Chapter 32
Nelle sits with a coffee mug in her lap, maroon sweater swallowing her torso. For a second, James thinks he’s hallucinating, but her honey eyes hold their signature sparkling wonder, and her chest rises with anticipation as he enters. His suitcase tips over.
What the fuck is Nelle doing here?
He’s furious. He’s elated. His heart and mind are torn, one reaching for illogical love, the other for logical anger, and coming up with a headache.
His arms burn from lugging a sixty-pound suitcase, packed with his favorite books from his childhood bedroom in Lincoln, he’s tired and sore from the flight, and all he wanted, five minutes ago, before he knew Nelle was here, was a long nap.
Jessie told him she would be out with Lena, so Nelle either broke in, or she has been staying here. He makes a mental note to give his cousin shit for her lack of warning.
“Hi.” He stands there awkwardly, unsure what to do. Months ago, he would have called Nelle his best friend. Now she feels like a stranger.
She sets the mug on the coffee table. “Hey.”
James scratches his head. “When did you . . . uh . . . get here?”
What else is there to say? He spent months trying to get over her, and he hasn’t even accomplished that yet. A single slipup might set him back. He can’t risk that.
Unless she is here to stay. No. He doesn’t dare let himself think that optimistically.
“Two days ago,” she says. “I came to see you. To talk and . . . apologize.”
“Apologize?” James repeats. “For what?”
“For leaving you at the cottage.” Nelle’s voice shakes, on the verge of tears. “I basically forced you to follow me around the world, to spend all your savings, and now it’s all gone, and I’m so, so sorry.”
He can tell by the tremor in her throat, the shiny film over her eyes, that her apology is genuine.
But the idea that she unknowingly hurt him is so far from the truth.
Having his heart carved out was never her fault.
His chest cracks, and he can’t help the tears that spring up.
He dares to sit on the couch beside her, placing a wary hand on her leg. She doesn’t move away.
He wants to be angry, but his resolve melts when they touch. He wraps his arms around her, and she curls into him, folding her head under his chin.
“Nelle, listen to me.” All uncertainty vanishes. “I am not mad at you. I understand why you left that day, I know why what I did hurt you, and I’m sorry for not telling you sooner about New York. I didn’t know how to approach it, and I was scared of how you’d react.”
“It’s okay.” Tears squeeze her voice.
James shakes his head. “I’m not done. I love you, Nelle, and I will always forgive you. You never have to ask.”
Sunlight cuts in through the balcony window, the winter chill permeating through. He wraps a quilt around his shoulders, tucking them both in.
“I chose to leave Lincoln with you. Going to Charleston, to DC, to New York, to Paris, those were our ideas. Scotland, too. I regret none of the time I spent with you, none of the money I spent. Those memories are invaluable to me, and I loved every single one of them, because I was with you. I’m not the same James you met last summer.
I’ve changed, grown. I live in New York now, can you even believe it?
You don’t know how grateful I am for you. ”
She opens her mouth, but he cuts her off.
“And one more thing.” He reaches for the familiar grooves of her fingers. “I miss you.”
Nelle’s bottom lip quivers. “I’ve done some stuff, James.”
“It’s okay,” he says. The past doesn’t matter now. With nimble fingers, he tucks a blond strand behind her ear, exposing her cheekbone. “I love you. I forgive you. Always.”
They are the easiest words he has ever said.
She tilts into his hand. “It’s not that simple.”
“It is.” James leans in to kiss Nelle’s neck, and the crook of her shoulder feels like home.
Her fingers find purchase in his short curls. “It’s not . . .”
“It can be,” he murmurs, trailing kisses to her jaw. To the corner of her mouth. Hesitating, though every molecule of his body and his growing erection all yell at him to keep going.
“Kiss me,” she says. “Kiss me, James.”
One kiss, and months of progress disappear. He is done for. And he will never recover.
But he wants her so bad it hurts.
“James,” she says softly.
God, he can’t resist it. A magnet tugs his lips to hers, her hands on his waist, then hot under his sweatshirt.
No holding back.
Their kiss is almost violent. Nelle twists to straddle him on the couch, and James rakes his fingers through her hair.
His hands splay across her back, under her sweater.
He trails one up the curve of her lower abdomen, the plane of her stomach.
Gooseflesh bubbles across her skin wherever his fingertips whisper.
He cups her breast while their tongues war.
She bows into his touch, the pad of his thumb whispering around her swollen nipple.
