Chapter Twenty-Six
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This chapter rocks.
Leora
I’ve barely been home an hour when a knock sounds at my door, stealing my attention away from the collection of rocks I’m sorting through for Amia.
When I left their apartment, belly full of sugary cereal and chick-shaped watermelon, I promised Amia that I would be back.
If not today, then soon. She seemed… disbelieving.
I didn’t get the feeling that she distrusted me, but the situation is certainly reading as too good to be true for her, and she’s wary. And who can blame her?
So I hatched a plan to show her that I intend to be in her life, returning to her over and over again.
I’m going to give her rocks. So many rocks.
Not all at once, but one at a time, letting her tumble them like a musical round.
I give, she tumbles, a week passes, the rock is still tumbling, but I give another, and she tumbles that in a different tumbler, and on and on so that she always has a rock going, even if a rock has just come out.
This way, she will know that I will always be back, even if it’s only for the rocks.
I hope, of course, that she’ll know I’m coming for her and her father, but if not…
Rocks.
So. Many. Rocks.
I set aside one that looks like it will take a particularly long time to tumble smooth, then stand, wipe my hands off on the skirt of the dress I put on yesterday and still haven’t changed out of, even though I’ve been home for an entire sixty minutes—sixty minutes I spent, reasonably, sorting rocks at my coffee table.
Whoever is at my door knocks again, more urgently.
“I’m coming!” I call, doing just that. Beyond my door window stands a tall, broad-shouldered man with a muss of white hair.
My brows furrow. Did I forget something?
I open the door quickly. “Wolfe?”
“Leora,” he greets, glancing at my dress-clad hips. “Are you wearing shorts?”
Uh… “Yes,” I answer. “I always wear cooling shorts under my dresses. They prevent chafing.”
“Perfect,” he mutters with a calculating look in his eyes. “That should make this pretty seamless, then. Foolproof.”
“Make what seamless?” I ask. “What foolproof?’
“And it should mark off the rest of my cons, too,” he continues, to himself.
Before I can ask what should mark off his few remaining cons—“few” meaning “zero,” in my opinion—he bends at the waist, shoves his shoulder into my belly, and lifts.
He turns to the street and immediately starts marching away from my house, barely taking the time to pull my front door shut behind us.
He takes off down the sidewalk with sure, steady strides.
“Are you kidnapping me?” I ask, incredulous. “Again?” My heart can hardly take it, pitter-pattering her way around my chest.
“Yes,” he answers, readjusting his grip over my thighs.
“This can’t become a habit,” I huff, though there’s no real heat behind it.
This time, the kidnapping doesn’t bother me.
Not on the tail of an evening spent with Wolfe and his daughter…
on the tail of an evening where Wolfe’s lips pressed against mine, a tender shift into something more than friendship—something that feels akin to what my heart has harbored for this man since his very first letter to me.
Something akin to love.
My view changes suddenly, and a blast of air conditioning makes me shiver. Wolfe’s studio passes by quickly, then I’m flying over his shoulder and down, a wall of memories blurring as I fall.
Wolfe drops on top of me, pinning me and drawing so close that my entire world narrows to nothing but him. His soft, ivory hair dangles, tickling my forehead as it brushes against the skin there.
“I’m going to kiss you again,” he declares before…
Stars.
He sure does kiss me. Thoroughly. Not tender, like before, but hard, possessive, and claiming. This kiss doesn’t say, “I love you.” This kiss says, “You’re mine.”
He parts from me only when we’re both panting for breath.
“Stars,” I whisper.
“I love you,” he rumbles, words harsh as he struggles to fill his lungs.
“I love you so much, my starling. I loved you before, but seeing you with Amia last night… this morning…” He groans and kisses me again, hard and fast. “Seeing you with Amia, right in front of my face, has made it so, so clear how very much I love you. I love you so much it’s an ache in my chest—a yawning void, desperately hoping and waiting and yearning and begging for the stars to put you back in my path.
You’re so bright. A star in the sky, demanding my orbit, and I give it gladly.
Be my sun. Be my moon. Demand better of me for the rest of our lives.
Make me a man worthy of you.” He curses.
“I love you to distraction. I love you to selfishness. I love you enough to ask for what I want, and I love you enough to take it.” Another kiss, this one a vow, and a promise, and a conquering.
“I’m taking you, Leora. I want you. I want your lips beneath mine every morning and every night.
I want your wisdom and your beauty poured into my daughter every day, so casually, as if there were no other option for you than to give her everything you have to give.
I want my life to include you. Always. Forever.
I want us to be us. And, to stars with my passivity, I’m taking it. ”
Oh. My. Stars.
He kisses the whispered words off my lips, stealing for himself my breaths and heartbeats. I give them to him freely. They’re his to have, anyway.
“You’re mine,” he demands between kisses. “Only mine. Always mine.”
“I’m yours,” I agree, readily. I press my forehead to his, begging a moment to tell him just how much I am his.
“I always have been, Wolfe. From that first letter. I’ve loved you.
I love you, and I’m so proud of you. You’ve proven every day that my love couldn’t have gone to anyone better.
I’d be proud to stand by your side always.
I’d be proud to be a part of your family. ”
He replies with a kiss.
Or twelve.
Or twenty.
Or…
Well, a lot of kisses.
And I kiss him back, every time, heart soaring to the stars, thanking them for all that they’ve blessed us with.