck away. I gave her an encouraging smile, and then she kept walking, giving a little spin of happiness as she followed a path between two colorful rows of tulips. On one side, they blazed orange, and on the other, they were deep pink, like the lining of my heart, which beat wildly in my chest as I watched the most beautiful woman in the world just…enjoy the moment.
Yep, this was worth it. This, right here, was worth everything. Every bit of torture, all of it.
Delaney stopped, planting her feet in the earth and tipping her head toward the sky. The sun peeked through the clouds, streaming over her face. We were here really early, since both of us had woken up on that couch at the crack of dawn. Not very many people were around. Just me, Delaney, and the tulips. Her blonde hair whipped in the wind. She pulled her jean jacket tighter around her but smiled nonetheless, eyes closed.
I pulled out my phone, not willing to let this moment expire without documenting it. I wanted this, right here, forever.
“Lane.”
She glanced over her shoulder, and I snapped a picture just as she grinned in response to seeing me there with my phone out.
“Best picture ever,” I declared.
Her lips thinned into a suppressed smile. “It’s hard to go wrong with such stunning scenery.”
“Yeah,” I hummed. “The scenery.”
“I know you probably don’t like it.” She gave me a sideways glance, her lips twisting. “What with all the color and everything.”
“I like color,” I said defensively.
“Blake, look at your outfit.”
I stared down at my black shirt and the black jacket hanging open over it.
“Black is a universally flattering color,” I argued.
“Is that why you like my graduation dress so much?” Delaney raised a brow. “Because it’s black and therefore my only flattering dress?”
“No,” I sputtered, thrown off that she’d brought up that dress. And that she knew I liked it so fucking much. “I didn’t say black was the only flattering option. Just a flattering option. You do remember what I thought about that red dress you tried on for me, right? Case in point.”
“Oh, yeah. That dress.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully, and I immediately regretted bringing up any mention of that dress. Or how I’d reacted to it. How I’d come dangerously close to throwing it all away and telling her exactly what I thought about her in that dress. Most specifically, how I’d do anything to strip it off her. “We have dinner reservations at a place in Amsterdam tomorrow, right? I think I’m going to wear that.”
It was possible I stopped breathing.
Or maybe my heart stopped beating.
If it hadn’t already, it would soon.
Because Delaney was trying to kill me.
“You…packed it?”
She nodded sweetly, but I had a feeling that whatever thoughts were dancing through Delaney’s brain were not entirely sweet. And I had no idea what to do about that.
She flashed me a smirk. “I think it will pair nicely with the all-black ensemble I’m sure you have lined up.”
“I like color,” I ground out. “Just not on me.”
“If black isn’t your favorite color, then I have no clue what is,” Delaney laughed.
“Blue,” I said automatically.
“Blue?”
I cleared my throat. “Like a sapphire blue.”
That seemed to catch Delaney off guard. She cocked her head to the side, considering my answer. But I didn’t really want her to dive too far into it. Delaney was smart, too smart, and if she thought about it for just two more seconds…
“Here, let me take some more pictures of you.” I lifted my phone again. “We can turn them into a new puzzle. One you don’t already have memorized.”
“I don’t want my puzzles to have pictures of me on them.” Delaney rolled her eyes but smiled as she backed up so I could snap a few more photos of her between the rows of tulips.
“Should we take one together?” she asked after I’d taken more pictures than was truly logical. I wondered if she would notice if I changed one to my lock screen. Probably. Damn .
“Sure,” I agreed, striding to stand beside her. She slipped her arm behind my back, and I took a steady breath as she inched closer to me. So close, so very close. Not as close as this morning, but still. She smelled sweet, like spring. And that, combined with the brush of her fingers on my back, was enough to suffocate me with desire.
I held up my phone and smiled. She did the same. I took the picture, and she tilted her head to the side, resting it on my shoulder. So I took another picture. She turned to look at me, and on instinct, I turned to look back. Her eyes sparkled as they blinked up at me, and in that moment, everything in the world ceased to exist except her.
I was so fucked.
“This was the whole reason you told your family that we were coming here,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, it is.”
She licked her lips. My gaze shamelessly dropped to her mouth. My arm fell, my phone forgotten. I watched as she tried to find the courage or the words to say something.
