Chapter 28
28
Cate
I lost my appetite for food and only want Shane to satisfy my cravings. I’m convinced he’s the only one I’ll ever need for survival. Morning. Noon. And night.
Rubbing my legs together like a damn cricket, I try to assuage the ache left cold by his absence when he jumped over the couch to take the foil off and bake the chicken pesto for another fifteen minutes.
He’s very good at following directions. Maybe I should leave a Post-it where my shorts used to be. I lift, pulling them back over my hips, then lie there, trying to catch my breath. So close. We were so close to paradise.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive Poppy. Obviously, she’s to blame for sending the dish that sidetracked Shane from finishing what he started. I giggle to myself. Letting one arm hang off the couch and leaving my legs stretched out on the leather, I ask, “How’s it looking?”’
“Not as good as you.”
“It’s always been my dream to have a man tell me I’m sexier than chicken and pasta.”
He hops over the back of the couch again, landing one knee between my legs, and kisses me on the lips. “Dreams do come true.” He looks down to see the shorts back in place. “For some. For others, their dreams are destroyed by black Lycra.”
He kisses me again, and I push my head back to look into his eyes. “Fifteen minutes isn’t enough time to get the job done.”
“Wanna bet?”
I cup his cheeks with a smile splitting mine apart. “I don’t think that’s the flex you think it is.”
“Trust me, sweetheart. It is.” He starts pulling my shorts down again.
My head falls back, and my lips part to help me get air from the thought of what he’s about to do to me. “Flex away.”
It’s not the wine. It’s him. Shane Faris is a walking aphrodisiac. But I need to come to my senses. If he can wait, so can I. I stop his hands before my shorts lower any more past my abdomen. “Shane?
“Yeah?” he asks with the most deliciously devilish look in his eyes.
“We should wait and do things differently this time.” I bite my bottom lip, hoping I make sense.
His smile lessens, but the happiness never leaves his eyes. He kisses over my shorts where he wanted to be beneath them, and then says, “I understand. Slow. That works for me. I want to know you so much better. I want to know what your favorite color?—”
“Blue.”
“Your favorite book?”
“Not original, but Pride and Prejudice .”
“Movie?” He rests his chin on my leg while he looks up at me with a grin.
“ Gladiator .”
A quick pop of his eyes makes me smile. “That’s unexpected.”
I shrug. “What can I say? I like to keep people on their toes.”
“Do I want to know who your favorite band is?” He laughs. “My ego can’t take a blow right now.”
I cup his face and slide farther under him. He lifts, taking me in his arms and balancing above me. “Any band you’re in.” We kiss. It’s gentle and slow, more appreciative in the caressing pressure that I know will lead to more later. Looking into his eyes as he hovers over me, I say, “I don’t want to erase our past. I want us defined in the good, the here, and now, and how it feels this time around.”
“I want that, too. I’m glad you shared your feelings. I always want that with you.”
With his erection still pressed against me, I could look into his eyes for the rest of my life and never tire of them. The color, the lines at the corners, the way they express pure happiness when looking into mine. “We’re still married,” I add like we’re trading one for the other. I know we’re not, but it’s not bad to need the reminder.
“We are,” he says with a smile growing before my eyes. “We never did figure out how, though.”
“Well, Roberta blew my theory.”
He laughs gently. “Good old Roberta.”
I’ve reviewed it a million times and still can’t figure out how our signatures are on that marriage license. “If it wasn’t an accident, how are we married? It makes no sense.”
The timer goes off again. He pushes up to stand, grumbling, “Fucking hell.” Bending down, he places a kiss on my lips. “This spot is mine later.”
“Which spot?” I touch my lips, dragging my fingertip across the bottom, then dipping my tongue to slide along the corner. “This spot?” Lowering my hand, I touch my neck. “Or this one?” All the spots populate my thoughts, addicted to watching his eyes darken as he takes me in. Slipping my hand even lower between my breasts, I ask, “Maybe you meant this?—?”
“All of you, babe. I want all of you.”
“I’m already yours.” Along with my heart. I want to tell him I always have been, but nothing about that indicates or respects my own demand of going slow.
The timer goes off again as a reminder, and he throws his arms into the air. “This is why I don’t fucking cook.”
“Because it gets in the way of sex?”
Turning back, he cocks a brow. “That’s exactly why.” I sit up, enjoying the view of his ass, when he pulls the dish out of the oven. I like the feel of it even better.
I fall back with my arms above my head. Why am I torturing myself with slow when I want him so much? And then my stomach growls, so I get up and pull plates from the cabinet.
“Just gone ten,” he answers my question about the time.
Tightening the blanket around my shoulders, I sit back in the Adirondack chair, loving the view of the moon reflecting off the lake. “Do we stick to the agenda and go to bed early orrrrr . . .”
“Toss it. I’m not ready to go in.”
“Me either.” I sip my hot tea, feeling more relaxed than I have in forever. I reach over and slip my hand on top of his, our fingers folding together like we do this all the time. “Thank you for bringing me here.” A light laugh rumbles through me. “Legally coerced, or whatever we’re calling it. I’m glad I’m here.” I lean forward, meeting our bonded hands and kissing his knuckles.
“Legally coerced sounds better than extorted into a getaway with me.”
