28. Juliette #3
“The rest is negotiable.” I loop my arms around his neck and pull him down for another lazy kiss, feeling him already starting to harden again inside me.
Want sparks fresh and bright. “As long as you keep doing that thing with your hips. And maybe the thing with your mouth later. I’m open to discussions. ”
“Jesus, you’re going to kill me.” He laughs against my lips, but his hips give an experimental roll that makes us both hum in pleasure. “Lucky for you I’ve got excellent stamina and a very strong motivation to keep my spot on this couch.”
“Temporary spot,” I correct, nipping his jaw even as I rock up to meet him.
“We’ll see about that.” He kisses me deeper, hands already roaming with renewed intent, and the tension between us coils tight all over again - playful, aching, desperate. “I’ve got years of back payments to make, Juliette. Hope you’re not busy for the next several hours.”
“For you?” I breathe, arching into his touch as his mouth finds my throat again. My heart feels too big for my chest. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”
***
Later, we lie tangled in my mother’s quilts, moonlight striping across the bed.
“That was different,” I say.
“Revolutionary.” He pulls me closer. “That was the first time I didn’t feel like I was borrowing something I hadn’t earned.”
“The sex?”
“You.” He traces a pattern on my shoulder. “All of you. Without the constant terror that you were going to realize I wasn’t worth the trouble.”
“You’re worth the trouble.” I prop myself up on one elbow. “You’re an enormous amount of trouble, and you’re worth it.”
He grins. “That might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late.” He disentangles himself from the quilts, crosses to where his jacket is hanging over the chair. “Speaking of trouble.”
“What are you doing?”
“Following instructions.”
He pulls a folded document from the inside pocket - legal-sized paper - and brings it back to the bed. Sits down. Takes a pen from the nightstand drawer.
His hands aren’t quite steady doing it. He smooths the fold flat against his thigh, twice, a man ironing a flag before he runs it up.
“The divorce petition,” he says. “You gave me instructions at the Stroll.”
Divorce me properly, and then ask me properly.
He signs the bottom of the page. His signature is neat, decisive, final.
“I’m halfway to qualified,” he says, sliding it back into his jacket. “Signed and complete. The other half is yours to schedule.”
“And then?”
“Then I ask you properly.”
I trace patterns on his chest, thinking about everything that’s happened. Everything that’s still to come.
“At the church,” I say. “Six years ago. When the doors opened and you saw me for the first time in my dress.”
He goes still.
“You mouthed something. Something I couldn’t make out.” I lift my head to look at him. “I’ve wondered about it for six years. What did you say?”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
“I’ll tell you when I’m fully qualified.”
“That’s not fair.”
“That’s extremely fair.”
“Zachary-”
“You made me wait for you.” He catches my hand, presses a kiss to my palm. “Now I get to make you wait for this.”
He laces our fingers and settles them over his sternum, where his heart is going hard enough to argue with his calm voice, and the moonlight through the curtains cuts the room into stripes of silver and dark.
“I could torture it out of you.”
“You could try.”
“I’m very persuasive.”
“I’m aware.” His grin is insufferable. “I’m still not telling you.”
“What if I guess?”
“You won’t.”
“I might.”
“You definitely won’t.” He pulls me back down against his chest. “It’s been six years and you haven’t guessed yet.”
“Was it in English?”
“Guessing has rules now?”
“Answer the question.”
“Yes, it was in English.” He’s laughing under my cheek. “It was four words. That’s the only other thing you get.”
“Four words.” I count possibilities against his heartbeat. You look so beautiful. Don’t trip on anything. What have I done. “Was it romantic?”
“It was true,” he says. “Romantic is your department. I do true.”
“I wasn’t trying before.”
“Then try now. I’ll wait.”
I run through possibilities. I love you. You’re beautiful. I can’t believe this is happening. All the things grooms mouth to brides in movies.
“It wasn’t any of those,” he says, reading my face.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. You were running through the obvious options.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “It wasn’t obvious. That’s why you couldn’t read it.”
“Give me a hint.”
“No.”
“One hint.”
“Not one second before I’m fully qualified.” He kisses my forehead. “Go to sleep, Juliette. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
“You’re a menace.”
“I’m your menace.” He reaches over and turns off the lamp. “Temporarily. Pending successful completion of divorce proceedings and a properly executed proposal.”
“You’re extremely confident for a man whose romantic future depends on government paperwork.”
“I’ve never been more motivated to deal with bureaucracy in my life.”
I want to argue. I want to pry the secret out of him with my hands or my mouth or sheer stubbornness.
Instead, I close my eyes and let sleep take me.
The last thing I hear is his voice in the darkness, barely a whisper.
“Soon.”