Chapter 38 WREN
WREN
“Forty percent, Wren.”
“I heard you.”
“Forty percent.”
“Sasha.”
“He raised eucalyptus forty percent in one season and called it a modest seasonal adjustment . In what universe?”
She’s pacing behind me with her phone in her hand and her reading glasses pushed up into her hair. I’m at my workstation with half a centerpiece in front of me trying not to laugh.
“So what are we doing?”
“We’re not paying it.”
“We have a wedding Saturday, Wren.”
“I know.”
My phone lights up next to my shears.
A text from Jace.
Jace : Morning, sexy. Couldn’t sleep after we hung up. Kept thinking about the sounds you were making.
My stomach drops. My neck goes hot.
I grin down at my shears, butterflies stirring the way they always do when his name lights up the screen. I tip the phone toward me so Sasha can’t see, and type back.
Me : That’s your fault. And delete that picture.
His reply is immediate.
Jace : Not a chance.
I make a noise.
Sasha stops pacing. “That is a Jace face.”
“What? What does that even mean?”
“Oh my god. Are you sexting at work?”
“I am not.”
“Oh my god, you are. You two are insatiable. You’re literally purple , Wren.”
“Sasha. Count the ribbon.”
“I’ve counted the ribbon.”
“Count it again.”
She mutters something I don’t catch and disappears into the back room.
I look down at my phone and type.
Me : What time are you done today?
Jace : Couple hours.
Me : Come straight here.
Jace : Will do, baby.
I set the phone down.
It’s been two months since Tyler went away. Long enough for life to settle. Dinners at his place, mornings at mine, and neither of us getting very good at saying goodbye. We still end most nights with one of us caving and calling before bed or sending one more text.
I’m replaying last night. The way he sounded on the phone in the dark. The picture I sent him to get him going in the first place, which I shouldn’t have sent, and which I’m unreasonably glad he’s keeping.
I should not be sitting in my own flower shop at eleven in the morning with my thighs pressed together because of a man, but here we are.
The bell above the door chimes.
I look up.
Jace is already inside.
In black dress pants and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, dark sunglasses on, holding a small white box tied with red string.
I jump off my stool like I’ve been caught.
Because I have.
“Jace—”
His mouth curves. He knows exactly what he walked in on.
“You okay, baby?”
“I—”
“What were you thinking about, Wren?”
“That was not a couple hours.”
“Couldn’t wait.”
He’s at my workstation in two strides. Sunglasses off, hand at my neck, mouth on mine—real and slow, in front of the open door and anyone on the sidewalk—and the eucalyptus situation is gone from my mind entirely.
When he straightens, his thumb is sweeping under my jaw. He sets the white box on the corner of the table.
“Hi.”
“You’re flushed.”
“I’ve been flushed since your first text.”
His mouth lifts.
I look down at the box. Gold sticker. Maria’s . My chest does a slow somersault.
“Oh my god. Is that Maria’s famous cannoli?”
“It is.”
“Jace.”
“We left in a hurry that night. Owed you the cannoli.”
I push up on my toes and kiss the corner of his mouth. “Thank you. That was really sweet of you, Carrington.”
From the back room, Sasha calls, “Oh, and there he is. The man of the hour.”
“Hey, Sash.”
She emerges with her bag already on her shoulder. “I think this is my cue to take a long lunch.”
“Sasha, you don’t have to—”
“Oh, but I do.” She grins. “Have a wonderful afternoon, you two.”
The bell chimes. She’s gone.
Jace is still looking down at me.
“Subtle.”
“She’s not, no.”
He pulls me into him. I press my face into his shirt and breathe him in.
“Last night wasn’t enough.”
Quiet, into my hair.
“No,” I say. “It wasn’t.”
“Why did we sleep apart, Wren?”
“I don’t know. You had an early thing. I had—”
“It was a bad idea.”
He pulls back enough to look down at me.
“I’m done sleeping without you. It puts me in a mood and I’m taking it out on Ryker.”
A laugh starts in my chest and dies there, because his face has gone serious.
“Move in with me.”
I open my mouth.
“I had you on the phone last night and it wasn’t enough. I want you there. All of you. Not a bag in the closet. Not a toothbrush. You. Home with me. For real.”
My eyes are stinging. I moved back into my apartment to prove I could. I’m done.
“Yes.”
His eyes search mine.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, Jace.”
He bends down and kisses me again, slower this time, his hand tightening at my neck.
When he pulls back he’s smiling at me.
I step around him.
I cross to the front of the shop. I turn the deadbolt, flip the sign to CLOSED, and pull the cord on the blinds. The shop goes dim and quiet around us.
