Chapter 30
Thirty
Nash
H er mouth is open in shock, the phone still to her ear as she takes me in. I probably look disheveled because it took me a lot longer than I thought it would. I had already booked a plane when she came and told me she was leaving. Then when she came back and said she was leaving right then, it threw all my plans out the window. I watched her walk out while calling the plane and pushing it up, rushing to get the fuck out of my office before going to get the cat.
I hold up the green-and-brown carrier in my hand. “You forgot your cat,” I say, knowing it’s the stupidest excuse known to humankind.
I don’t know how long it takes her to answer me. It could have been seconds, but it felt like hours. “Nash,” she whispers.
“Do you know how hard it is to travel with a kitten?” I ask, trying to make her smile, something I haven’t done in the last couple of days. “She cried for a good thirty minutes until I let her out, and then she climbed everywhere for a good two hours before napping the rest of the way.” I stand here on her stoop, holding her menace cat in my hand, hoping she lets me in. “Can I come in?” I finally ask her, and she snaps out of the shock and moves away.
“Of course you can,” she says, moving away but holding out her hand for the carrier. “Hi, my girl,” she says to the cat. “Did you go on an adventure?” She looks from the cat to me, putting the carrier on the floor and then opening it to take her out. “I don’t have anything for the cat here.”
“I called Zara before I got on the plane,” I tell her, and again, she just stares at me. “She said she left everything in the laundry room, and you owe her for going into a pet store.”
She gets up and walks over to the laundry room, opening the door and seeing everything there. “She got her a water fountain.” She smiles over her shoulder as she kisses the kitten’s neck and then puts her down in the litter box, before coming back out to join me.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she states, and I can see her bottom lip tremble. She looks down and I see her hand come up, shaking a bit as she wipes away what looks like a tear.
“How could you think I wouldn’t be here?” I ask her, and she just looks at me. I see the big tears welling at the bottom of her eyes. It’s more than I can take, so I walk two steps toward her and hold her face in my hands. “We need to talk,” I repeat, my own hands shaking now. “You are going to have to bear with me because I’ve never done this before,” I tell her honestly. “I fucked up,” I start with that because it’s the first thing that comes to my mind, “and I’m sorry.”
“Nash.” She wraps her hands around my wrists that hold her face, my thumbs sweeping her cheeks, brushing away the tears. “Before you start, I want to say one thing.” She holds up her hand to stop me from talking, and I don’t think I even take a fucking breath as I wait for her to say what she so urgently has to say. “I’m so sorry about what I said.” I see her nervously twist her hands together. “It was so uncalled for, and I wanted to take back the words the minute I said them?—”
I shake my head, trying not to get my hopes up high as I say what I came here to say. “Just let me say what I have to say.” I quickly cut her off. “I’m in love with you.” I finally say the words, not caring how vulnerable it makes me. “I’m so fucking in love with you I can’t see fucking straight.” I bend to kiss her lips. “I know we have a lot to work out, but I don’t want a divorce. I didn’t want a divorce before I fell in love with you, and now, I definitely don’t want a divorce.” My eyes search hers. “When you mentioned divorce, it threw me off. I mean, I knew I asked you to give me ninety days, but I didn’t think it was hanging over our head. I was hoping you could see how much I was falling for you. I was hoping you saw how much I love you.” I bring her closer to me. “You had to know. You have to know how much I love you.”
“I was hoping,” she finally replies, a smile forming on her lips. “I was really fucking hoping. That’s why I brought up the divorce, to see where you were at. I didn’t want it. I never, ever wanted it. You have to have known also.” Her eyes turn red with tears. “But I needed to hear the words. I needed you to tell me you love me so I could know I wasn’t in this alone.”
“Fuck, baby, you had to know you weren’t in this alone,” I reinforce as my lips find hers, my tongue sliding with hers. “I know there is more to say, but I’ve missed you so fucking much.” I drop my hands from her face, wrapping one arm around her waist to pull her to me. “You had to have known.” I kiss her jaw. “You had to have known how much you own me.” I kiss her neck. “How I live for you.” I suck on her neck. “How I breathe for you.” I rub my nose along the vein in her neck, where I can feel her heart beating. “You had to have known how my heart beats for you.” I pick her up and start walking toward the stairs. “You fucking own me, baby. Every single fiber of my being is yours.” I walk up the steps toward her bedroom. I’ve been without her for two days, and it feels like I haven’t touched her in years.
