25. Ace in My Hole
25
ACE IN MY HOLE
Milo
When I see Veronica outside Central Park, sitting on a bench, reading on her phone, my first instinct is to wrap her up in my arms. Then tell her Dunbar Loraine are a bunch of jerks. That they don’t deserve her. I still can’t believe they tricked her like that.
As I walk closer, her shoulders tremble. She bites her lip, like she’s fighting off tears. She dabs at her cheek with a tissue.
My heart squeezes painfully.
She takes a breath, swipes on the screen, and keeps reading. She’s trying to be so strong. “Hey, sunshine,” I say softly when I reach her.
Startled, she looks up. She knew I was coming to meet her, but the second I got her text that the interview was a bust, I came early, leaving Zara and Iris to close the store.
Veronica flashes me a sad smile. “Hi.”
I sit next to her on the bench and wrap an arm around her. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” I say into her soft hair.
“Me too.” Her voice wobbles. But then she takes a breath. “But it’s fine. I’m fine.” She separates from me, smooths her skirt, and drapes on a smile. “We can still get a drink and try that thing from the list.”
Oh, hell no. “Veronica, you don’t have to put on a brave face for me.”
“But I want to do number four,” she says, imploring, and I believe her but in the broad sense, not the right now sense.
I reach for her hand, lock my fingers with hers. “Look, sex is the ultimate feel-good drug. And I want to do so many damn things with you,” I say, resisting the urge to admit that this list of five is nowhere near enough. I want ten, twenty, thirty to-do items with her. Hell, make that one hundred. “But let me take you out tonight. Let’s just wander around the park like we planned.” But I have a better idea. Something more fun—that’s what she needs right now. “Or . . . we could go to check out some rooftop gardens in Brooklyn. Go to some super-hip too-cool-for-school restaurant and people watch and make up stories. Then stop at a lingerie shop and buy you more of your crazy undies. Like a sexy bikini barely-there number with unicorns on it,” I say, wiggling my brows as I picture her sweet ass in a new pair of cheeky undies.
Now, she’s smiling for real. Laughing too. I drink in that look on her face, knowing I put it there, and I want to do that again and again.
“That sounds like fun, Mister Good Times,” she says.
“That’s me, and you need fun,” I say, and I wish I could offer her a true solution. Like a job. “I would hire you, Veronica. I mean it. I would hire you full-time. You’re the best thing to happen to the store.” I bring my finger to my lips. “Don’t tell Iris, but you’re the real star.”
She scoffs, all faux bashful. “Stahp, stahp.”
But she’s still grinning, and I can’t help myself. I take both her hands in mine and pull her close. “You’re the secret sauce. The magic bullet. You’re . . . my ace in the hole.”
“You want to put your ace in my hole,” she says with a wiggle of her brows.
“That’s my woman.”
Her expression falters at those words.
Shit. I called her my woman. But she does feel like my woman, and I don’t know what the hell to do about that.
Veronica Valentine is wreaking havoc with my heart. I want to be the man to help her through these tough times. To solve this problem for her. “I know there’s a big world out there and so many things you can do. I could easily rattle off ten, twenty jobs for you. You’re so lively and clever, and you have such a big brain and heart,” I say.
She shakes her head, gently calling off my attempt to be helpful. “I don’t want to talk about work anymore. Can we just go...have fun?”
“Absolutely.”
I order a Lyft, and we spend the next few hours checking out rooftop gardens in Brooklyn, an herb shop, a crepe truck, and a stationery store where she buys new gel pens. When we’re done, she makes her way to the nearest subway station.
I shudder, grabbing her hand to stop her before she descends those dirty stairs. “I hate subways,” I say.
“Why? You don’t want to get your pretty clothes dirty?”
I nod. “Yes. That. Right there. Also, I don’t like rats, or poles that thousands of people touch, and well, crowds.”
“Fair enough,” she says with a laugh. “You’re seriously cute.”
We take a Lyft back to Grove Street. When the car drops us off, neither of us asks where we’re spending the night. We just grab our dogs, go for a walk, and wind up back at her place.
But we don’t tackle an item on her extra list—sixty-nine.
Instead, when we get into bed, I bring her into an embrace under the covers.
“Milo,” she whispers, sounding concerned.
“Yes?”
“I’m not broken. Even though I had a bad day, I still want your dick.”
I laugh. “Have I mentioned I love your crassness?”
“A few times,” she says. She heaves a sigh, then stares at me in the dark, her gaze inquisitive. “But is there a reason you’re not trying to get me naked?”
She caught me, and I like it. Now I have to admit it, but Veronica makes sharing my heart easier than I’d expected.
“I think I just wanted to make sure I was giving you everything you needed in other ways first,” I confess, even if it gives away how much I care.
She leans closer, presses a firm kiss to my lips. “You are. Now, please, get the hell inside me.”
And the truth was worth it.
A few minutes later, we’re naked and breathless. She’s under me, legs wrapped tightly around me, her fingers gripping my ass.
She holds on tight as I swivel my hips.
A gorgeous shudder moves down her body as I quicken the pace. Her hands slide up my back, her fingers playing with my hair.
I meet her eyes. Those green irises are so full of passion, lust and, a fiery new thing—true emotion.
And I know, as the pleasure tips over in me, that I’m so close to losing my heart.
Or maybe I already have.
And after a few more minutes, the world winks off, and we come together.
A little later, I’m yawning, ready to conk out, when I spot a paperback on her nightstand. I can’t make out the cover, but that’s not the point. “What if you wrote your columns into a book? I bet someone would publish that,” I ask in the dark, feeling a little brilliant. I’ve been wanting to find a solution for her work problems—something that suits her shiny, sexy mind.
She ruffles my hair. “Maybe, but I don’t know if that’s a living. Though I’m pretty sure I’ll need to write about you plucking my petal soon in my column. Do you mind, Mister Sexy Pants?”
I yawn again, shaking my head. “Hell no. I want all your readers to know I’m the one who got you,” I say.
I do want to be the one to keep her. The only one. And that wish is so much trouble for my damaged heart.