Attached At Heart (Wildflower #3)

23. Blake

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

blake

W E’D ARRIVED HOME ABOUT an hour ago, and I was already lying in my bed, alone, missing Delaney. She’d gone into her room to unpack right away, so I showered and then collapsed into my bed, expecting to fall right asleep immediately. But then I heard her turn the water on in the bathroom, and all I could do was lie there thinking about how badly I wanted to be in that shower with her.

Exhaustion had nothing on the way I wanted this woman.

I closed my eyes, trying not to spiral about Delaney and the honeymoon and the plane and what the fuck would happen now that we were back, and when I opened them, she was standing in my doorway. She had her arms wrapped around a pillow that was tucked to her chest. Her damp hair fell loose around her shoulders, and all she wore was an oversized T-shirt.

That was it.

I grinned. “Are you coming for a sleepover?”

“It’s just, we haven’t slept apart since…” She bit down on her lip, bouncing on her toes adorably.

“I know,” I said so she didn’t have to spell it out.

We hadn’t slept apart since the night she’d jolted me out of the worst nightmare I’d ever had—one I never, ever wanted to repeat.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d still want company now that we’re home.” She glanced down at her feet. “I don’t care either way, but I…” Her gaze lifted slowly, finding me. She lowered her voice. “I don’t want that to happen again. I really hated that, Blake.”

Pain swirled in her eyes—pain that she felt on my behalf.

I should have been disappointed that she was standing in my bedroom doorway because she thought I was too fragile to sleep by myself and not because she wanted me to fuck her the way I’d promised to when we got home, but I wasn’t. As much as I was tortured by the way I longed for her, by the tension that simmered in my veins every time I thought about the things that had transpired between us in the last twenty-four hours…the way she cared for me meant so much more.

It gave me hope that maybe our friendship could withstand this change in our relationship. That being physically intimate wouldn’t destroy our other connections but make them stronger.

I had to clear the emotion from my throat before I was able to talk.

“I really hated that, too.” She had no idea just how much. I hated everything except what happened afterward, when I got to sleep with my arms around her for the first time ever. “I don’t think it will happen again, but I always want your company.”

I hadn’t had a single nightmare since that night on the couch. Not since I had Delaney tucked against my chest when I slept. Safe, in my arms. Her breath against my skin. Her heart beating steadily, her pulse echoing inside me.

Not even the sound of the sea outside our rental house had been able to detach me from reality and bring me back to that moment that changed so many things for me.

Delaney kept me grounded, attached.

To her, always to her.

She smiled but then tried to hide it, looking back at her feet as she walked over to the bed and dropped her pillow on top of mine. She was about to slip beneath the covers when I realized what she was wearing: a maroon-and-gold U of M alumni shirt. The same one I’d been missing for God knows how many years.

“You kept it?”

Delaney glanced down at her shirt as though she’d forgotten what she had on. As soon as she realized, a pretty blush spread across the apples of her cheeks.

“You never asked for it back, so I just figured that meant I got to keep it.” She pulled the covers over her, twisting onto her side to face me and then tugging the blankets all the way up to her shoulders as if to hide the fact that she was wearing my stolen shirt. “I’m sorry. I’ll return it if you want.”

“Delaney.” I released a hoarse laugh, turning to lie on my side, too. Then I dropped my voice and said, “Trust me, you do not need to apologize for coming to bed wearing one of my shirts. Even if it is one that I haven’t seen in years. I’m only upset that you didn’t give me the chance to properly appreciate it.”

Delaney’s voice was thick when she spoke, her eyes blazing to life. “Appreciate it?”

My lips split in a crooked smile.

“Appreciate you in it,” I clarified. “Can I see you, Lane?”

If I thought Delaney’s cheeks were pink before, they were especially rosy now as she dragged the covers back down her body, exposing her in my shirt. A shirt I let her borrow years ago. A shirt she kept. A shirt she wore to bed. Jesus, I thought it had long disappeared, but she’d had it all this time.

Delaney got back out of bed, the shirt lifting as she stood, bearing the curve of her ass beneath that maroon-and-gold fabric. Nothing else. Not a single other thing was on her body except that shirt. Fuck me.

She spun, giving me a proper show to take her in, to appreciate her. And shit, was I appreciating her—her bare thighs that I’d been between and knew how good they felt, her bra-free breasts curving beneath my shirt, her sweet lips pulling into a smile. My cock twitched, coming to life with a desire that was even more intense than on the plane, than our night in the club, than anything that happened on the honeymoon.