“Nelle,” he groans. Their tongues slip against each other, lips hungry, fingers tangled. He needs their clothes off now.
He lifts her from the couch, and Nelle locks her legs around him. He takes her into his room, shuts the door with his foot, and they land on the bed in a ball of giggles.
“Take my pants off,” she breathes.
James kneels at the foot of the bed. His fingers find the button, and slowly, lapping up every second, he slides her zipper down.
Each inch of her skin appears like jewels in a trove.
Her stomach sapphire, her pink panties amethyst, her inner thighs diamonds.
He tugs the denim down to her calves, her ankles, and they crumple on the floor.
He finds the hem of her sweater and inches it up, revealing her breasts, her collarbones, her lightly freckled shoulders.
Sitting naked on his bed, Nelle is nearly enough to make him fall to pieces.
His removes his sweatshirt and briefs and drops onto the bed beside her, head propped on his hand. He plants a kiss on her forehead, trailing his fingers in circles around her navel, desperate to drift down. But he wants to take his time with this.
They fold into each other’s naked bodies, their stormy kisses slowing to a lingering breath between their lips.
Knees and noses touching. Nelle reaches down, wraps her fingers around him—James jolts at the touch—and guides him between her thighs.
He groans as he inches into her warmth, unable to think past the pleasure.
Facing each other, they rock in slow, breathless, torturously tingling movements. Each plunge brings him closer to his edge. Each touch fuses them together. His lips find the slope of her neck. She cradles his shoulders, nails digging in. He has never felt so content, so happy, so—
James erupts, groaning as his legs tense, his toes curl, and his hands find momentary purchase on Nelle’s ass. Their rhythm slows, like an ocean wave hitting shore, until they stop completely.
Nelle holds him while he shudders and recovers. How can this be real? He must be dreaming. Nelle is here. This is real. Nelle is really here. Sweat-spiraled hair falls over his forehead. He needs more of her.
“James.” Nelle brushes his hair back.
He blushes. “Sorry, it’s been a while, so I—”
“No,” she heaves a breath. “It’s perfect.”
She pushes his head down in a silent order.
“Yes, ma’am.” He slinks beneath the covers and plants a kiss on her ankle.
Up her calf. Along her soft thigh, guiding her open again.
When his lips graze her inner thigh, she gasps.
Her fingers nestle in his hair as he finds her center.
Languorous strokes—kissing, sucking until she is swollen—turning her body into lava.
“Yes,” she murmurs, heels sliding on the sheets.
James can’t help but grin at her pleasure. He focuses in, tongue flickering like fire, transporting him to another realm, a magical pocket where no barriers stand between them. No secrets, no lies, no clothes.
He pauses, his lips wet, and massages her with the pad of his fingers while he speaks.
“I love you,” he says.
She whimpers. “I love you.”
He brings his mouth back to her, and Nelle says his name in quick breaths while her restless hands squeeze his hair, squeeze the sheets.
“James, James, James.” A wave shatters over her.
After a few sweaty, dazed moments, Nelle releases the iron vise of her thighs from his head and throws the sheets back. They lie in silence, sweat-slick bodies pressed together in the yellow daylight. Taking comfort in a realm of relaxation. Their own little cocoon.
Finally, when James’s heartbeat has quieted to a dull thump in his temple, Nelle says, “Let me look at you. Let me remember this.”
He sits back against the pillows while she takes him in. A smile works on his lips.
Nelle is most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Eyes that carry firefly light, spirit of a horse on the run. Dirty-blond strands fall over her collarbones. The lines of her body deserve a spot in the Louvre.
A lifetime of memories pass through James’s head: Charleston’s cobblestone streets, white bedsheets in DC, dancing on a rooftop in the rain, kissing on the Eiffel Tower, confessing their love on a beach in France, tracking down the cottage in Scotland.
Making love for the first time. Nelle learning how to run. James learning how to fly.
“I am eternally grateful for you,” he says. “You’ve given me so much.”
Nelle runs her cool fingers through his hair. “You’ve given me more.”
James and Nelle only leave his bed for water, coffee, and a bag of grapes. Morning shadows shrink across tousled bedsheets, and he follows the path back between her thighs twice by dinnertime. Long after sunset, in the quieter hours of night, the apartment door squeaks open.
They break apart from their whispers and touches. He is immediately taken back to their last night of lovemaking. The creak in the hall that led to Quill and a gun and Nelle bleeding out all over him.