CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Avonlea – Now
Always.
That word from his lips is my undoing and I launch myself into his arms. Our lips find each other like magnets.
His are soft and warm, a perfect contrast to the delicious scratch of his beard against my skin.
My hands are trapped between us, along with one of his, where they’re pressed over our respective hearts.
I swear I feel them trip in unison as the kiss deepens.
His free hand dips further back along my neck and into my hair at the base of my skull, inviting me closer.
My breath leaves me in a rush, lips parting so his tongue can slide against mine.
The flavor of whisky from dinner still lingers and it is intoxicating.
I might be drunk off just the taste of him.
Jameson and whisky. His parents certainly got his name right.
I press up on my toes, molding my body to his, and a low moan rips from his throat.
Our arms break free at the same time and he wraps his around my waist, drawing me flush against him, highlighting every muscular inch of his body and the hard ridge pressed against my belly.
He wants me—really wants me. My hands run through his hair to his nape and I pull him down to me, wanting more.
This kiss is so much more than the one in the garden.
This kiss is eleven years in the making.
Eleven years of longing and want. Eleven years of desire.
Eleven years of heartbreak being healed by just the simplest act of lips on lips, tongues tangled with tongues, hands moving over bodies.
Each movement is a prayer, an apology, a question, an answer…
There are words that need to be spoken, things to be discussed, yet with this one kiss, the fear of moments ago subsides. This kiss is a homecoming—our homecoming.
“Jamie,” I breathe against his lips, the inch of space between us closing for another silky brush of his against mine. Then he presses our foreheads together and we share the same air for a moment.
“Avi.” Reverence and something else—something I won’t let myself consider or even voice inside my own head—fill that one word.
He drags his fingers up and down my arms, leaving goose bumps in their wake, while I continue to tangle and untangle mine in his hair.
“That was…” I release my breath and it shakes on the way out.
“Yes, it was.” He puffs out a chuckle and then his lips are ghosting my forehead, my cheek, my nose, and finally, with the most delicate brush, they cross my lips again. “I should probably say goodnight here.”
Ever the gentleman, but I can hear the restraint in his voice—like leaving right now is the last thing he wants. It’s the last thing I want too, and I have something for him that I’ve been holding on to all week. Waiting for tonight.
“If you think you can behave,” I say, raising an eyebrow and smirking, “I have something for you.”
“For me?” he questions, curiosity sparking in his gaze.
I turn to unlock the door and take his hand, leading him inside.
It’s the first time he’s been here since we came to view it, when it was empty and lifeless. Now it’s filled with my furniture, my things, Lennox’s things. Pictures are hung on the wall—thank goodness for my dad’s visit and skill with a hammer—and it feels like a home. Our home, mine and Lennox’s.
I’ve never invited a man into our home before, not once, and though it’s Jamie, it still feels vulnerable.
His eyes rove over the space, taking in every inch, every decoration. “It looks amazing, Avi.”
“Thank you,” I say with a blush, the praise lighting me up inside. “Would you like a dram?”
“Sure,” he says, eyes continuing to take in the space around him. “How did Nox like it? The house.”
I pull the bottle of Cluaran’s finest from the shelf above the fridge along with two short glasses.
“He really likes it. He’s excited to make his room more his own.
We couldn’t paint in our flat, but we can here, so he wants to do that this summer.
” I turn around, a whisky in each hand, to find Jamie on the couch, looking at my tattered copy of Journals of Elsewhere.
His fingers brush the broken spine and fraying dust cover.
“Part of me still can’t believe you’ve read this…” He trails off, awe in his voice.
I blush scarlet and my eyes flick to the shelf behind him that carries all the copies and special editions I have. My first editions though, the copies I bought the day the books were released and read a million times, are my favorites. Like the one in his hands.
He follows my line of sight and his eyes widen. He hops over the back of the couch with the grace of a gazelle to stand in front of the shelf. Then his eyes cut quickly to me. They’re wet.
“Avi…” he says, and I hear nothing but affection.
I shrug, feeling embarrassed. “I told you I was your biggest fan.” I set our glasses onto the table and round the couch to stand beside him.
He thumbs through the book in his hands and then goes back to the title page… like he’s looking for something.
“None of them are signed,” I say, answering the question I can feel coming. “I didn’t want it if it wasn’t there specifically for me.”
I hang my head. God, that sounded stupid.
His fingers find my chin and tip it up, forcing me to hold his gaze—to get lost in it like I used to.
“Do you want them signed?”
My eyes fill with tears and I nod. The next thing I know, he’s crushing me to him in a fierce embrace, his lips finding mine for a kiss that makes my entire body blaze to life in a way I haven’t felt in a very long time.
He finally slows the kiss and pulls back to kiss my forehead. “Sorry, I… I had no idea that you having my books would…” His words taper off with a low laugh and he rests his mouth at my temple. “Do you have a Sharpie?”
“I can grab one. And you can just sign these three,” I murmur as I reach for the shelf and grab my well-read copies of his other two books—Expedition to Elsewhere and Beyond Elsewhere—and place them in his arms with the first. Then I blush furiously and walk away in search of the Sharpie.
When I come back, he’s sitting on the couch again, the books stacked on the table, while he flips through a photo album I had on the coffee table. It’s the one from our summer vacation to Ireland last year.
You’d think it held the answers to world hunger, the cure to cancer, and the ability to broker world peace with the way he’s looking through it.
His eyes move voraciously over each page—taking in every last detail—while his fingers linger over different images before flipping to the next so he can do it all over again.
“If you like that, I think you’ll really like this,” I say, nudging a box that’s also sitting on the table a little closer. I set the marker beside his books, but his focus is on the box.
“What is it?” he asks with boyish excitement.
“Open it up and see.” I try to hide my nerves behind a smile, but he must see them because instead of opening the box he takes my hand in one of his and lifts it to brush against his lips.
When he returns his attention to the box, I release the breath from my lungs. The flaps open and he pulls it closer, his legs splaying open on either side so he can get a better look. On top is Lennox’s baby book and underneath are photos, albums, keepsakes from those early years with him.
“You can take it with you, if you’d rather look through it on your own. I just thought—”
He interrupts me with another kiss that steals my breath and shoots a zing of desire down my spine. It’s a heated kiss, but the underlying meaning is clear. It’s a thank-you.
He leans back and settles into the couch, his hands moving to the baby book on top, and I can see a tremble in them. He places it on his lap. “Will you look at it with me? You can tell me everything.”
“Everything?”
He smiles. “Everything.”
“I’d love to,” I say, and for the next several hours, I do just that. I tell him everything.