“However we got here, I’m glad we did.” Three kisses are placed before I lean back and notice the tattoo on his forearm again. “I can’t figure out the design of your tattoo. You didn’t have it last year.”
He lifts our hands, twisting our arms so he can get a better look as if he needs to see it for proof of existence. A leisurely loll of his head to the side has his eyes locking on mine. A few beers and a long drive today mixed with the emotions and physical intensity we share hang his lids lower and have me reconsidering sleep soon. As if he knew that would be the case when he created the itinerary.
He deserves all the credit. Maybe this place plays a significant role, which he’d already know from growing up here. The fresh air gives a new perspective, and leaving most of our troubles in LA allows room to recuperate from what the universe has thrown our way.
He says, “Do you really want to know?” I’m briefly mesmerized when he scrapes his tongue over the center of his bottom lip.
I catch myself and pull my gaze to his arm again. The design is innocuous enough, but now I’m more curious than ever, especially since I haven’t been able to figure it out when I get glimpses. “I wouldn’t have asked, silly.” I laugh, but then stop, starting to wonder if I don’t want to know. “Why does this sound so mysterious? Do I not want to know?”
“I wasn’t trying to freak you out. It’s just . . . It’s personal.” Lowering his arm with my hand still held in his, he shifts his elbow so I can see the design.
We only have the moonlight and light drifting from a lamp hanging over the front door, allowing us to see anything. It’s enough, but I release his hand and lean closer for a better look.
With his finger, he runs along the gentle line with soft shading that flows like a river down his arm. “It’s the curve of a neck, hair captured at the base of the head, and loose strands of hair falling over the back.”
Angling my head, I can see it now. A woman, personal to him . . . my heart sinks as I sit back. I nod unable to speak. After all we’ve been through, after the storms calmed, giving us smooth water to sail—ten months. He fell in love in the ten months we were apart, fell hard enough to memorialize her on his skin.
I feel sick, sitting back and covering my stomach with my arms.
He says, “This is what guided me to a new life.” I can only look at it before my eyes dare to look into his again. “A freckle on her back was my North Star. I’d look at it to tide me over until I could return to her again.”
Redirecting my gaze to the water, his words sting, my heart barely repaired before broken again.
Shane reaches for my hand, but I slide away from him so he can’t reach me from his chair. “Don’t be like that, Cat.”
“Like what?” I shoot a glare in his direction. “Like you’re talking about the love of your life, so much so that she’s immortalized in a tattoo that covers your entire forearm while being here with me? Is that what you don’t want me to react to?” I sit forward on the edge of the chair and drop my head in my hands. “What am I doing?”
“Look at me.” His voice is so even, so smooth that the command feels like it was my idea even though it was his.
I look, but then stand, dropping the blanket in the chair. “And you made me be the one to ask about it.” I shake my head, keeping my eyes on the lake and him at my back. Crossing my arms over my chest, I say, “You could have just told me you were in love with her.” I look over my shoulder, feeling worse than the first time we broke up. It figures. “And to think, you could be here with her.”
“I am.” His low voice is unwavering.
His answer has me questioning what I said though. Running the words through my head, think . . . could be . . . here with her. He said I am. I am here with her. I am with her. The full picture comes into focus. I turn around and stare at him. “What are you saying, Shane?”
Taking hold of my hand, he’s fast, pulling me into his lap before I can protest. He knows I won’t. My legs fly out from under me as I land hard in his lap. His arms wrap me in a vice grip that won’t loosen for me to escape.
“I’m saying that this, right here,” he replies, tapping the dot on the design. He then runs a warm hand over my sweatshirt and circles a space on my back. “Is this. My North Star, my guide through the hard times when we were apart, a reminder that lives on my skin that nothing is impossible if you love them enough. I needed something of you with me always.”
Tears rush the corners of my eyes as I stare at his arm and into his eyes again. “This is me?”
Caressing my cheek, he says, “I stayed away for me, but I came back for you.”
There’s no way for me to keep the tears at bay. They spill over, running down my cheeks and over my lips. The salty water reminds me of the beach and how we should have been so much more after that bonfire. I kiss him. Tired of taking things slow, I kiss him in need and desire, in loyalty to this man who has given me everything I could ever ask for—unconditional and everlasting love. “I love you.” I kiss his lips. “I love you.” Lowering to his chin, I place one there as well. “I love you.” Leaning my head against his, I say, “I love you, Shane Faris. I always have.”
That’s the last time we go slow. Why bother when it feels this good to be in love?
He stands with me scooped in his arms. Our lips melding, our tongues caressing, our body raw with need. I’m set down but held by the comfort of his arms around me. Pressed to the inside of the front door, he says, “I’ve loved you since that bonfire. I came back from tour to tell you I didn’t fuck around on the road. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“And I was gone . . .” I feel sick all over again. Knowing I could have had a life with him, maybe a family, that I wouldn’t have been so alone. It’s gutting.
“We weren’t meant to be together then.”
Through a stifled sniffle, I ask, “We’re meant to be this time?”
“I’m never letting go, Cat. Not again.” He kisses me so hard that I melt to the wood behind me.
Throwing my arms around him, I kiss him right back, and whisper, “Make love to me, Shane.”