Chapter 32 WREN
WREN
I am happy.
I didn’t know I could be this happy, and it’s been eight days.
Eight days since he told me he loved me.
I keep catching myself smiling at nothing.
I’m at my worktable in the back finishing the last boutonnière for tomorrow’s pickup. Sasha left twenty minutes ago. The shop is mine, the radio is on, the late sun is coming in through the front window in long July gold.
Jace will be here in fifteen minutes. He’s come to pick me up at close every day this week, and I miss him like an idiot.
I tuck the boutonnière into the cooler, drop my apron on the hook, and wash my hands at the sink. Elastic out, hair shaken loose. Lip gloss from my purse, swiped on without a mirror. Eight days of him and I still get butterflies when I know I’m about to see his face.
I reach for my bag.
When I look up, my stomach instantly flips.
He’s on the curb.
Leaning against a black motorcycle I’ve never seen—sleek, low, mean. One boot crossed over the other. Hands in his pockets. The black t-shirt does nothing to hide the broad chest underneath it or the ink running down his arm. Dark jeans. Sunglasses still on.
I forget how to walk for a second.
Jace Carrington has a motorcycle.
I did not think this man could get any hotter.
I was wrong.
He takes the sunglasses off and hangs them in the neck of his shirt, and watches me cross the sidewalk to him.
Davis is across the street in his sedan. He sees Jace and lifts two fingers from the wheel. Jace nods once in return.
Davis pulls away from the curb and disappears down the block.
“Hey there,” I say.
“Hi.”
“Holy shit. You have a motorcycle?”
“I have several.”
“Of course you do.”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
“Am I getting on that?”
“I thought we could go for a ride. Nice evening for it.”
I grin so hard my face hurts.
He picks the second helmet off the seat and lifts it onto my head—careful with my hair, careful with the strap under my chin, one knuckle brushing my throat as he fastens it.
Then he stops.
His thumb drags slowly along my jaw.
“I missed you,” he says.
I smile up at him.
“Me too.”
He picks up his own helmet and slides it on before swinging a leg over the bike in one clean motion, the way a man does something he’s done a thousand times. He settles into the seat and straightens the bike between his legs.
He pats the seat behind him.
“Up, Ashford.”
I start to climb on. He’s looking back at me the whole time, watching me try to figure out how to swing my leg over the seat without falling on my face. I am significantly less graceful about it than he was. He laughs into his helmet.
His hand finds the back of my thigh, slides up to my ass, and pulls me in tight against his back — warm and solid through his shirt. I get my arms around his waist, and he covers my hands with one of his, locks them against his stomach.
“Hold tight, baby.”
He drops his visor. Starts the engine. The bike kicks under me and I make a small sound into the back of his shoulder. His stomach jumps with a laugh under my palm. Then he pulls off the curb, and we’re moving.
He moves us through Brooklyn slowly at first—Court Street, Smith, the long stretch by the BQE where the light turns the brownstones pink. I keep my arms around his waist and rest my head against his shoulder as the city slides past around us.
Then the road opens up. He twists the throttle and the bike surges, and the streets fall away into one long fast stretch of parkway, the river flashing silver on our left.
He blocks the wind off the front of us, but it still tears past, whips my hair out behind me. The muscle of his back works under my breasts every time he leans us into a curve.
The rumble comes up through my thighs and into my chest until I can’t tell it from my own heartbeat, and I’m laughing into his shoulder before I know I’ve started.
We come down off the bridge and he slows, takes us along the cobblestones toward the water, past the carousel all lit up in its glass box, and pulls into a spot near the park.
He kills the engine and covers my hands on his stomach with one of his. Flips his visor up.
“You good?”
“Oh my god, Jace. That was amazing.”
He laughs once. Low.
Then he climbs off, takes our helmets and hangs them both on the handlebar. He leans back against the seat beside me, one boot up on the footpeg, close, his arm warm against mine, and we look out at the water together.
Across the river the skyline’s catching the last of the light, every window lit up gold. A ferry slides past below us. Somewhere down the path a dog is losing its mind at a pigeon.
“This view is unreal,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“I bet you bring all the girls here.”
He turns his head and looks at me. “No. Never brought anyone here before.”
I go still.
I reach up and pull him down by the front of his shirt and kiss him, and he kisses me back, one hand coming up to cradle my jaw, and we stay like that longer than the kiss needs, the engine ticking as it cools beside us.