Because this was it. We were back in Boston, and Delaney was in my bed, wearing my shirt, biting down on my smile as she watched my reaction, and fuck if I didn’t want to do the same thing. Just a little nibble on those kissable, plump?—

“Blake?”

I jerked my gaze up, staring straight into those sparkling, sapphire eyes. My heart lurched. The chokehold this woman had on me was so unbelievable that I honestly wondered if I would survive tonight.

“Yeah?”

“Nothing.” Her lips curved higher. “You’re just staring.”

Damn right I was staring.

I flashed her a wicked grin, unable to help myself. “Appreciating, remember?”

She bit down harder on her bottom lip, and I was so painfully hard. It was painful the way I wanted her. “Want to appreciate with your hands?” she asked.

I gaped at her for a moment, stunned. And then I got my shit together and took her straight up on that invitation.

“How did you know?” I rasped, leaning over to cup my hands on the back of her thighs and urge her closer to the side of the bed. Closer to me. Then I ran my palms up her smooth legs, shifting my eyes to hers when I reached the hem of the shirt. “How did you know that’s what I wanted?”

“Something about the look in your eyes.” After those sinfully soft words, she held my gaze, almost to prove a point. That there was something there. Something rare. Something that explained everything that was happening in this moment. Something that tugged on my heartstrings and then tied them all up into a knot.

Then Delaney nodded, a tiny indicator of consent that spurred me into action.

I slipped my hands beneath the shirt, skimming my palms over the curve of her bare ass and then her lower back before rounding to her hips, settling them there. Delaney didn’t look away from me as I touched her, as I experimented with how her body felt when the only thing on it was something that belonged to me. Her chest was the only part of her body that moved, heaving with labored breaths that looked a lot like the ones filling my lungs.

My bed, my shirt, my hands, my wife.

“You sleep in this shirt a lot, Lane?” I asked, needing to know.

She gave a sheepish shrug—not quite an admittance, but not a denial either. And I’d take it. Fuck, the knowledge that Delaney had been wearing this shirt to bed for years had my chest tightening. I didn’t even care if the only reason she wore it was because it was oversized and comfortable. I’d pretend otherwise, feed my delusions where she was concerned.

I didn’t press her for clarification, either. Maybe I was afraid of the truth, that it wouldn’t be what I wanted to hear. Or maybe I just had other things on my mind.

I cleared my throat. “Delaney, can I ask you something?”

She nodded, more confident this time. “You can ask me anything, Blake,” she whispered, her voice a low sort of hum. A frequency that my body hadn’t heard coming from her before. It made me absolutely vibrate with need.

I squeezed her hips as an experiment, and she released the tiniest moan.

Eagerness appeared as a glaze covering her eyes.

There would be no going back now.

“When’s the last time you had sex?” I asked softly, urging Delaney back into bed. But this time, I rolled onto my back and pulled her on top of me, one leg on either side of my hips.

Fuck, Delaney straddling me might be the hottest thing I’d ever seen. I gripped her thighs, keeping her there, not wanting her to ever move.

“Are we friends who talk about our sex lives now, Blake?” she countered, her voice just as quiet, just as gentle, even though having this conversation was rocking both of our worlds—I knew it was.

I traced the outline of her face with my eyes. “I think we are. I think we need to be if we’re going to do this.”

And I really wanted to do this.

“We’re going to do this,” she confirmed, making my blood run hot. And then she confessed shyly, “It’s been years.”

“That’s okay,” I said.

She had no fucking idea how okay with that I was. I would have survived if she’d told me something different, like that maybe her fake relationship with Austin had come with benefits, too. But I might have also spiraled a little bit at hearing it.

“You dragged me out to a party,” she said with a sigh. “And I?—”

“ I dragged you to a party? Fuck, I don’t need to hear the details,” I interrupted. Because Christ, I didn’t think I would make it through a retelling that involved other men touching my wife. “I don’t like thinking about assholes having their hands on you.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you had your hands on another girl you disappeared with. And I don’t know. I think I might have been—” She choked on the last word, and I wanted to beg her to continue. And then she did, and my jaw nearly dropped. “Jealous,” she admitted.

“No.” I tipped my head back with a groan. “Jealous, Lane?”