When I turn around he’s watching me from the back, leaning against my workstation with his ankles crossed, all that height and shoulders and rolled sleeves, looking at me like he’s in no hurry at all, and daring me to be.
“Wren.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing?”
“Closing early.”
I walk back to him.
When I get to him I run my hands down the front of his chest. Slowly. Over the buttons. My fingers find the top one and undo it. Then the next.
“I’ve wanted you in this shop since the day you walked in here, Jace Carrington.”
He stands off the workstation.
“That’s all you had to say.”
He picks me up, turns, and sets me on the edge of it, looking at me.
“I should’ve had you in here months ago.”
Then he drops to his knees on the shop floor.
“Jace—”
He disappears under the hem of my dress.
Shit. Of all the mornings to put on the longest dress I own.
His hands are running up the backs of my calves under the fabric. His mouth is on the inside of my knee.
“Are you giggling? ”
“No.”
“Wren.”
“No, Jace.”
He pushes the dress up higher with his shoulders so it bunches above his head, and then his hands close around the backs of my thighs and he drags me to the edge of the workstation.
“Open for me, baby.”
I do.
“Lean back.”
I do.
He hooks his fingers into my underwear and pulls them off—just one leg, leaving them caught at my other ankle.
He throws my legs over his shoulders and his mouth is on me.
“ Jesus , Jace—”
I knock something off the workstation with my elbow. I don’t know what. I have one hand braced on the table and the other fisted in all that cotton, holding the dress up and out of his way, and my head is tipped back and his name is leaving me on every breath.
His tongue works me slow. Then faster. Faster still.
Then he sucks my clit into his mouth and his hands slide up off my thighs to find mine.
He laces our fingers together, presses both my hands down against my hips, and holds me there.
The not-being-able-to-move is what does it.
I come around his mouth with my hands pinned under his.
He emerges from under the dress.
His mouth is wet.
He wipes his bottom lip with his thumb. Slow. Then he brings it to my mouth.
“Open.”
I open.
He slides his thumb between my lips. I close around it and suck.
“ Fuck , Wren.”
He gets his belt open and his pants down enough.
He pulls me to the edge of the table. Bundles the front of my dress into his fist and lifts it out of the way. He looks down at the fabric in his hand, then back at me.
“Shorter dresses, baby.”
“Noted.”
He thrusts into me hard.
I throw my head back. The moan that leaves me is loud. My hand braces on the workstation behind me. My other hand finds his shoulder and digs in.
His hand goes to my dress strap.
“Off.”
He yanks one side down. I drag the other down myself. The cups of my bra come with them. My breasts spill out over the top.
“Christ.”
His mouth is on me before I finish breathing. Tongue. Teeth. His thumb finding the other one and circling.
I am going to die in this shop.
He thrusts again. Harder. His mouth comes off my breast and finds mine, and he’s breathing hard against my lips, hips driving into me.
His mouth at my ear, voice rough.
“I’m going to do this to you in every room of our home, Wren.”
“Our home,” I pant, already climbing again, and smile against his cheek.
“Our home.”
His rhythm breaks for half a second.
His mouth drops to the curve of my shoulder and stays. One hand grips harder where he’s holding me, the other slides between us.
I shatter around him, my forehead pressed to his shoulder.
He’s two strokes behind me.
When he comes he says my name against my temple in a voice I’m going to think about every time I walk into this shop for the rest of my life.
He pulls out slowly. Drops the bundle of dress from his fist. It falls back over my thighs.
He laughs.
“What?”
“Burn the dress.”
He laughs again, and then I’m laughing, and we’re both laughing into each other’s necks.
He helps me down off the workstation. While I pull myself together, he sets the centerpiece back exactly where I had it.
He grabs the white box, pulls two chairs over facing each other, and hands me a cannoli on a square of waxed paper.
I bite into mine. Powdered sugar. Sweet ricotta. Chocolate at the end. A sound leaves me that I do not mean to make.
Jace’s eyes lift.
“Careful.”
I grin and take another bite, watching him watch me.
He bites into his. There’s powdered sugar on his bottom lip. I lean forward and kiss it off.
“You’re going to be the death of me, Ashford.”
He grabs the seat of my chair and drags it right up against his. His hands settle on my thighs.
“So we’re really doing this,” I say.
“We are.”
“I’ll start packing tonight.”
“The apartment’s not going anywhere. You’re coming home with me tonight. I’m not sleeping another night without you, Wren.”
A smile pulls at my mouth. I lift my cannoli.
“To moving in.”
He taps his against mine.
“About damn time, baby.”