“I suppose these pictures should be…really convincing,” she breathed, all while I was tracing the shape of her lips with my eyes.
“Would definitely help me save my ego.”
“And we certainly wouldn’t want anything to happen to your ego,” she said, and then, unless I was imagining things—which was completely possible at this point—Delaney’s gaze flicked to my mouth. But not in a way that she was trying to hide. More in a way that she was trying to imply something. “I think the occasion calls for it, Blake.”
“I think you might be right,” I agreed because like hell was I going to pass up the opportunity to kiss Delaney. I’d narrowly missed out on the chance that night at the fundraiser, interrupted by her dad and distraught by trying to figure out how to give her just a peck . I hadn’t known how to do that.
But Delaney gave no such instructions this time. So I cupped her cheek, tilting her head back and lowering mine so we were inches apart. “Does this make you feel uncomfortable?”
She made a breathy, incredulous noise that went straight to my dick. “Blake, this morning you were holding me while I was shirtless.”
That reminder was not helping the situation with my dick.
“Shirtless?” I repeated. The tip of my nose grazed hers. “Were you wearing pants?”
“No.” I watched, amused, as her pale skin turned a pretty pink. “Fine. You were holding me while I was naked,” she amended.
Jesus Christ, why did I push that point?
“You did try to run away at one point, though,” I pointed out.
She tried to run away, and I’d been reluctant to let her go. My arms had kept tightening around her, acting on an instinct I was helpless to stop.
“Not very fast.”
“No,” I said softly. “Not very fast.”
“I’d say I’m comfortable.” Her lips parted, and I just stared. Stared at them and imagined what they were going to feel like. “And I think the occasion calls for it, Blake,” she reinforced.
“Yeah?”
She nodded, but she was so close that our mouths brushed when she moved.
“Yeah…”
“Just for clarification, that means you think we should kiss for the camera, ri?—”
“Oh my God, just take the picture,” she groaned, and then Delaney yanked me by the shirt, pulling me down until our lips met.
The amount of restraint it took for me to not crush my mouth to hers was unbelievable. Just a touch of her lips had me losing control. She tasted so fucking sweet, and all I could think about was how I wanted to make this woman mine. How she was mine. My wife. My best friend. My everything.
But somehow, I restrained myself. I swept my lips over Delaney’s instead, taking my time tasting her, seeing how she’d react, judging what she wanted. All while an uncontrollable heat coursed through my body, taking hold.
She pulled me closer, intensifying the kiss, and everything inside me cheered. At least until a moment later when she broke away.
“Are you even taking a picture?” she breathed against my lips before diving back in again, not even waiting for an answer.
Oh, right. Yes. A picture.
That was why we were kissing.
To take a picture.
For my fucking family.
“Right,” I muttered, swiping up on my phone screen before lifting it in front of us. Then I pressed my lips to Delaney’s, luxuriating in the simple feel of her as I snapped the photo.
“Thanks,” she said, sounding dazed. Her lips brushed over mine once more, kissing me one more time for good measure before releasing the grip she had on my shirt.
Releasing me .
I had no idea how she did it because I was hungry for so much more of her. If I had the choice, I’d never let her go.
But Delaney took a step back, straightening her dress unnecessarily before she pointed at my phone. “Does it look okay?”
Since I wasn’t sure if I’d survive looking at the picture in my current state, I handed my phone to her so she could have a look. Her cheeks reddened as soon as she saw it, filling me with a curiosity that would likely destroy me if I followed it. So when she handed it back to me, I immediately pocketed it.
“Maybe they have some, um, sapphire-blue tulips around here for you,” she said before I could ask her if the picture was good enough. Hell, I wouldn’t mind taking another.
I chuckled. “I don’t think that’s a thing, Lane.”
She grabbed at my hand, quickly leading me away. Almost like if she left this spot, she could run away from whatever just happened.
“Let’s look anyway,” Delaney insisted, and I followed her as we strolled through the fields for another half an hour, pretending that we hadn’t just kissed. Pretending that it had been for a photo. Pretending we were just two best friends who happened to be married and nothing more.
In the end, we didn’t find any.
No sapphire-blue tulips.
Only sapphire-blue eyes.
