“You’re right.” I let out a slow breath. “What you did was the right thing to do. There wasn’t any other decision to make. I’m not even really sure why I thought there was.”
“You didn’t really,” he said. “If you did, you wouldn’t be feeling the way you are now. It was a momentary lapse in judgment on both our parts. But more importantly, neither of us acted on it. You didn’t ask me to do anything or to not do anything, and I did what I had to do.”
“So what you’re saying is we’re allowed to have fleeting thoughts about murder?”
“Don’t most people?” He smiled but his expression turned serious again almost immediately. “We were just placed in a position most people who wish someone would just die don’t usually get placed in. His accident was that serious, and that’s on him.”
“Yeah, but I still feel horrible about it.”
Chris pressed his lips to my forehead and breathed in deeply. “I know. So do I. But I also feel horrible about what Adi’s going to have to go through because I worked so hard to pull him through.”
“We’ll get through it together,” I said, and for the first time, I really, truly believed it all the way down to my bones. “We have the truth on our side.”
“Craig will have a shiny new drunk driving charge,” he said. “So there’s that too.”
I pulled my head back, but I wasn’t really surprised. “He was drunk? I thought I smelled alcohol, but then I figured it had to be something in the hospital.”
“Nope, it was him. He should’ve known better than to get on a motorcycle intoxicated. They’re not called ‘donor’ cycles for nothing, and when people drive under the influence, it’s even more dangerous.”
“Yeah, but a lot of people don’t see it that way. I really didn’t think Craig would go that far though. Drunk on a motorcycle without a helmet? It’s a miracle he made it to the hospital in time for you to even have to make a decision.”
“Let’s hope it was a miracle that will make him change his ways.” He hugged me tightly before pressing a chaste kiss to my lips. “But he’s going to do what he’s going to do. In the meantime, how do you feel about going to get some lunch?”
“I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.” I smiled, slipped my hand into his, and thanked my lucky stars that Cyrus had been right too. Chris really did know me well, and somehow, despite my mouth lacking a filter and everything else, he still wanted me as much as I wanted him.
Chapter 37
CHRIS
April and I walked out of the practice hand in hand. I couldn’t believe how good it felt to have her by my side again, even if it had only been less than twenty-four hours since she’d last been there.
The possibility that I wouldn’t have her there again had made it feel like it had been weeks. With her fingers entwined with mine and everything between us out in the open, I had a renewed sense that we would last.
Now, all I had to do was convince her, especially since I still hadn’t told her about the revelation I’d had earlier.
It hadn’t felt like the right time, but now every time I opened my mouth, it was like the only words that wanted to come out were those.
April turned to look at me and walked sideways, her hand still in mine. “What do you feel like having for lunch?”
“Street tacos,” I replied without having to think about it. “I should probably warn you that I eat a lot of those. They’re my comfort food, my celebratory food, and my go-to for anything in between.”
“Yeah? Why’s that? I love a good taco, but I can’t say that I eat them for any special occasion.”
“My father had a taco stand.” I smiled at the memories of seeing him standing in his truck, grinning at customers who were all like friends to him, and chatting up a storm to them all. “They were the best tacos in New York. People came from all over to have them.”
The expression in her eyes softened. “That sounds amazing. I wish I could’ve tried one. You never thought about taking over the truck from him?”
“I did. That was the plan.” I tightened my grip on her hand and dodged a jogger scrolling on his phone who almost ran into me. “But then he got sick. Everything changed for me after that.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“You know most of it. How close we were, what a shock it was, and now you know how it catapulted me into an entirely different career.”
“Do you regret it?” She wound a lock of hair absently around the fingers of her free hand. “Do you think you might have been happier if you’d taken over his truck instead?”
“No. I love my job.” I pulled her to a stop as we neared the stand, then wrapped my arms around her again. “Plus, I might not have met you if I’d been slinging tacos instead of working at the hospital.”
Her cheeks flushed, but she flashed me a wide smile. “Your lines are so cheesy sometimes, but I like them.”
“Except for the fact that it wasn’t a line.” Lowering my head, I claimed her lips for a kiss that wasn’t really appropriate for public viewing, but I also didn’t really care. When we finally broke apart, I added, “That’s how I really feel. Loving what I do for a living would have been enough for me, but since it also let me meet you, I really wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
She turned a deeper shade of red but threw her arms around me for a kiss that was even less appropriate for being out in public. By the time she pulled back, I’d just about decided to let go of the idea of eating anything other than her for lunch.
But then she grabbed my hand and dragged me the rest of the distance to the stand. Once we’d ordered and gotten our food, we each took one taco but wrapped the rest in the paper bag.
“You want to go eat back at the practice or find somewhere else?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Back at the practice? I’ll show you all the progress we’ve made since the last time you were there.”
