Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
JAMIE
I’ve never told anyone that I wanted to spend the rest of our lives together before. I know he loves me, but it’s still a risky conversation.
So I do a lap of the generous hotel room, with its sleek hipster furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows. “Nice place,” I say, checking out the view.
When I turn back to Wes, he’s watching me.
“It’s nicer now than it was before.” Shrugging off his suit jacket, he tosses it at a chair.
He hasn’t turned on any lights, but his handsome face is illuminated by the glow of downtown Dallas.
Ryan Wesley in a suit, ladies and gentlemen.
There are very few sights as impressive as this one.
I’m staring. And I’ve still got the box clutched in my hand. “Okay,” I blurt out. “So I made you something with my sister’s help, and I got on a plane. But now I’m worried you’ll think it’s crazy.”
“Well…” He clears his throat. “I promise I won’t. I’m just so happy to see you.” He steps into my personal space and puts his arms around me. “I thought you weren’t coming back. Maybe that’s dumb, but…” He shoves his face into my collar and takes a big breath of me.
All right. So I’m starting with an apology. My free hand lands on his back. “I’m sorry I was a dick. That…sucked.” Eloquent. Not.
“Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just panicked.”
“No, I did.” I take a deep breath and lean against him. “I have a situation at work. I screwed everything up and I didn’t want to tell you. It’s embarrassing. I was worried about money, too. So I just shut you out. How shitty is that?”
His warm hands wander my back. “Baby, you were too sad to think straight. If you’re feeling a little better now, that’s all I really care about.”
My first impulse is to argue with his diagnosis of the problem.
I don’t want to be the guy who fell apart.
But I was that guy. And maybe my mom is right about the steroids messing with my body chemistry.
But whatever the reason, I lost it there for a little while.
It’s not fair to Wes if I deny it. “I think I’m getting better now,” I say instead.
“Good.” His grip tightens. “That’s all I want, okay? That’s everything.”
There isn’t a shred of doubt in my mind that he means it. I don’t know how I got so lucky to find someone who loves me as thoroughly as Wes does. How many people ever find that?
Time to man up, then.
I take a half step back, forcing Wes to relinquish me, and look down at the box in my hand. He’s going to think it’s ridiculous.
Taking a deep breath, I decide that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. It’s an important gesture, and it got me all the way to Dallas to apologize, right?
I’m staring at the box now like it contains a venomous snake.
“Do I ever get to open that or what?” Wes asks with a laugh.
Wordlessly, I offer it to him. He weighs it in his hand and then looks at me. “Not heavy,” he says. “Doesn’t rattle.” He lifts the lid to reveal the tissue paper we cushioned it with. Hell, it’s probably broken, which makes the whole idea even stupider than it already was.
I’ll just go hide under one of those thousand-dollar leather chairs now.
Wes’s big hand pulls back the tissue. He squints at the thing inside. Then he carries the box over to the window to see it better. “It’s…made of purple Skittles?”
“Yeah.” My voice is like gravel.
He picks it up in two fingers, the one-inch circular shape outlined against the city lights. “It’s a…?” He bites off the question, as if afraid to guess wrong.
“Ring,” I croak. “You…I…” My mouth is like sandpaper. “In that interview, you said you wanted…” Deep breaths. “To get married some day. And I think that’s something we should do.”
For a second after I get the words out he stands so still that he might be a figure in a wax museum.
The ring—in all its clumsy glory—is held aloft.
It took Jess and me a whole lot of Skittles and patience before we figured out which of her craft glues would stick, and how long we had to wait before adding each successive bead.
It all seemed quite sweet and hilarious last night.
Now I wasn’t sure.
Wes’s chin dips, and something goes wrong in my stomach. He’s backlit against the cityscape so I can’t see his face. I take a few steps closer, even though I’m afraid I really fucked things up. But I have to know.
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. And then his eyes well up, all shiny in the window light. “Really?” he rasps.
I take the silly thing out of his hand and drop it in the box. I set it down on the desk. “Yeah. I mean, not right away if you need some time to get your head around it…”
Two strong hands grab me by the shirt and haul me into his arms. “I don’t…
” He takes a deep breath that sounds a lot like a choked-back sob.
“Don’t need time to think about it. Wanna marry you this summer before you change your mind.
” His arms clamp around me, extinguishing all the space between us, and he puts his head on my shoulder.