And a shiny sapphire ring that kept sparkling in the springtime sun.
After we finished at the gardens, we took a bus back to the train and rode it to the city of Alkmaar in time to catch the last of the weekly cheese market they put on in the city square. It also meant that it was jam-packed with other people here to do the same thing.
Delaney reached for my hand as we shimmied and slipped through the crowd, following the voice of the announcer and the flashes of men and women in traditional Dutch attire, carrying around wheels of cheese on so me kind of wooden sling between them.
“This is amazing,” Delaney laughed as she snagged a spot at the rope that surrounded the live market. “I’ve never seen so much cheese in my life.”
It really was a lot of cheese.
I stood behind her, watching as the man to her left glanced over at the sound of her voice and then did a double take. I couldn’t blame him; Delaney was so fucking beautiful it hurt to look at her sometimes.
I was so busy glowering at the gawker that I didn’t notice the guy trying to budge his way in front of Delaney until she stumbled back into me from the force of the man’s intrusion. I wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her back into my chest and bracing her from behind. Glaring at the back of the man’s head, I wondered if I should say something, but then he turned around and made up my mind for me.
“Move the fuck over, will ya? We’re all trying to see here.”
His voice dripped with irritation, and while I couldn’t place his accent, I knew it wasn’t Dutch, telling me he was likely a tourist like us. His brows furrowed as he looked straight at Delaney like she’d done something wrong.
“Oh, I—” she started, stumbling over her words with noticeable shock at his anger. I waited for a second to see if she was going to continue, but when she didn’t, the man mocked her. Fucking mocked her.
“Oh, I—” he mimicked before rolling his eyes, and my vision blurred, a hazy red overtaking my senses.
“Leave my wife the fuck alone, or the only thing you’ll be seeing is stars,” I threatened.
The man’s beady eyes flicked up to me for the first time, and I could tell he hadn’t registered that I was standing there behind her. Or maybe he just hadn’t registered that we were together. Whatever it was, he was just a pathetic asshole who clearly preyed on women that he thought he could push around. Literally.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I pushed out through gritted teeth, in case he hadn’t gotten the picture yet. Delaney tensed in my arms, and I squeezed her tighter, holding her firm to my chest.
To my surprise, the man took a few moments to glare at me and then turned on his heel, muttering something about how this shit wasn’t worth it. I watched him go, keeping my eyes on the back of his head until I could be sure he was gone. Meanwhile, I didn’t let go of Delaney, and she didn’t protest. Her attention had drifted back toward the market, observing how they weighed and sorted the wheels of cheese.
A moment or two passed before she muttered over her shoulder, “You can’t just threaten people who are rude to me, Blake.”
“Why not?” I grunted. Did she seriously think I would just let people talk like that to her and stand by, doing nothing?
“Because you’re going to get hurt.”
“ I’m going to get hurt? Ouch, Lane.”
“What? I was worried he was going to punch you for a second.”
“You’ve wounded my very important ego.” I leaned forward, letting my lips graze the shell of her ear as I reminded her, “You do remember that dodging punches and punching things back is, like, my only hobby.”
“I bet people’s faces are harder than a punching bag,” she reasoned, although I couldn’t help but note how her voice sounded threadbare. “We wouldn’t want you bruising your knuckles.”
“I would happily bruise my knuckles for you, Delaney.”
I’d do a whole lot more than that, but she didn’t need to know everything. Not yet.
She shook her head, and though I couldn’t see her face, I could imagine it was exasperated. She thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. Not even fucking close.
“All this cheese is making me hungry.”
I smiled against the top of her head, enjoying the position we were in right now far too much. Delaney leaned back slightly, resting against my chest.
“Want to get food after this?” I offered.
She nodded happily, and we watched the rest of the cheese market, not moving from our spot. Or our position. And I felt like the luckiest man in the whole goddamn universe.
It was a feeling that continued for the rest of the day. From lunch in Alkmaar to a walk along the canals, watching Delaney marvel over all the flowers that lined the streets—all of it was perfect. And real. And not at all like something that was fake or just for show.
It made me realize that I had a few more days here with Delaney to make her understand the same thing.
“Do you have a preference on which side you want to sleep on?” she asked as we approached the bed.
That we would both be sleeping in.
