The One Love Collection

by Lauren Blakely

  “So,” I begin. “A wig party.”

  “Should be fun.”

  “Need help shopping for one?” I ask, because I’m really hoping she’ll invite me.

  “I’ll probably go shopping with the girls. But thanks for the offer.”

  I’m not going down without a fight. And I’m not going to dance around what I want. Her.

  Even if I screwed her over years ago, I have a new chance. Back then I was so singularly focused on my own selfish goals that it didn’t occur to me I could seriously derail hers with my all-or-nothing approach to that illuminating last debate.

  Although she had a change of heart, I played a part in it.

  But that’s the past. I can’t change it. I can, however, let her know that I’m a different man in the present.

  This lovely, sassy, strong, sexy woman. I’ve got to make her mine again.

  Time to let her know it is on.

  14

  Delaney

  “Delaney,” he says my name without any trace of nerves. “I would love to take you to the party. Would that work for you?”

  No can I. No I wanna go. He just lays it out. A small voice in my head, a long-held part of me that fights to protect my heart, wants to say no.

  But another part of me is surprised he wants to go so badly. Another part is intrigued. Tyler wasn’t the type of guy who’d go to a wig party back in the day. Yes, he went all out to get me to go on a first date. But even though he wanted me, we didn’t do every single thing together. Case in point—he was never into Halloween. When the rest of us dressed up and trick-or-treated in the dorms—for candy and small bottles of liquor because . . . college, obviously—he declined. Not his thing, he’d said. “May I never own a costume,” he told me, holding up his hand like he was taking an oath on a Bible. I didn’t really get the aversion, but I figured some guys don’t like pretending to be someone else. I could live with that. I was never going to insist he slip on a Superman suit for my entertainment.

  Though, he did enjoy stripping me out of my black cat costume that year.

  Yes, of course I went as a cat. Cats are sexy.

  That’s why I’m surprised he’s inviting himself.

  A hint of a smile tugs at my lips. “You’d want to go?”

  “I would absolutely love to go.”

  My eyes narrow as we crunch along a grassy section of the path. “Do you have a wig?”

  He shakes his head.

  “But you’d wear one? You’d really wear a wig?” I ask, skeptical. Because this Tyler doesn’t quite align with the man I knew. I haven’t seen this side of him. This willingness.

  It is, admittedly, alluring.

  “Of course I’d wear a wig. It’s a goddamn wig party,” he says, his voice booming like he’s making a speech. “I will wear a wig, and I will wear it with pride.”

  Color me impressed. I tilt my head and stare at him, as I concoct a plan. “Any kind of wig?”

  He shakes his finger at me as we round a bend in the path. “I know what you’re doing, and I won’t back down. Yes, I will wear a wig, and yes, you can pick it out. You know why I say that?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because if wearing a long black wig, or a combover pink wig, or a kinky, curly Richard Simmons wig means I get to spend more time with you, I will do it.” He taps his chest with both hands. “Let me introduce you to me. I’m the guy who wants you back. Badly.”

  My heart races, and I don’t think it’s from exercise. He’s always been a daring man. He’s always gone after what he wanted. But I’ve never seen him bend like this to get it. Fine, we’re only talking about a wig. But it’s also a step. A sign. An olive branch. “I’m tempted.”

  “Good. I can work with tempted. I like you tempted.”

  He is tempting. So incredibly tempting. “Then I guess I need to shop for two wigs.”

  Happiness dances across his chestnut brown eyes, and the look stirs butterflies in my chest. I should probably question my own decision to agree to another date. Clearly, I’m not ready to just crack open my heart again and share all my thoughts and feelings—I couldn't find it in me to tell him about the call with my dad that set in motion the change in career.

  But at least I said enough about my choice.

  I’m not ready to dig up all my emotions yet for a man who broke me.

  Truthfully, I should probably put on my anti-heartbreak armor. Nicole would surely tell me to run the other way.