When I pull back he keeps his forehead against mine for a second.
Then he straightens and holds out his hand.
“Come on.” His thumb runs over my knuckles. “I want you to meet someone.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you to dinner.”
* * *
The restaurant is small. Twelve tables. White walls, candles in old wine bottles, a chalkboard menu, a glass case of cannoli at the front and a man behind the bar in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
There is no host stand. There is just a woman in her sixties with silver hair and an apron who looks up from the bar when we walk in and lights up.
“Well, well. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
“Maria.”
She is around the bar before he has finished saying her name. She kisses him on both cheeks. She takes my hand in both of hers and looks at my face for a long second, then looks at Jace, and something passes across her face I can’t read.
“Bella.”
“Maria, this is Wren.”
“Wren.”
She kisses my cheek too. Smells like olive oil and bay leaf. She leads us to a corner table with a candle on it and a single sprig of rosemary in a tiny glass jar, and she pulls my chair out for me herself.
She waves a hand at Jace and says something fast in Italian. He answers in Italian. She laughs. He laughs. She walks back to the kitchen.
I look across the table at him.
“Jace.”
“Wren.”
“You speak Italian.”
“A little.”
“That was not a little.”
“Okay. More than a little.”
“You didn’t tell me you speak Italian.”
“You didn’t ask.”
I set my chin on my hand and look at him across the candle.
“Where did you learn?”
“Here.”
“From Maria?”
“Yeah. Started coming when I was twenty-two. Made captain at twenty-six, brought the unit here for dinner. They’ve been feeding me since.”
“How often?”
“Twice a month. More when I’m in a bad stretch.”
I take a sip of my wine. Watch him.
“How’s your mom doing? I remember she remarried after your dad…”
I trail off. I remember more than I’m saying. I remember Jace being at our house all the time after his dad was killed overseas. I remember my mom making him a plate every Sunday without asking. I was young, but I remember.
He sets his fork down. His eyes hold mine.
“It’s okay, Wren.”
“I know. I just—” I shake my head. “I remember.”
“I know you do.” He’s quiet for a second. “He’s the reason I enlisted.”
“I figured.”
Something passes between us across the candle.
“She’s in Florida,” he says. “Remarried a good guy about ten years back. She’s happy down there.”
I smile.
“Good.”
I take in this small restaurant that has been quietly feeding the man across from me for fifteen years.
I take in Maria, who hugged him like a son and looked at me like she is committing my face to memory.
I take in the fact that he has never mentioned this place to me before tonight.
That he kept it for himself. That he’s sharing it with me now.
I have not stopped smiling at him since we sat down and I cannot make it stop.
He notices.
“What?”
“Nothing. This is all just a pleasant surprise. I didn’t know you were a romantic, Carrington.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Ashford.”
“Yet?”
“It’s a long night.”
He looks at me across the candle like he’s already taking me home.
Oh my god. I am clenching my thighs in a restaurant.
* * *
The wine is red and the bread is warm and the food comes in waves I did not order and could not have ordered if I tried.
Burrata with tomatoes from a farm I don’t know.
A small pasta with brown butter and sage.
A piece of fish I would never have picked off a menu and could not stop eating.
A second glass of wine I did not ask for and is exactly the right amount.
Maria does not bring a check.
Halfway through the second course he looks up at me from his plate.
“You’re staring at me, Ashford.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
He goes still.
He sets his fork down very carefully and looks at me across the table, and I have never seen him look at me the way he is looking at me right now in my entire life.
“Say that again.”
“I love you.”
“Wren.”
“Carrington.”
“I’m taking you home.”
“Maria hasn’t brought the cannoli.”
“I will buy the whole case from her on the way out.”
I laugh.
He doesn’t laugh.
He stands up. Pulls a roll of cash out of his pocket without counting and sets it on the table.
Walks around to my side, takes my hand, and pulls me out of my chair.
Maria is at the bar with her arms crossed and a knowing look on her face, and he kisses her cheek and says something in Italian, and she laughs and pats his face and waves us out.
He does not buy the cannoli on the way.
* * *
The ride home is not the ride here.
My hands move from his stomach to his thighs. My fingers spread on the inside of his denim, high, where the heat of him is. I press my chest harder against his back, lean my face into the side of his neck, and feel him swear into the wind.
