15. “No Ordinary Love”
FIFTEEN
“NO ORDINARY LOVE”
(SADE)
T he next morning, my eyes opened, and I saw gray sheets, beyond which there was Javi’s handsome face, turned my way, asleep on the pillow beside mine.
I didn’t move as I gazed at his extreme male beauty right there, so close.
All mine.
Freaked because I was sleeping too soundly …
His words crashed into me, and I wanted to touch him. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to erase everything he’d had to live through and make it all sunshine. Make it so he felt safe to sleep deeply. Make it so he understood he’d made it to the other side and none of that would ever touch him again.
I also wanted to find his dad and punch him in the throat.
Okay, no, I wasn’t violent.
So I wanted to find his dad and say a few choice words (or more than a few).
But in the now, what I wanted was to let Javi sleep.
I’d noticed that Jessie and Shanti had packed my journal and the purple pen I used to write in it, and even though that was all I had available to me of my morning ritual, I decided to hit it so I could let out some of the emotion I had surrounding all that had happened and all Javi had shared with me.
I could probably do some yoga or Pilates exercises, but I didn’t want Javi to wake up and catch me doing it. I’d been practicing both for years, but I still knew I looked like a dork doing it. It was way too early in our relationship for him to see that.
Therefore, I took pains to slip out of the bed so I wouldn’t wake Javi. I hit the bathroom, did my thing, and when I came out, I moved right to my suitcases opened on the floor.
Jessie and Shanti had also packed some cute nighties, but I was in another of Javi’s tees because it was big and oft washed and cuddly, but mostly because he gave it to me to wear to bed. So I wasn’t about to change.
I grabbed my journal, the pen and was about to head to the door when I heard Javi’s gruff, sexy, drowsy, “Here, lil’ mama.”
I looked to him to see he hadn’t moved since I left him, except his golden eyes were open and on me.
Like they were tied to me and could reel me in, I went to him.
I put a hip to the bed and twisted to him so I was on my elbows and my face was close to his.
“You gonna do your morning thing?” he asked.
I nodded.
“’Kay, baby,” he murmured. “I’m gonna laze for a bit, be down after a while.”
I loved he was going to do that.
I could be the guard at the gate for once.
I nodded again.
“Kiss,” he commanded.
I didn’t hesitate. I pushed in to put my lips to his.
He lifted a hand to cup the back of my head, sifting his fingers through my ponytail as he did, and he took the kiss deeper.
He broke it and I whispered, “See you after a while.”
“Yeah, you will.”
I smiled at him.
He watched my mouth do it like he was witnessing a miracle.
God.
What was I going to do with this man?
I moved in and kissed his jaw, then I took off, forcing myself not to look back, because if I did, I’d break my going-slow rule, and Javi would not get to laze.
Javier Montoya needed to laze. He needed chill time. He needed bright lights to shine into the dark of his life and cool breezes to make it perfect.
And it did not freak me in the slightest that I understood deep to the depths of me that I was gearing up to make it my mission in life to give this to him.
I hit downstairs, made coffee, poured myself a mug, and took it to his chesterfield where I curled up in a corner and poured everything onto the pages.
I was deep into this when I sensed motion at the top of the stairs, and my attention moved there.
Javi was walking down wearing faded jeans and a black, short-sleeved Henley.
I knew in that moment, in life where everything was uncertain, one thing was.
I would never get tired of looking at him.
He came right to me.
He gave me a quick kiss.
Then he said, “Getting us breakfast. I’ll be right back.”
With that, not even pouring himself a cup of coffee, he walked out the door.
I didn’t know what breakfast was, and he didn’t ask me what I wanted.
But I was a girl who adored surprises.
So I didn’t bother myself with it and went back to journaling.
I was finishing up when he returned with a big box from Randy’s Donuts.
See?
Surprises were awesome .
He set the box on his coffee table, flipped open the top, and donut goodness wafted out. He commandeered my mug on his way to the kitchen.
I finished my journal entry, set the book aside, Javi came back and handed me a fresh cup. He sat close to me in my corner, looked at the box, then to me, and asked, “Which one you want?”
“I’m going to pick mine after you grab yours.”
“Which one you want, Harlow?”
I held his gaze steady. “I’m going to pick mine after you grab yours, and you’re going to let me do that because you understand I need to do that.”
Something came over his face then.
Something wondrous and awful, miraculous and terrible, spiritual and damned.
It pummeled me with blows that stung and coasted over me like the softest silk.
Javi let that happen because we both knew he needed to.
