Chapter Twenty-Four
Zoey
I can’t wipe the smile off my face, even though I feel like I’ve been to hell and back.
And I hate to even dare admit it to myself, but it’s because of Magnus. He’s in the store, and he looks like he belongs.
It’s a fallacy, I know that, but it’s hard to tell your heart something like that when it wants what it wants.
Not that I’m in love with him or anything.
But I could.
I could fall. So very easily for him.
With a breath, I push open the door and walk in and his smile with the flash of dimples is enough to ignite my smile all over again and make my knees want to turn into unset Jell-O.
“Everything go okay?”
I nod. “Here?”
For a moment, he has a darkness that comes to his eyes, but it disappears, almost like it was never there. And perhaps it wasn’t. “Apart from every single person in the world seemed to come in to sing your praises and some of them left you cards, I think, judging by your suddenly swollen little pile of mail.”
And that dark expression is suddenly explained.
People who have to move out came by. No doubt Magnus is angry, which I get. I am, too. Add that to his pride and his unwillingness to discuss the need for money for his gran and the things I know he doesn’t, well… “Sinclair is an ass.”
“You might find you like him. If you met him.”
“I wouldn’t. People like that…well, you know about Bronn, and Edward Sinclair’s a million times worse.”
“Zoey—”
“Magnus, wait a moment.” I pick up my mail and somehow resist touching him, resist tracing the lines of his veins on the back of his hand that rests on the counter. Then my gaze falls on the plate with the crumbs. “Did…did you have a cookie?”
He groans. “Four. I had four. I didn’t bring a protein bar today for lunch and I got hungry and I think they’re the second best things I’ve had in my mouth.”
“What’s the first?”
His gaze locks with mine and my temperature skyrockets. “You.”
All the air in the room isn’t enough. I can’t breathe. I fan myself with the mail.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. But it is true.”
“Magnus, you—” I shake my head and drag in an uneven breath. “You’re dangerous.”
“I’m not.”
“To women everywhere. To me.”
He raises a brow and comes around from behind the counter. He looks down at me, and slides a finger beneath my chin, lifting it. “Is that bad?”
“Yes. No.” I can’t help it. I trace my fingers along his chest, the heat of him a sweetness against my flesh, a little buzz racing through me from the touch. “You just make it hard to think.”
“You said you wanted to talk?”
“Yeah.” I want to move away. I’m lying. I want to move closer and draw him down to me and kiss him. “Friday or Saturday I’m going to go to the Catskills. There’s an estate sale and some great little stores I want to peruse for books.”
“You want me to helm the store?”
“No.” The words out before I can think. “Did you want to come with me?”
Magnus said yes.
The thought plays over in my mind. All through the rest of the day. All through my walk over to his gran’s.
When she lets me in, the tiredness in her face tells me I’m making the right decision.
“Zoey, dear, Magnus isn’t here.”
“I know.” I take a breath. “I came to see you.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, I have a proposition.”
I make her sit and I get us both a cup of tea. As I set mine down on the coffee table, I lean forward.
“Zoey, don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’m not.” I might be, but sometimes stupid is the right thing to do and this feels right. I reach into my bag and pull out the plain white envelope. “I know Magnus is trying to help you and to pay for the surgery. And he won’t accept anything from me. But I also know you don’t want to leave here. After the surgery, you aren’t going to want to be somewhere else, and we’re fighting against a common enemy.”
“What did you do?” Her hands clutch the tea cup tight.
I smile. “I just did what anyone would do. I went to the bank—”
“No.”
“Yes. I went and I have in there a check for you to make out to your landlord. I left that part blank as I don’t know what holdings it’s under with Sinclair. But if this helps, then I’m happy.”
“You tear that up right now. I can’t take it. I won’t.”
“I’m going to be fine.” Things are going to be close to the wire and now the patchwork is all done with the pipes and the plumber said we could hold off a number of months and also work out a plan, then I won’t lose anything, I can keep everything mine. And this dear old lady won’t have her life in upheaval more than it’s going to be.
Magnus would say no.
“He can’t know about this.”
“I can’t take it.”
I get up. “Tell you what, you think about it and if you truly can’t use it, you let me know. And tear up that check. I’m going to be fine.”
She’s crying and I go over to her and give her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Zoey, I can’t…”
“You can. You deserve it.”
And with that, I leave.
Out on the street, I realize that I’m not far from where Magnus lives. It’s only a few blocks. I’ve never been there, never thought of visiting. I happened to remember it from when he wrote it down along with his number just after he started working for me.
Overhead there’s a low rumble of thunder, but the rain that’s been threatening to fall all day hasn’t yet, so I decide to head over to say hi.
I really don’t have an excuse at all. He might not even be there.
But when I press the buzzer, he lets me in.
I climb the two flights of stairs and Magnus is waiting when I get there.
“I don’t know why I came here,” I say.
And then I kiss him.
His arms come around me as he kisses me back and the need and passion build between us.
We don’t say anything as he pulls off my clothes, as I remove his. We just keep kissing and touching each other and he leads me across the small studio to the large bed and he takes me down with him.
This is different. This is soft and sweet and a slow, low burn. It’s need that’s tangled with emotion.
And, as he parts my thighs and pushes into me, he takes me in measured, almost reverent strokes, like he’s savoring every single thrust.
I come up to meet him and I’m swept along on this journey, down into the heated waters that stoke fires and waves and warm me inside out. I could live in this forever, this thing where we’re locked together. Him in me, him part of me. Me part of him.
We make love.
An exploration of each other that gets deeper, sweeter, darker, more tangled with every stroke. I don’t know where he ends and I begin and I don’t want to. All I know is this. All I know is him.
Pleasure builds inside, different from the other times. This is both new and familiar, something that strikes a note I need inside.
I come, shattering in a shower of kisses as Magnus comes too.
And after, we lay there, tangled together.
I slowly drift off in a haze of satisfaction, of being cocooned and held and touched with gentle, loving hands and lips.
And that word, loving, hits me.
I think I might be in love with Magnus Simpson.