30. Blake
CHAPTER THIRTY
blake
D ELANEY FELL ASLEEP IN my arms before I could even pull out of her, and all I could do was stare at her. Touch her. Run my fingers through her hair. Watch the rise and fall of her chest.
The idea that maybe I would get to love her like this for the rest of our lives blanketed me. What a concept, a comfort, a dream.
No wonder she could sleep so peacefully, knowing the same truths as me.
I wasn’t sure how long we lay on the canvas of the boxing ring, entangled and sweaty and messy, but I could have stayed there all night.
When the rain reduced to a soft patter and the power flickered back on in the gym, I gently shook Delaney, rousing her just enough to quickly clothe her. And then I let her crash into my arms again, carrying her out to my car and driving us home.
She fell asleep against the window.
Garbled words fell from her lips as I brought her into our apartment, carrying her bridal-style like that first night she came here. The first night she came home.
“Baby,” I whispered over the top of her head. “Can you wake up enough to let me wash you?” She buried her face deeper in my chest, and I chuckled. “If you just stand in the shower, I’ll do the rest of the work.”
“That still sounds like a lot of work,” she said, her voice muffled against my shirt.
“Lane, I made a mess out of you,” I pointed out, feeling my cock stiffen again at the thought.
“Mmm,” she hummed as though she liked the thought of that just as much as me. As though she was debating how she really felt about it. Like maybe she wanted to stay like this. Like she wanted to be mine in every single fucking way.
It was painful, the way my body reacted to that.
“Fine,” Delaney sighed eventually, but she wasn’t acting like she was happy about it. She disappeared back into my shirt and then reluctantly slid to the floor once we made it to the bathroom.
I turned the shower on, and once it was warm enough, I stripped Delaney’s clothes off and guided her inside.
Washing her body as she smiled sleepily, her blue eyes twinkling, was quite possibly the most relaxed and at peace I’d ever been. I only had to pretend that just being near her like this, feeling her curves beneath my hands, and seeing her slowly awaken beneath my touch didn’t make me feel like I was just a walking bottomless pit of desire when it came to her.
Lucky for me, Delaney noticed me hardening and slid her hand over my erection, pumping it up and down. And then she turned around and let me fuck her slowly against the shower wall before coming around my cock for the third time tonight.
She slumped against me afterward, murmuring that she loved me, and I didn’t know if I would ever recover from what had happened in the last few hours.
Our tether pulled tighter.
From my heart to hers.
Delaney laughed that she could handle walking to our bed, but I didn’t want to lose the chance to carry her over every threshold the way a husband would, without any pretense or lies. So I lifted her in my arms and walked her through the apartment to our room.
It was our room now.
Our bed.
I’d settle that in the morning, just in case she had any funny ideas about still living out of the guest bedroom.
That was for guests.
But this was her home.
Until we picked out a new one together, somewhere down the line.
Reason and logic told me I was rushing things in my mind, but my heart said otherwise. My heart told me that this was right. The timing was right, everything was right.
“Thank you,” Delaney whispered to me once we were wrapped around each other in bed.
I shook my head. “I don’t even know what you’re thanking me for this time, but you’ve got to stop. ‘Thank you’ is for favors, and absolutely nothing I have done for you has been a favor. It’s all been things I’ve wanted. If anyone should be saying thank you right now, it should be me.”
Delaney’s lips curved in a smile, unfazed by my sharp insistence. Same as usual.
She didn’t say anything for several long moments. We sort of just stared at each other, stuck in a dazed existence. Her mind whirred, but the pace was slower than normal; I could see it in her eyes, a slow settling of reality.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do if my parents refuse to approve the inheritance,” she said, momentarily sobering.
My stomach dropped at the reminder. “Well,” I started, grabbing her hand from beneath the covers and pressing a kiss on the back of it before brushing my lips across her ring. It pained me to say, but… “We could sell this. It would give you a good amount to start your foundation on, and then we could seek out investors or?—”
“What? No .”
Delaney snatched her hand back like she thought I might take her ring off and pawn it right this very second.
My lips stretched in the start of a smile. “No?”
“No, I’m not—” She frowned, looking down at the ring before tucking her hand close to her chest, keeping it away from me. “I’m not selling it.”
I lifted a brow. “It’s worth a lot of money, Delaney. I wasn’t lying.”
“Yeah, but—” She thought about it. For just a moment, she thought about it. But then she settled on an emphatic “ No .”