He goes faster.
He takes the bridge harder than he took it coming over.
By the time we hit Manhattan my hand’s slid all the way up, palm pressed high between his legs, and I can feel exactly what I’m doing to him through the denim.
His stomach’s tight as a board under my forearm.
I’m laughing into the back of his shoulder, because I have never tortured a man on a motorcycle before and I’m fairly sure I’m going to get us both killed and I cannot make myself stop.
He pulls into the underground at his building and shuts it down hard.
The kickstand’s barely down before he’s off the bike. Helmet dropped, mine unclipped and gone. He’s lifting me down by the hips and kissing me once—hard, deep, his hand fisted in my hair—right there beside the bike.
Then he breaks it, grabs my hand, and we’re moving.
“Elevator.”
“Yes.”
“Now.”
He walks me to the elevator with his hand at the small of my back. The doors slide open, we step in, and he hits forty-two.
The doors slide shut.
He moves.
He has me pinned with both hands in my hair before the car starts to climb.
His mouth is on mine, hungry, demanding—the kiss I’ve been wanting since the bridge.
My hands go up under his t-shirt, finally, spreading over the stomach I’ve had my arms wrapped around all night—warm, solid, everything I could feel through the cotton and couldn’t get to.
His palm drops to my ass and pulls my hips into his, and I gasp into his mouth.
His other hand leaves my hair and finds the hem of my t-shirt. Slides up underneath, flat against my stomach, up my ribs. Finds the clasp of my bra and pops it one-handed.
“Jace—”
“Mm.”
His hand comes back around and slides under the loose cup, palm hot against me. He rolls my nipple between his thumb and finger and my head goes back against the wall.
“Oh my god.”
“Yeah.”
His mouth moves to my throat. The hollow at the base of it. The collarbone. His thumb working slow at my breast, and I’m breathing his name into the steel above me.
I get his belt open and his jeans undone, and slide my hand inside.
I find him hard against my palm. He’s hot and heavy and the tip is already wet, and I run my thumb across it and he bucks forward into my hand.
He swears, forehead dropping to mine.
“You’re killing me.”
“Good.”
His hand finds the button of my jeans. Pops it. Slides the zipper down, past the waistband of my underwear, and finds me bare.
He stops.
His eyes hold me, dark. He slides one finger through my slick heat.
“Jesus, Wren. You’re so wet, baby.”
“Your fault.”
He groans into my mouth and sinks two fingers into me, eyes not leaving mine. I gasp. My hand tightens around him. He pulls back and pushes in again, his thumb finding the spot at the front of me, and my face drops onto his chest because I can’t hold his eyes anymore.
I lose the rest of the elevator ride.
Somewhere around ten I’m whimpering against his chest, my hand moving on him in time with his, both of us breathing through clenched teeth. Around fifteen I bite his shoulder through his t-shirt because I can’t help it. By twenty he pulls his hand out of me and mine off him.
“Wren.”
“Yes.”
“I’m about three seconds from fucking you against this wall.”
I tilt my face into his neck and kiss the spot just below his ear.
“Do it.”
He doesn’t answer.
He drops to one knee and yanks my jeans and underwear down my hips in one motion, gets one leg free, leaves the other tangled at my ankle. Stands. Shoves his own jeans down just enough.
He picks me up.
My back hits the wall and my legs wrap around his waist and he pushes into me in one stroke and I lose my mind. One hand under me, the other braced on the wall by my head, and he’s fucking me hard and fast and I am not going to last.
“Look at me when you come, baby.”
I lift my face off his neck. His eyes hold mine. Dark, gone.
I come. Hard. My eyes on his until I can’t keep them open, and then my mouth is on his and my arms are locked around his neck and my heels are digging into the small of his back. He follows me a stroke later, his name on my lips.
The doors ding open on forty-two.
He doesn’t put me down. I don’t unwrap my legs. He carries me out still inside me, both of us breathing like we ran the bridge.
Down the hall. Through the door. He kicks it shut behind us and keeps walking, all the way to the bedroom, and lays me down on the bed.
The city glows through the window behind him. He finishes undressing me, gets rid of his own clothes, and lies down beside me without a word.
I roll onto my side and tuck into him.
“Carrington.”
“Mhm.”
“Next time we go for a bike ride, give me a heads up.”
“Why?”
“So I can wear a dress.”