Chapter 26 – Violet
The time between our game night and the Sweetheart Dance flew by.
I resisted full-on moving in with Lee, but we couldn’t stand to be separated.
I told myself it was about his feelings for me, not just his relentless protectiveness.
But after admitting the stranger hanging around the Salty Pantry unsettled me, he insisted on walking me to and from work each day, watching the street like a hawk.
Over my objections, he’d also used his connections with the Sheriff’s Office to ask for extra patrols.
As much as I wanted to roll my eyes and argue that it was silly, deep down, it made me feel safer.
We split time between our houses, until I grew used to waking up cuddled in his arms, his warm breath stirring my hair as he snuggled me. It was heaven. And hell. Because the closer we became, the more I had to wonder how long it could last.
He showed no signs of growing tired of me. Of us. If anything, the way he looked at me, as if I were something precious and unexpected, made me feel like we were just getting started.
But neither of us had a stellar track record with relationships.
We’d both dated over the years, moving in and out of other people’s lives.
My past relationships had always been with men from the mainland, ones who didn’t fit into the life I had here.
Men with no idea who my brothers were. They never lasted long enough for an introduction to feel necessary.
Maybe, deep down, I’d always known they were placeholders.
And Lee? His reason for keeping past relationships quiet was a mystery.
I’d never officially met any of his exes, never heard my brothers talk about him bringing someone around.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Or possibly, for all the years we’d been in each other’s orbit, circling each other, neither of us had been willing to let someone else truly take up that space.
And now, I couldn’t help wondering – had we just been waiting for each other all along?
He’d taken to texting me during my workday. It got to the point where my pulse hammered with anticipation every time my phone buzzed, making Gran’s text on the day of the dance a letdown.
Gran: You burn that sweet boy to a crisp yet?
I snorted.
Gran: Let that dragon breathe, baby.
Vi: Love you, Gran.
She meant well. And she wasn’t wrong. I’d been avoiding talking with Lee about the future.
Hesitant to put him on the spot. But my fire burned for him.
For the life we could have together. Fear couldn’t hold me back any longer.
Abandonment wasn’t a certainty. My lying brain needed to stop telling me things my heart knew to be untrue.
Long before Lee and I became lovers, we were friends.
He was the one I called when my sink backed up.
When I needed help with my generator or locked myself out of the house.
It wasn’t just the mundane things I relied on him for.
He’d been my quiet rock when I questioned my future on the island, helping me brainstorm ways to bring my vision for the Salty Pantry to life.
He’d become my one phone call. The person I could count on over all others.
The man I wanted by my side for the rest of my life.
Now I just had to find the courage to tell him out loud. Every kiss, every caress, every shuddering orgasm had communicated with the language of touch.
Lee: I miss you. Can you to be ready by five? We can grab a drink at the cocktail bar before dinner.
Vi: I can close early today.
Lee: I can’t wait. Text me when you’re ready for me to pick you up.
At four, Lee pushed through the door to the Salty Pantry. He looked slick and sophisticated in a dark suit and tie. While his blond beard was showing gray, it only made him look more distinguished. Even the way his ears stuck out just the tiniest bit charmed me. My boyfriend was a bonafide snack.
I floated up the hill to my house, Lee at my side. His steady presence meant I’d stopped looking over my shoulder.
He watched the early news while I got ready, slipping into the second dress. The lush amethyst velvet hugged my curves, dipping deep over my decolletage. Subtly, it changed color depending on the light, deepening to a much darker hue, closer to the violet shadows at twilight.
“You look…” he drifted off, gaze taking in my full-length dress and the way cocking out my hip thrust one long thigh through the slit, making my legs look impossibly long.
The pure admiration in his expression stalled my heart before it galloped forward in a mad dash.
“… like happily-ever-after.”
I blinked slowly, my breath caught in my chest, sure I’d blacked out and fantasized his words out of sheer desperation.
He laughed, a rough, self-deprecating bark that felt like an attempt to shake off his last words.
Scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck, he turned away, breaking the moment as if he’d said too much. Revealed more than he intended.
No matter how badly I wanted to tease Mr. Big, Bad Thriller Author about going soft, I couldn’t.
The words caught in my throat, trapped by the wild beat of my heart.
I couldn’t let a single syllable escape, because for all the times I’d imagined him this unfiltered, I never thought I’d actually see it.
Here he was—tough, brooding Lee Murphy—completely turned into a romantic marshmallow. For me.
He covered the ground between us, tangling our fingers.
That connection steadied me, allowing my feelings to surface, unguarded, and bleed into my eyes.
Letting them speak all the words I couldn’t say.
The love. The want. The need. It swirled, a blender of emotion that caught me in the whirlwind, whipping me relentlessly.
“We’re pretty great together, you know that?” Lee finally asked.
“Like peanut butter and chocolate?”
His smile was soft. He tilted my chin, placing a gentle kiss on my upturned mouth.
“Like coffee and cream,” I added.
He kissed the other side of my mouth, a gentle benediction.
“Like pen and paper.”
His lips grazed my cheek.
“Like the moon and stars,” I whispered.
Our mouths met, the kiss so sweet, it made me ache.
“Like a mystery and a perfect alibi.”
I pulled back, smirking. “That better not be a threat, Murphy. My family absolutely knows where to bury a body. No questions asked.”
He rolled his lips, shoulders shaking. But he didn’t correct me.
“Like a secret whispered in the dark. Like hands entwined on a quiet walk.” He dropped another kiss on my lips, sweet and sure. “Like the last page of a well-loved book. Like two hearts sharing the same beat.” The words tumbled from him, each more romantic than the last.
My heart took flight, beating out an insistent tattoo in my chest. “Are you trying to tell me something, Murphy?”
“Only that I love you.”
My stomach dropped, leaving me weak in the knees. Like I couldn’t have heard him right. But his blue eyes were clear, his expression open and soft, tinted with a tenderness that made my heart ache.
I leaped, wrapping my legs around his waist as best I could in my long dress. My momentum knocked him back a few steps, but he recovered quickly, his arms like bands around my back, holding me in place.
Raining kisses over his cheeks, chin and mouth was the only response I was capable of.
He chuckled, squeezing me tight against him.
His lips found mine in a soul-deep kiss, sealing all the sweet words into my heart until they sizzled beneath my skin.
His love flowed through me like a superpower, turbocharging every sense.
His beard drew along my shoulder, the kiss he placed on my neck nearly sending me over the edge.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Cupcake?” He looked so damn hopeful.
“Only that I love you back.”
There was something almost boyish about him in that moment. Lighter. His eyes creased, the smile that bloomed across his features creating dimple-like divots in his cheeks.
Everything for the next hour passed in a haze of euphoria, like my feet couldn’t quite connect to the ground, even as we walked into the cocktail bar downtown.
“To us,” Lee said, tapping the rim of his glass to mine, his gaze so tender, it reignited the joy from his earlier confession, flooding my heart all over again.
Part of me wanted to jump to the next step and the next, but instead I bumped my glass against his. “To us.”