  Wait. That’s not true. She’d say I should march right up to him and say “see you later, I’m outta here,” then strut off into the sunset, having protected my heart, but also had the last word.

  But that’s not what I want to do.

  What I want is something else entirely.

  More of these butterflies.

  We run in silence the rest of the way, and I let my mind go blank. I stop telling myself to keep Tyler at arm’s length. I don’t entirely want an arm’s length between us.

  I want less length between us.

  That’s why after our run, when my muscles are the good kind of sore, and he offers to walk me home, I say yes.

  And that’s why I do the next thing, too. When we near my apartment, and he looks at me with the most vulnerable expression on his handsome face, and the most genuine look in his beautiful eyes, and says, “I want a second chance with you,” I invite him in.

  I want him.

  It’s just that simple.

  There are no two ways about it.

  I know what will happen, though, if I take him upstairs to my apartment on the fifth floor. The door will creak shut, since it’s one of those doors that cries out for WD-40 as it closes molasses-slow, and before it clicks shut, my clothes will be in a puddle.

  I’ll grab his neck, rope my hands in his hair, and beg him.

  I will absolutely beg him.

  But we’re not at that point yet, so I tug him into the mail alcove at the end of the first-floor hallway.

  My building consists of five floors and twenty apartments. We’re a quiet bunch in this building on the Upper West Side. It’s early on a Saturday, and even on weekday evenings, I rarely run into other residents, not even in the mail alcove. Since this isn’t a doorman building, we’re all alone.

  “Remember what you said about the time in the library?”

  He nods. He knows what I want.

  “And the English lecture hall,” I add.

  Another nod. He steps closer, like he’s stalking me. I back up to the mailboxes. His eyes darken with desire. I feel it, too. It swoops down my chest, flies through my belly, settles between my legs like a pulse beating.

  “We were good together,” I whisper, a new boldness taking over. Because I want to touch him. I want to know if all those things I’ve imagined at night are still true. If he can take me away. Lord knows, we could barely keep our hands to ourselves in the park. We were like kittens, paws all over each other, swatting, playing, nipping.

  But it’s not just physical.

  I like this man.

  The parts of him that I loved before and still see in him, I still like. But more than that, I like the man I’m getting to know today. How he laughs, how he needles me, how we tease and scratch and bite in the way we talk. I like, too, that he’s a fighter. That he can’t seem to back down from me.

  Now I want to know if contact with him is still as good.

  The metal on the bottom row of mailboxes digs into my spine. Tyler plants his hands on either side of my head. Those tingles? They fly now, like a roller-coaster car soaring downhill. I tug on the neck of his T-shirt, slightly sweaty from the run.

  “So good together,” he rasps, echoing my words.

  I twist more on the fabric. “Kiss me good-bye.”

  He leans in, closing his eyes. But I stop him with a hand on his chest before he hits my lips.

  He frowns in confusion.

  “Remember the time in the laundry room?”

  He growls, and it
’s the sexiest sound, deep, masculine, and rough. “I remember everything,” he says, then he sets his hands on my shoulders and spins me around.

  One time when we were doing laundry late at night, he pushed me up against the two-stack of dryers and did unspeakably erotic things to my neck.

  Kisses that made my knees weak.

  That soaked my panties.

  That made me so primed to come.

  He grabs my wrists, slides my hands up the metal rows, and pushes them flat to the mailboxes.

  I shiver.

  Releasing his hold on me, he says, “Don’t move your hands.” He drags his thumb over my wrist. Then up my arm to my shoulder. He cups my jaw, brushing his thumb along my face.

  I nearly melt.

  I always liked it best when he took over.

  Sure, our kiss last night was outrageously passionate, and I started it. But I like to give him the keys. Tyler is a pursuer. He likes to chase, he likes to catch, and I like to be caught.

