Chapter Thirty-seven – Worst Way
Chapter Thirty-seven
Beckett
WORST WAY
Performed by Riley Green
FIVE MONTHS LATER - DECEMBER
HIM: Did you read the scene in the book I sent to you?
HER: I read it at work! You were supposed to warn me!
HIM: Tonight. That’s you and me.
HER: If you can make me beg like that, I really will petition the city council to build you a statue.
HIM: Better get your speech ready, darlin’.
“Maise, we gotta go, or we’re going to be late,” I hollered down the hall toward our bedroom as Vader scratched at the back door to get back inside.
I’d barely opened it, letting in a biting wind and a flurry of flakes, before Vader was brushing past me and heading toward the living room.
“Vader. Feet,” I commanded, waiting for him to come back and wipe them off on the towel we had sitting by the door. It had been Maisey who’d trained him to use it, but it had saved me from mopping up his mess a dozen times a day.
When he turned around, I groaned. “Oh, hell no.”
I swore he grinned at me around the kitten he held gently by the nape of its neck between his teeth.
He whimpered, and the cat mewled a pitiful plea right as Maisey walked into the kitchen.
“Oh, Vader! Not another one.”
As if sensing a disturbance in the force, Dorothy came scampering into the room with Todo, the wiry-haired black cat that Vader-the-Cat-Whisperer had brought in two months ago, right on her heels.
As my ridiculous dog with a savior complex held out the new, orange kitten, the other two cats sniffed and hissed and snarled before losing interest. They headed to the automated feeders that were ready to go off at any second.
Vader sat on his haunches and whimpered again.
“Oh, for the love of—” I started as Maisey said, “He’s so little and sweet.”
And I knew we were going to end up with another stupid cat. At this rate, I was going to have to add on another room to the house just for the herd of cats we were collecting. Were they called a herd? Or were they a litter?
“We don’t have time for this. We’re going to be late,” I said again.
Maisey leaned down to kiss Vader on the top of his head. “You’ll have to get him settled in all on your own. Make sure he doesn’t tear up the couch.”
My dog nodded as if he understood every command.
Maisey grabbed her coat off the hook, and I stepped up to hold it while she slid into it.
That was when I really noticed what she was wearing.
A deep-maroon sweater that clung to her curves and ended just above her belly button, showing a hint of skin before it disappeared below the waistband of dark jeans.
I groaned again, this time in agony for an entirely different reason.
“Did you put that outfit on just to torture me?” I breathed out as I swept her hair to the side and dipped my head to place a kiss on the smooth skin of her neck. I made the mistake of inhaling, and the water-lily scent of her went straight to my groin.
She laughed softly, turning to face me. She hooked her arms around my neck with ease, which had me eyeing the spiked boots that made her a good three inches taller than normal.
“That’s it. I’m calling Dad. We aren’t going to make it to some stupid happy hour,” I said as I slid my hands beneath the hem of the sweater.
Her breath turned choppy as my fingers teased the edges of a lace bra. I swallowed her little gasp, setting my mouth on hers and licking inside the sweet heat. She responded by pressing into me, tangling her fingers in my hair, and nipping at my lower lip.
Just like it always did when I touched her, when we were lost in each other like this, time slipped away.
Nothing existed but her. The smell and taste and feel of her.
Of us. My body ignited. Ached. Yearned. I picked her up and set her on the counter, stepping between her thighs, and angled my mouth to go deeper.
To show my devotion, my absolute surrender to anything and everything Maisey.
I’d just pulled aside the cup of her bra, gotten one nipple between my thumb and forefinger, when my cell phone burst to life in my pocket.
Dad’s ringtone.
Damn.
Maisey laughed, but when I pulled back, her eyes were dark green, full of the same heat and longing that was zipping along my spine, over my shoulders, and through my chest.
As I yanked the phone out and swiped at the screen, Maisey brushed at my lips to remove her deep-red lipstick.
“Yeah?” I grunted out.
“Hey, Beck. Just checking. You’re still coming, right?” And the nervousness in Dad’s voice had guilt slamming into me.
I had Maisey with me every single day. I could make love to her anytime I wanted—and I did often. Fiercely. Tenderly. Slowly and sensually. Fast and hard. My fiancée was in my bed each night and in my shower every morning. But Dad had only this one time to make amends with Liza.