I put my hands up in mock defense while my grin grew unrestrainable. “Okay, okay.”
She swatted at my chest. “Stop it. It’s not funny. I don’t know why you’re smiling.”
I grabbed her hand and kissed her palm. “You’re right. It’s not funny. But it makes me happy you want to keep the ring. And even more than that, it makes me happy that you’re choosing yourself for once. I’m so proud of you for being selfish.”
Her brows furrowed. “I don’t know how to feel about that statement.”
“Good,” I assured her. “You should feel good.”
Delaney sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “I still very much want to open this clinic, Blake. It’s the mo—” She cut herself off, biting down on her lip before glancing over at me. “It’s one of the most important things to me.”
It was amazing that I hadn’t yet gone into cardiac arrest tonight.
“Tell me more about these important things.”
“Well…there’s you.”
A rattling in my chest made it hard to think. “There’s me.”
“You come first, and this ring…” She slipped the band off to study it. “It has too much of you in it to ever give up.”
Funny that she thought it had too much of me when I’d begged my mom to give it to me because it had so much of her . It was made for her.
Made for us, I suppose.
“What else is important to you, Delaney?”
I wanted to know everything.
“Other…things.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she thought. “Things I’m still trying to puzzle out.”
I nodded. “I’ll be here when you do.”
I had a suspicion of what they might be, but I wasn’t going to push her.
“Also.” Delaney perked up. “I think I’d like to travel more.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she repeated shyly. “Our trip brought me more joy than I can honestly ever remember experiencing before.”
All I could do was smile, feeling like I was going to burst. The rattling in my chest intensified.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “That’s just, that’s all I wanted for you when I planned it. All I’ve wanted you to have.”
She laughed. “A work-life balance?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Thank—”
“Don’t.” I pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t you even dare.”
Moonlight streamed through the bedroom window, making her eyes glitter. Her lips tempted me, swollen from all the time I’d already spent kissing them tonight. But I knew I shouldn’t interrupt this conversation. Nothing was more important than the thoughts, the words, the worries she had right now. And I didn’t want to do anything to push those down when they were just coming up to see the light.
“Everything will work out, Delaney. If we can’t get your inheritance money, then we’ll find another way. There’s always another way.” I shrugged. “I do have a massively wealthy brother who has been known to make philanthropic donations. Mostly to animal shelters, but I think he might be open to adding a new foundation to his list.”
Delaney laughed but immediately shook her head. “Absolutely not. The last thing I will ever do is become one of those women who dates you and also wants something from your brother.”
“ Dates ?” I repeated with a scoff. “Baby, we’re married.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. I do know.” I grinned. “And actually, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’d let me take you out soon.”
“Take me out?”
“On a date.” I brushed my fingers over her lips, tracing them lightly. “I’d really like to take my wife on a date.”
“Okay.” She nipped at my fingertip teasingly. “What dress would my husband like me to wear on our date? The red one from Amsterdam or the black one from graduation?”
Flashes of Delaney stripping that red dress off her body danced through my head, and I had to swallow hard before I could talk.
“Fuck, I have to choose?”
“Yeah.” Her grin was wicked. “You have to choose.”
I pictured the black dress next. Pictured it on Delaney. Then pictured it on the floor for the very first time and sucked in a breath.
“I think maybe I’ll just have to take my wife on two dates, then,” I decided.
“That would work, too.”
“Glad you agree.” My fingers moved to trace her jawline. And then her neck. And her collarbone. I wanted to commit the lines of her body to memory. “And then I can buy her more dresses.”
“And go on more dates?”
“Exactly.” I still hadn’t wrapped my head around the fact that this wasn’t a dream. “It’s like you can read my mind.”
She pursed her lips before correcting, “I think I can finally read your heart.”
Finally .
“You have always been a very talented cardiologist, Dr. Delacroix.”
Delaney shook her head, and when she spoke, her voice was thick.
“Why the hell did it take two cardiologists this long to figure out the way each other’s hearts worked?”
I was speechless for a moment, swallowing regret, pushing it down and refusing to let it sour this moment.
“That sounds like the beginning of a joke,” Delaney added, a shaky laugh following her words. It didn’t sound convincing.
“I don’t know if I find it funny.”
“No, maybe not funny.” Delaney sighed, snuggling in closer to me. “But at least it has a happy ending.”
“Yeah, baby.” I kissed the top of her head. “It does.”