  That’s what he does now, pinning me with his body. His chest is sealed to my back, and with one hand he gathers my ponytail and moves it off my neck. With his other hand holding my jaw, he gently, but firmly, stretches my neck to the side, exposing the flesh for him.

  He dusts a kiss on my collarbone.

  My stomach flips.

  Then another. His lips travel across my neck, along my hairline, down to the top of my spine. He kisses me everywhere, imprinting his lips all over my shoulders, my collarbone, the back of my neck.

  I moan, and he presses his cock harder against me. That only makes me moan louder.

  “You missed this?” he asks, his voice smoky and ridiculously sexy.

  “So much,” I admit, and it’s the whole damn truth.

  “I bet no one else has kissed you like this.”

  “You’d be right.”

  “And did you miss this?” he asks, then sucks on my neck, hard. “Or this?” He nips me with his teeth.

  “I did,” I say, my breath coming fast.

  “But maybe you missed it more like this . . .” He bites down harder, and I shudder.

  The fireworks show begins. He kisses harder, his lips crushing against my skin, his bruising kisses turning my world hazy.

  He kisses the shell of my ear, and the fireworks explode. When he bites down on my earlobe, I am nothing but tingles. Everywhere. Just everywhere.

  A door creaks somewhere. Maybe above us. He freezes, and I want to care that someone is around, but I want him more. “Don’t stop.”

  “Never,” he tells me, as the door closes and silence once more surrounds us. There’s just the squeak of pipes and the far-off pads of footsteps on floors above.

  I just don’t care who’s coming or going, because if anyone decides to get mail at this early hour on a Saturday, they’ll surely turn the other way when they see us—his mouth all over my neck, his hands traveling down my sides, me pushing against him, seeking as much closeness as I can get.

  His hand slinks to my belly, splays over my shirt. He yanks it up and presses his palm against me, flesh to flesh, and it feels so damn good.

  “The things I want to do to you,” he murmurs in my ear as he plays with the waistband of my running shorts . . . “Strip off your clothes.” Tugs at the material . . . “Bring you to the bed.” Dips a finger inside my shorts . . . “Spread those gorgeous legs wide open for me.”

  I groan. I am nothing but flames and sparks and heat.

  “Would you like that?” he growls, low and dirty in my ear.

  I answer with a nod, as wetness gathers between my legs. I’m dying for him to touch me, I’m praying for him to taste me, I’m wishing for him to fuck me.

  Even though the rational part of my brain knows I’ll only allow one of those three right now, I want them all. I want all of him.

  “I’d put you on your belly, and kiss you everywhere. I’d drive you wild,” he says, then slides his fingers lower into my shorts, tangoing with my panties.

  I want to fuck him. I want him to fuck me. I want him to slide his fingers inside me and know what he does to me. I rock against him, seeking more with my body. “Please,” I murmur.

  He shoves his hand inside my panties all the way. “Jesus Christ,” he groans as he touches me.

  I can’t speak. I can’t say anything. My mouth falls open, and my entire body crackles.

  “Look at my sexy angel. So fucking wet for me.” He slides his fingers through my wetness, and groans with each glide and stroke. “My sexy angel still gets turned on by me. Is that right?”

  I pant out a yes.

  Another stroke, and I shudder. A whole body shudder.

  “You’ve never been this wet,” he rasps out. “I’m thinking you might still want me.”

  I moan my agreement.

  “And I bet you still think about me.”

  All the time, I want to say, but he knows from my body that I do.

  “Do I fuck you when you’re alone? Do I put you on your knees and take you?”

  I nod as his fingers part me, and my whole body vibrates. Dear God, this man gets to me.

  His chin brushes my ear. His breath is hot against my skin. “What else do I do to you when you’re all alone?”

  “Everything.”

  “Your favorite thing?” Tyler’s mouth scrapes against my shoulder, the bristles of his chin rough and hard.

  I shake. White-hot tension grips me, tight in my belly, and it courses through me, flooding me as he sends me closer to the edge with his words, and his hands, and the reminders of how he owns my body.