He only had this one moment to see if fourteen, going on fifteen years, was too much of a divide to cross or if the love they’d had all those years ago could somehow find a home in them again. And I’d promised I’d be there to break up the tension, to ease the reconnection.
“We’re running a little behind because Vader brought another goddamn kitten home.”
Dad laughed, but it didn’t hide his nerves. I glanced at the clock. We had time to make it before Liza showed up at the ranch, but I’d have to push it a little faster than I’d wanted to in the light layer of snow that had drifted through last night.
“We’re on our way now.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
Before I could hang up, Maisey took the phone. “Don’t be nervous, Kurt. One look at you, and she’s going to remember all the reasons she loved you.”
My dad responded, but I couldn’t hear what it was as I hadn’t put the phone on speaker. Maisey laughed, and they hung up as I lifted her off the counter.
I held her arm as we made our way to the SUV so she wouldn’t slip in those sexy boots on the snow. Once we were on the road, with our windshield wipers brushing aside the wet flakes, Maisey darted me a worried look.
“She’s going to be kind, right? She’s not going to be a bitch and say something mean?”
I thought back to the Liza I remembered. She’d never been cruel, not even when Dad told her if she left to never come back. She’d been sad and heartbroken but said she’d respect his wishes.
I shook my head. “I don’t think she’ll be mean.”
“Good. I don’t want to have to go all Fallon on her.”
I snorted. “Let’s leave all the Falloning to Fallon.”
“If there’s time, after we have lunch with Kurt and Liza, Andie asked us to stop by her office. She’s got some more flower samples for us to look at.”
I didn’t groan aloud, but I swear Maisey heard me anyway. She laughed and said, “I know. I know. This wedding planning stuff is more intense than I even thought. I’m almost ready to say screw it and elope the way Fallon and Parker did.”
“No,” I responded instantly.
“What? Why not?” she asked.
“Maisey, I’m not sneaking off to Vegas to say I do. I’m standing in front of the entire damn town and claiming you as mine.”
“You already did that when you put a ring on my finger at the Firefighters Ball.”
“And I’ll do it again at our wedding. And maybe again on our first anniversary.
And our five-year, ten-year, and twenty-five-year anniversaries.
I’m going to say it over and over again so no one, not Cleaver or Sweeney or any of the guys out there waiting with bated breath for me to screw up, thinks they can steal you away from me. ”
Her expression turned soft and emotional.
“Don’t you dare cry.”
She put a finger to the corner of each eye. “Then stop saying such sweet things, Chief Romero.”
The name went straight to my chest and down to my dick.
I loved it when she said it. Loved it when she screamed it too.
I’d thought the best part of being the fire chief was going to be making the changes I’d been itching to put in place for years.
But the best part was, hands down, hearing Maisey call me Chief in the privacy of our own bedroom.
“You really are determined to torture me today.”
She winked. “I’ll be sure to reward you for your exemplary patience and control.” She reached over the center console to brush a finger along my cheek. “I have a new book for us to read.”
The situation in my pants took a decidedly dangerous turn. “Well, reward or not, I’ll be delivering some well-earned payback.”
She tapped her lips. “Hmm. Want to make a little wager? See who begs first?”
I stared far too long at her and had to jerk the steering wheel so we didn’t go off the road. Our back end slid slightly on the icy road. “Stop distracting me.”
She only laughed. The laugh that sounded like bells on the pearly gates.
I wouldn’t change a moment of the life we’d made together. The life we’d made completely and utterly ours.
When we pulled into the ranch, Dad was waiting at the doors of the castle.
He was pacing, tipping his cowboy hat forward and then back.
Maisey leaped out of the SUV and headed toward him in a hurry, sliding in those spiked heels in the snow.
I swore, shoving out of the car and catching up to her in time to keep her from hitting the ground.
She smiled up at me. She did that a lot these days—smiled.
At me. At the menagerie of animals we’d inherited.
At her job in the Labor and Delivery Ward.
At Fallon and her two kiddos and the one on the way.
At her dad, when we went to visit him in the senior living complex he’d moved into a month ago.
The repairs on his house were still a work in progress, but he’d been determined to give us the space we needed.
So he’d cashed in some of his retirement and jumped ship.
Maisey hadn’t been thrilled, but he’d promised he’d be able to right it once the house was renovated and sold.