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“I already know,” he whispered, taking my hand. “I know, Avery, so just tell me.”
It came out of me in fits and starts. “To—to meet someone. Marry them. Build a life. Figure it all out together—the bills and the stress and the dinners. Holidays and birthdays. Good days, bad days, just…in between days where you just are. Maybe kids, I don’t know.”
“You’d be a wonderful mom,” he said softly. “He’ll be so lucky.”
“Can we not talk about this?” I managed. “Please?”
“It can’t be avoided, love,” he said sadly. “It’s what will be. No matter what happens here. I wanted to hear you say it. I needed to hear you say it. I want to know that there is joy for you when you return home.”
I brushed away a tear. “Can I just focus on the joy I have right here for the time being?”
For however long I had it.
“Of course.” He stood and pulled me to my feet. “Come.”
He led me to the sitting room and pulled me down beside him on the couch. I draped the blanket over him and snuggled into his side. He cracked the book we were reading and handed me a chocolate. I popped it into my mouth while he started reading. I closed my eyes, listening to the faint sounds of his heart.
He read for a while. Through a scene that made sweat break out along the back of my neck, a declaration of love that made my heart keen in my chest, and then, eventually, a wedding that brought mist to my eyes. The rake had been reformed, changed by love.
If only it were that simple.
Wolfe closed the book and set it down.
“One more thing,” he said, drawing me to my feet once more. He moved to the corner toward the record player. “I had to dig this out. They buried it in the attic, can you believe it?”
He dropped a record and put the needle in place. Soft, slow music filtered through the room and he held out his hand for mine. I went willingly, folding myself into him.
“I wanted to dance with you that night,” he said against my ear. “I wanted everyone to see me looking at you. I wanted them to know that you were mine. That I was the only one who got to hold you like this.” His arm curled tight around my waist, bringing me flush against him. He rested our linked hands right over his heart. His nose brushed up the side of my neck. “That I loved you—completely, desperately. That there wouldn’t be anyone else for me.”
“Royan—”
He brushed his nose with mine, a silent invitation to lift my head. His lips touched mine. It was a drugging kiss, one full of longing and promise.
“There is no one else. Before or after, Avery Eden. There is only you.”
Chapter 32
Wolfe
Wolfe backed Avery toward the stairs, hands tangled in her dress.
Her mouth was insistent, hungry, under his.
“You know this scene, don’t you?” he murmured, skipping his mouth down her jaw. She stumbled up the next step, clutching his shirt until he thought it would tear. He nudged a leg between hers, knee sliding right against the apex of her thighs. “You wrote it, after all.”
She gasped, rocking against him as he devoured her throat.
He was ready to tear out of his skin when he slid the strap of her dress down. This is how he had wanted to do it last time—with shaking hands and a heart beating so furiously he thought it would stop.
When she was trembling and panting against him, he sent them moving again. Up the rest of the stairs, down the hallway where he stopped long enough to press her to the wall, hand gliding up her bare thigh. Then to the bed, where Wolfe let himself fall into the unknown.
He took his time. Despite the way she clawed at him, he moved slowly. He memorized every divot, every freckle, every small scar and scrape. He set the pace, knocking her greedy hands away from the button on his jeans. He nudged up her dress instead, settling between her thighs.
There was poetry in this, he thought. Her sighs, his groans, the clutch and squeeze of her fingers, the way his blood pounded in his ears. A dance or a waltz of sorts, each yielding to each other, collapsing and starting anew under the weight of each other’s touches.
When she cried his name, he moved.
He drank it down, lips moving against hers.