  “Yes,” I whisper, and I’ve never known the word desperate so completely till this moment. I am desperate everywhere.

  He rubs his chin over my shoulder, like he’s stirring up my memory. “My face buried between those pretty legs of yours.”

  Groans and curses fall uncontrollably from my mouth. Because . . . that. I want that so much.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing in the world compares to the way he went down on me. I can’t even describe it, but the first time he did it he promised I’d love it, and I didn’t just love it, I’d have died for it. He kissed me down there like I was heaven, and he made me feel I’d gone there, too, but even better. I was in heaven, but I was still alive.

  “And do I make love to you, too?” he asks.

  My voice breaks as I give a yes while he strokes me, his fingers moving faster, sliding between my legs, then over my clit, then back again. A noise comes from my lips. It sounds like a cry.

  My God, it’s so good I swear I might cry.

  “God,” I breathe out. “Kiss me and fuck me with your fingers.”

  His only response is a growl.

  He doesn’t turn me around. He doesn’t change positions. He simply presses his cock harder, rubs me faster, then turns my face.

  And like this, his front to my back, my face turned to the side, his hand in my shorts, he kisses me hard and fucks me relentlessly with his fingers.

  Tightness builds in my belly in seconds. The tension escalates. It grips me as the need to come radiates in my whole body. I grind against his hand, dipping down, riding his fingers as he kisses me like a madman.

  I groan into his mouth, then it turns into the start of a scream.

  “Oh God,” I say, breaking the kiss. “I’m going to—”

  “Quiet,” he instructs, then he slams his mouth to mine again. He steals my kiss, his greedy mouth swallowing the sound of my orgasm. A climax detonates in my body and rattles through me, spreading to every corner.

  I shake everywhere. My knees, my chest, my hips.

  My feet barely touch the ground as I come on his hand. Kissing and coming, coming and kissing.

  And it’s mind blowing.

  When I start to float down, he pulls out his fingers, brings them to his mouth, and sucks me off.

  I’m dizzy and drugged and so turned on.

  He gently spins me around, and shoots me a cocky, lopsided grin. “Have I mentioned how good
it is to see you again, angel?”

  I sigh happily. “It is good to see you, Tyler.”

  He presses his forehead to mine, and that small gesture melts me for him. Butterflies rule my body as he gently kisses my face. “And it’s equally good to make you come again. Don’t forget there’s a whole lot more of that in store for you.” He takes a few steps back and says, “Let me know where to pick you up for the party.”

  He turns on his heel and leaves.

  My legs are jelly as I walk upstairs to get ready for work.

  But I wouldn’t change a thing.

  Except my panties. I change those.

  15

  Delaney

  Later that day, I set a hand on my belly, to quiet the burst of nerves. Little morsels of guilt slip and slide over my skin.

  But it’s just an email. It’s not even the email from the private detective. But even so—why do I feel like I’ve done something wrong?

  I squeeze my eyes shut, as I grip the bureau in my bedroom, white-knuckling the wood.

  Shake it off.

  I open my eyes, flop down on my bed, and grab my phone. I re-read Trevor’s note that he sent while I was working today.

  Hey Delaney,

  Hope this doesn’t sound weird, but I saw a six-pack of plastic rings on the ground and thought of you. And, truth be told, the straw I found on my sidewalk the other day reminded me of you, too. Come to think of it, so did the crumpled-up newspaper skittering around outside my office building.

  But, I’ll have you know, I cleaned them up and disposed of them properly.

  In any case, I had a great time with you the other night, and I swear I’m not just saying that because we share a pet peeve. I’ll be taking off tomorrow for my trip, and I’ll do my best to make sure the contestants don’t shed a tear from my critiques. By the way, do you have a favorite cuisine? Let me know, and I can book a reservation for dinner when I return.

  Hope you have a great Girls’ Night Out tonight. No doubt it’ll be a blast.