She’d been jealous? She thought I’d been with another woman, and she’d been jealous? I wasn’t sure I could stomach the fact that Delaney had slept with someone else because she’d been jealous of someone being with me. I didn’t know how to wrap my head around the truth of that.

“Yeah.” She grimaced. “I’m not proud of it, but…I don’t know. I guess even though I’ve always understood what our relationship is, I never really liked, um, sharing you with other girls.”

Fuck everything.

“You didn’t need to be— shit .” I broke off with a sigh.

“Well, did you?” she pushed after a slight pause.

“What?”

My brain was too busy spinning to keep up with this conversation.

“Were you—” She bit down on her lip before shaking her head. “Never mind.”

But now that I’d taken a second to work through things, I was pretty sure I understood what she was asking.

“Are you wondering if I slept with someone that night? Because the answer is no.”

“Do you even know the night I’m talking about?”

“Doesn’t matter, Delaney.” She really had no idea. “I haven’t had sex since before grad school. Since before…” Since before I met you. “It’s been a long time.”

“What?” Delaney’s lips parted in surprise. “What about all your other dates, dating apps, everything?”

All I could do was shrug, looking up at the ceiling. “It just…never progressed that far.”

Delaney stared at me. I could see her out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t understand.”

I glanced over at her, partly wishing I could just lay it all out on the table right now. But our relationship had already gone through a massive restructuring in the last twenty-four hours, and I hadn’t played the long game with Delaney just to fuck it up when I finally got close to the end. I might want to sprint to the finish line, but she’d only just joined the race. I needed to give her a little time to catch up.

“I went on all those dates to find someone to marry, but I was never going to marry any of them, Lane.”

There was only one woman in this world that I imagined myself married to, and she currently had my ring on her finger. Dream come fucking true, even if it might all come crumbling down in less than a year.

“What?” she breathed, her brows drawing together. “Why?”

Because they weren’t you.

I looked back to the ceiling before answering. “Just wasn’t right. And sleeping with them when I knew that I wasn’t going to marry them…” It didn’t feel right.

“But it’s okay to sleep with…well, I guess we are married, aren’t we?” A humorless chuckle fell out of her lips, and I understood the laughter. Everything felt a little bit funny right now.

My eyes found hers again, and I cupped her cheek, our eyes meeting. Heat spiraled through me from that simple touch. That simple look. “Yeah, Lane.” I brushed my thumb along her jawline, and her breathing picked up. Mine did, too. “We are.”

Married. We were married. And I’d never really get over that.

She leaned down, her body seeking mine, on a single mission to be closer together. And fuck, did I love that. Even while her brain was trying to comprehend what was happening, her body knew what it wanted. “But it’s…” she started but didn’t finish.

Fake.

It was fake.

We both knew it, but neither of us felt like saying it.

“I know,” I murmured against her lips. “I know. But still, Lane. It’s—” It’s real to me , I wanted to say. But I couldn’t, so I tipped my hips into hers, moaning when she writhed back against me. “Fuck, you just feel so goddamn good.”

“ Yes .”

So good.

So goddamn good.

“For the record, I don’t like sharing you, either. Never have,” I clarified because I needed to say something that made her understand what she meant to me. I couldn’t fuck Delaney without her knowing that she was mine. She’d always been mine. Maybe she didn’t understand the full extent of that yet, but hopefully, one day, she would. And for now, I’d claim what I could. “Never will. In case that wasn’t clear enough last night when I was fucking this sweet mouth.”

“It was clear,” she said without hesitating. Without seeming bothered by it, too.

“Good.”

I kneaded her hips like a reminder.

Mine .

Delaney squirmed beneath my touch, rocking forward into it, seeking more.

And fuck did I want to give it to her.

“Blake, I want you,” she confessed breathily, and my heart flew into my throat.

Blake, I want you. Want you. Want. You.

It echoed through my bones as I used my grip on her hips to align us perfectly so she could feel how hard I was for her through my shorts. Then I thrust upward, giving her a taste. I wanted this, right now, right here. Just like she did.

Delaney gasped, her hands flattened on my heaving chest, her eyes rolling back and then seeking mine, waiting for me to say something. As if the position I’d just put us into wasn’t an explanation enough.

But I’d happily clarify it for her.

“Then put me out of my goddamn misery and take me,” I demanded.