Both of us.
In one bed.
It shouldn’t feel like a big deal. Not considering how we’d woken up this morning, smashed together on the same couch. Me, half-naked. Her, completely naked. We couldn’t get ourselves in a more precarious situation than that, could we?
But it was a big deal. Because I had to pretend that I hadn’t experienced how good she felt in my arms. How perfect her body was. How precisely we fit together.
“I’d rather not sleep by the window,” I said, not wanting the vision of the sea to taunt me even when my eyes were closed. But then I thought about it for another second, thought about Delaney lying there instead, and immediately changed my mind. “Actually, I’ll sleep by the window, that’s fine.”
Delaney stood next to the bed with a wrinkle between her brows as she considered me, trying to puzzle me out.
She was always trying to puzzle everything out.
I wasn’t sure how she hadn’t completely put all my pieces together yet, how she hadn’t figured out they all added up to equal her.
“You know if I sleep next to the window,” she said slowly, “I’m not going to roll off the bed and into the sea in the middle of the night, right?”
Or maybe she had figured me out more than I realized.
“You never know,” I muttered, looking down as I walked to the window side of the bed and pulled back the covers on it. “I’d like to keep you as far away from that water as possible, thank you very much.”
“Blake,” she sighed as she collapsed on the opposite side of the mattress. “I wish I could just take away all of your worries. I’d shoulder them for you if I could.”
I shook my head and slipped into bed beside her. “You shoulder enough.”
She released another heavy breath as she settled beneath the covers. She turned on her side, facing the interior of the home, and I did the same. We were in the same position, but it felt like there was a whole ocean between us. And as much as our closeness tortured me, the distance did, too. I needed to feel her to ground myself, especially as the sound of the sea kept crashing into my ears.
I extended my leg until I found Delaney beneath the covers, brushing my foot against hers and letting the littlest connection and that slight sizzling of awareness soothe me.
Delaney gave me a cursory glance over her shoulder. “I know that we’ve established that we’re not the kind of friends who talk about our kinks, but do you have a thing about feet I should be aware of? I don’t think you’re going to like mine.”
A tight laugh fell from my lips. Mostly because hearing Delaney say the word kinks made my lungs feel like they were being squeezed.
“Are you saying you want to be the kind of friends who talk about their kinks, Lane?” I asked, doing my best to sound like I was teasing. “Because if you want to change things up, I can give you a full rundown.”
The light of the moon revealed Delaney’s cheeks tinting a vibrant pink, and God, it was so incredibly tempting to keep going, just to see how brightly I could get her to blush. But I didn’t want to push the envelope if she wasn’t ready.
I could probably also ease into things a little bit more instead of just offering up my sexual fantasies on a silver platter.
Yeah, that would probably be for the best.
To my surprise, Delaney twisted around, turning to fully face me. Her cheeks were still a delicious rosy color, but her stare was direct. “Maybe,” she said, and I momentarily stopped breathing. Delaney continued to stare at me, leaving me to wonder exactly what that maybe meant. “But for tonight, can I just get a yes or no on the feet?”
I chuckled, trying to ignore the way my heart raced.
“I don’t have a thing for feet,” I answered. “I just wanted to…” I flicked my eyes up to the ceiling because I wasn’t sure I could look at her while I admitted this. “I slept better last night on that couch with you next to me than I have in a long, long time. And I just wonder if…touching you will help keep my reality grounded.”
The room was quiet in the wake of my admission, and when I chanced looking back at Delaney, her eyes were glistening. She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then she abruptly rolled toward me beneath the covers, scooting closer until the length of her body pressed against the length of mine. She faced the opposite way again, tucking her head just beneath mine on the pillow, her back pressed to my chest. Then she grabbed my arm from where it had been resting against my side and wrapped it around her torso.
“How’s that?” she breathed once we were settled in our new position, her voice wispy and dry.
“It’s perfect,” I said hoarsely. I buried my nose in her hair, breathing in deeply. “You’re okay with this? You’re comfortable?”
“Yeah.” She nestled closer to me, and my heart lurched in my chest. “I’m comfortable, Blake.”
Fuck me, this woman was perfect.
Perfect on her own.
Perfect for me.
And I was starting to think it was about damn time I made her aware of that.