Then he turned to the box of donuts and made his pick (not incidentally, it was a cinnamon crumb cake).
Obviously, I picked the pink iced with pink sprinkles, and I loved that Javi ordered a pink iced and sprinkled donut for me.
Sure, there was probably no way Javi would have picked that, and it was obvious he bought it for me, so I could have gone first, but who knew? Maybe he was into sprinkles.
“You sleep okay?” he asked after he munched.
“Like a baby,” I told him after I munched. “You?”
“Yeah,” he said, and he munched again. Then, his glance moving from my journal to me, he remarked, “Not sure we’re set up for your full morning gig, babe.”
This was true.
We needed smoothie ingredients and other, healthy-living options for breakfast. And since I figured he wasn’t going to be okay with me hitting one of my classes, I needed my yoga mat and exercise accoutrements. I could set them up in one of his empty bedrooms and do my thing with the door closed.
Oh yes, this was a turnabout in the whole “we’re newly dating so I need to sleep at home” thing.
I didn’t care about that either.
Not after last night.
After all I’d seen and all he’d shared.
After we’d had pizza, then cuddled on the couch to watch a movie.
After we necked for a long time and Javi put a stop to it because he knew that’s what I wanted.
After we slept beside each other in his bed yet again, and I did not lie, last night and all the ones before, when I slept next to him, I did it like a baby.
I wasn’t fighting it anymore.
The best love story in the world was not Romeo and Juliet (because that mess was whacked ).
It wasn’t Rhett and Scarlett (because, let’s face it, as fabulous as she was, Scarlett was a lot ).
It sure wasn’t Antony and Cleopatra (I mean, who picked this stuff? None of them had a happy ending).
It was the pretty rich girl who was the outcast in her family, and the beautiful poor boy from the streets who never thought he’d catch her eye.
And by damn, they were going to have a happy ending.
On this thought, I finished my donut, took a sip of coffee and asked, “Can I set up my yoga mat in your empty bedroom?”
That got me a look that made my breasts swell before he tamed it and replied, “Sure.”
“Do you have a blender?”
“No.”
“A Bullet?”
He grinned at me. “I have a bunch of those.”
I slapped his arm and said, “No. The kind that mixes smoothies.”
“Then…no.”
“We need to go by my place and pick up some stuff.”
“Or we could just shift this to your place.”
This was a good suggestion.
But so far, none of his neighbors had come to his door to ask for a cup of sugar, to borrow a screwdriver, or request he help them solve a crime.
“It might be quieter here.”
His lips were quirking as he selected another donut (a bear claw this time, how could this man eat like this and have that body?), saying, “Whatever you want, Lolita.”
While I sipped coffee, I let him demolish his bear claw.
Once he’d washed it back with a swig of joe, I swung into action, doing this actually swinging in, straddling his lap, my knees in the sofa on either side of him.
He tipped his head back and rested his free hand on my hip.
“Babe,” he murmured.
I took that opportunity to do what I’d wanted to do since I first saw him.
I smoothed a finger over his perfect dark eyebrow.
“Harlow,” he whispered.
I ignored him, watching my hand move, then I switched to the other brow.
He wrapped his arm around my waist and leaned forward to set his coffee cup on the table.
He then sat back and wrapped both arms around me.
I looked into his eyes and requested quietly, “Can I buy you a throw blanket?”
“A what?”
“A throw blanket. A little blanket that’s comfy and snuggly, but attractive, so you can leave it out all the time by throwing it over the side of the couch.”
His brows knit. “Were you cold when you were writing in your book?”
But of course, he would think of me.
“No, but a throw blanket makes a house a home.”
Instantly after I spoke my words, he groaned, slouched deeper on the couch and put pressure on my back so I was plastered to him.
“We’ll go shopping,” he said throatily.
“You shop?”
“I’ll shop with you.”
He’d shop with me.
Official!
He was perfect .
Since this seemed to be going so well, I kept at it.
“I’ve seen this great lamp that would go fab over your couch.”
“Okay.”
“And you need an armchair, because every man needs an armchair. One that looks good but it’s really comfortable so he can watch games sitting in it.”
“I hear you,” he said.
“So you’re down to look at armchairs?”
“Pink and green and velvet with mushrooms and shells,” he murmured, like he was talking to himself.
But I was lost.
“What?”
“All soft and sweet.” He was still talking the same way. “My lil’ mama, shouldering in between two big men so she could see to her guy.”
At that, I shut right the heck up.
“Make a house a home,” he whispered, his eyes moving over my face.