I walk over to her bed, her arms wrapped around my neck. “I love you,” she says when her knees hit the bed. “I thought I loved Josh. I thought he was the one.” She holds my face. “I was wrong. I’ve never felt what I feel for you, ever.”
I smirk at her. “Good, at least I know I’m not the only one. I’ve never told someone I love them before. I mean, my family, but I’ve never put myself out there. I knew, I knew the minute I met you that you were different.” I put my knee on the bed, and she unwraps her legs from my waist. “I knew the minute we kissed you were out of my league, and you had the power to destroy me, and I was not fucking wrong.” I pull her shirt off over her head. “I’m fucking jealous of anyone who makes you smile because I want to be the only one who makes you smile,” I admit to her. “I want to throat punch anyone who makes you laugh because, again, I want it to be just for me.”
“You have to know also”—she pulls my shirt out of my pants and unbuttons them—“that if I smile, it’s nothing like the smile I give you.” She gets to the last button. “No one makes me laugh like you do. No one makes me feel the way you do, ever.” She pushes the shirt over my chest. “I’m sorry I overreacted about Kailyn and threw it in your face.”
“She’s fired,” I fill her in, and her eyes go big. “She was fired two minutes after you walked out the door.”
“Nash, are you insane?”
I shake my head. “Nope, never thought clearer in my life. She told you not to disturb me?” I remind her. “You’re my wife. For you, I’m to be interrupted every single time. I don’t give a fuck who I’m on the phone with. She went over a line, and she found out it was the wrong one.”
“Nash.” She puts her hand on my chest, palm flat against where my heart is beating. “I love you.”
“Fuck, I’ve never thought three words could make me so happy.” I kiss her neck, and I’m about to move my head lower when we both feel the bed dip, and I turn to the side to see the cat walking toward us. “You need to beat it,” I tell the cat at the same time Zoey picks the cat up.
“Mommy and Daddy are having playtime.” She gets off the bed with the cat. “After, I promise I’ll come and play with you.”
“Tomorrow,” I add, and Zoey looks back at me. “Okay, fine, later, like in an hour.” She puts her down and turns to walk back into the room and close the door, but the cat beats her to it, and she just laughs. “Mommy really needs to play with Daddy,” she explains to the cat, then looks over at me. “We should play in the shower.” She motions with her head toward her bathroom. “I don’t think cats like water.”
“I’m really rethinking getting you that fucking cat.” I get off the bed and walk toward the bathroom. “Did you see the scratches on my hands? Fucker does not like to be placed in the carrier.” I hold out my hands for her to see the little scratches.
“Did you hurt Daddy?” she asks the cat, who looks angelic, but I’m pretty sure isn’t. “Now Mommy has to kiss and make it all better.”
“I have something Mommy can kiss and make all better.” I grab the cat and toss it on the bed when she gasps out my name. “It’s a cat. It lands on its paws.” I look back over to see the cat on its side, lying down. “See, she’s fine.” I grab her hand, bringing it to my cock. “But he’s not, and he needs your attention.”
She squeezes me through my pants, and I think I’m going to literally come the minute she puts her hands or mouth on me. “Let’s go and see what I can do about this.” She walks backward to the bathroom, going straight to the shower and letting me go just to start the water. “You need to show me what’s got you all hot and bothered.” She reaches around her back, unsnapping her bra and letting her tits spring free. My mouth waters. “You know the good thing about us being here?” She looks at me. “Besides all the makeup sex?”
“And you sucking my cock because it missed you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, obviously, I need to make sure he knows I missed him too.” She unbuckles my belt. “We can play with all my toys.”
If I wasn’t as hard as steel before, my cock gets even harder. “Do not joke like that,” I scold her, grabbing her ass cheeks in my palms and squeezing them, pulling her to me. “My cock just got ten times harder.”
She gets on her tippy-toes. “Just imagine how hard you can get when you watch me play with myself.” She kisses my neck. “I love you, Nash.” I look down when her voice goes soft. “And I don’t want to not say it anymore.”
“Baby, there will never be a time in your life when you will doubt how I feel for you. There will never be a time when you will go a day without me telling you how I feel for you. I love you,” I say before I kiss her lips.