I feel his chest hitch a couple of times as he tries to hold himself together.
“Hey,” I whisper. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
“But you…” He clears his throat yet again. “It’s a bigger decision for you than me. You could have, you know, a wife and kids. A family.”
“Babe, I have a family. A big one. I never sit around and think about moving to the suburbs and procreating.”
“You might, though,” he says, his voice hoarse. “I wanted to give you a while to get used to the idea of being with me and not having…that.”
“Who says we can’t?” I point out.
He blinks.
“If we decide we want to have kids someday, there are ways for us to do that, babe. Adoption. Surrogates.” I lightly pinch his ass. “Stop acting like you’re dooming me to a life of childless misery.”
That makes him chuckle.
“I love you,” I say firmly. “I never stopped, even when things felt bleak. And then I watched your interview and I just needed to be right here. The, uh, plane ticket wasn’t very budget friendly, but…”
He finally leans back to look at me. His face is kind of wrecked, but he’s never looked better to me. “I’m going to send that reporter a nice bottle of scotch. And a box of cubans.”
Then he kisses me. He tastes like tears and Wes. I dive right in. Damn, I missed this. The way he kisses me like he’s trying to make a point. And now I know what the point is.
We’re supposed to be together. Why not make it official?
Suddenly my body decides on a whole host of ways we’re supposed to be together. I press against his hard chest and deepen the kiss. He grabs my hips and groans.
It’s only a nanosecond later when I’m yanking on his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. He’s unzipping my jeans and steering me toward the bed. Before I can blink, I’m on my back, my shirt off and my jeans at my ankles, and Wes’s hot mouth is taking deep pulls on my dick.
Pleasure darts from my shaft to my balls.
I tangle my hands in his messy hair and thrust deeper into his mouth, floored by the eagerness, the passion, he’s giving to this blowjob.
He licks and sucks and nibbles every inch of me, and I groan when he pops his finger into his mouth before dragging it down the crease of my ass.
At the teasing penetration, my hips jerk upward.
Wes chuckles and eases his finger deeper, until the pad of it is stroking my prostate.
My entire body trembles. Tingles. Burns.
He spends a maddeningly long time torturing me with his mouth and finger—no, fingers.
He’s got two inside me now, rubbing that sensitive place and bringing white dots to my eyes.
“Wes,” I murmur.
He raises his head. His gray eyes are smoky with desire. “Hmmm?” he says lazily.
“Stop fucking teasing me and start fucking fucking me,” I rasp.
“Fucking fucking you? Did you really need two fuckings?”
“One’s an adverb and one’s a verb.” My voice is as tight as every muscle in my body. I’m about to go up in flames if he doesn’t make me come.
His laughter warms my thigh. “I love the English language, dude. It’s so creative.”
“Are we really having this conversation right now?” I growl when his teeth sink into my inner thigh. His fingers are still lodged inside me, but no longer moving.
“What would you rather talk about?” He blinks not so innocently, knowing exactly how close to the edge I am.
“Nothing,” I sputter. “I’d rather talk about nothing!”
Wes makes a tsking sound. “That doesn’t bode well for our impending marriage, sweetheart. Communication is key.”
I glare at him. “Then tell your mouth to start communicating with my dick, dude. Because if you don’t make me come in the next five seconds, I’m going to—”
“Going to what?” he mocks, and I moan in dismay when his fingers slip out. Chuckling, Wes climbs up my body, grabs both my wrists and shoves them up over my head. “Tell me what you’ll do, Canning.”
“I…” My eyes glaze over. It’s hard to think when he’s rubbing his trouser-clad lower body over my aching erection.
I try to push out of his grip, but my man is a strong motherfucker.
He keeps my wrists locked between one hand and the headboard.
His other palm strokes my bare chest, fingers lightly grazing one nipple.
He grinds against me until I’m growling with impatience. But I can’t move my hands. I can’t yank his pants off and take his cock in my hand. I can’t do anything but lie here as this big, beautiful man rubs off on me like I’m his own personal sex doll.
His eyes are so heavy-lidded I can only see a slit of silver gleaming down at me. Then he licks his lips, and a thrill shoots up my spine. I know that look. I love that look.
Wes shoves his trousers down. His thick erection slaps my abs. “I want to touch you,” I beg.