“Really? It’s only been a couple of weeks. Are you suddenly in a hurry to open up?” She munched on her taco between sentences. “I thought you weren’t opening for months.”
“We’re not, but we’ve decided to make it our priority.” We stopped to wait for the pedestrian light before crossing the road. “Both of us think it’s better to get away from the hospital sooner rather than later.”
The light changed, but April didn’t start moving when I did. She stood with her feet planted and looked up at me with confusion darkening her eyes.
“Does that mean Adi and I are out?” she asked. “Because earlier, you said differently. Now suddenly, the practice is your priority and you can’t wait to leave the place where we both work?”
“I want you to come join us there, remember?” I frowned as I walked the few paces back to her again. “I offered you the job as our receptionist and I meant it. If you don’t want to, I’ll respect your decision. But that doesn’t mean anything for the two of us.”
“You still want me to join you?” She smiled. “Even after everything? Because I kind of thought you hadn’t asked about it again because you changed your mind.”
I released a long breath, narrowing my eyes at her while not completely able to hide a smile of my own. “You thought I was having second thoughts just because I didn’t want to put pressure on you to accept a job you told me you’d think about?”
“I guess I’m going to have to work on the whole ‘trusting you’ thing.” She put air quotes around the words. “Have I mentioned that I have a boatload of baggage?”
“You have, but that’s still not scaring me off.” I popped the last of the taco into my mouth and wound one arm around her while I chewed.
She wiped some sauce off the side of my lips, then pushed up on her toes to kiss the same spot. Her eyes were bright and happy when she lifted them to mine again. “Well, that’s probably good, considering that I’d love to take you up on your offer.”
“You’re not kidding?” I asked once I’d swallowed, wrapping the other arm around h
er as well.
“I’m not kidding. I’d love to come work with you guys.” A brilliant smile broke out on her lips just before I lifted her up in my arms and spun her around.
Locked in our own world even though we were on the sidewalk with hundreds of others, I came this close to telling her how I felt about her. But then she laughed and wriggled to get out of my grip.
“Let’s go eat. I’m starving.” She slid her hand into mine and swung her arm all the way back to the practice. Her smile never faded and she seemed to have endless questions about what Hunter and I would expect from her in her new position.
“Am I allowed to be sassy when someone deserves it?”
I grinned. “Yes, we wouldn’t even try to keep you from being exactly who you are.”
She chuckled, shrugging while we walked. “Could we have a pizza party after work one day a week?”
“Absolutely. Hunter might insist on doing it more often, but once a week is a start.”
Once we got to the building, she paused on the top step and turned to loop her arms around my neck. “Do I get to kiss you whenever I want to?”
“Yes.”
Since she was on the step, she was at my eye level. The emerald crystals in her eyes shone in the sun, her expression relaxed and happy.
She pulled me closer to her, her finger stroking through my hair. She smiled before pressing her lips lightly against mine. “Good. I plan on doing it often.”
As if to prove her point, she kissed me again and again before giving my lower lip a final nibble. Then she lifted her head. “We should go inside now. I think there have been enough public displays of affection today.”
“Totally your fault,” I teased but took her hand as we walked in.
She stopped just inside the doors, surveying the space with a new kind of interest. Looking at me over her shoulder, she raised a questioning eyebrow. “Is this where my desk would go?”
“Your desk can go wherever you want it, but I can show you the plans we’ve had drawn up for the floor layout. We’ll take any suggestion you have, except that Hunter’s insisting on a ‘Gone Fishing’ sign for the door.”
She laughed and inclined her head. “Duly noted. Let’s go eat upstairs and we can look over the plans while we eat. I’d love to help wherever I can.”
“You’ll help just by being here.” I swept an arm out in the direction of the stairs and motioned for her to precede me. “People will line up around the block just to see that face welcoming them.”
“You and your lines.” She laughed again, and the sound seemed freer than it had before. I was starting to realize that the more I heard her laugh, the more I noticed the nuances there were to it.
I supposed everyone had different laughs, but she was the first person I’d ever really bothered to notice. Then again, there wasn’t much I didn’t notice about her.
I wanted to hear that laugh for the rest of my life, and even then, it would never be enough. So man up and tell her that.
April fished the tacos out of the bag when we sat down in the office, but all I could think about was how to tell her what I needed to.
After a minute when I still hadn’t sat down, she frowned at me. “Are you okay? You have a really weird expression on your face right now.”
“I’m fine.” I closed the distance between us and sank down to my knees in front of her, capturing her face between my hands as I decided to just go for it. “I was just wondering how to go about telling you that I love you.”
Those startling green eyes flew wide open as they studied mine. While I hadn’t been expecting her to say it back to me, I definitely didn’t expect the taco she suddenly shoved into my mouth.
I was so surprised that I laughed while I chewed and swallowed, but then she took me by surprise again when she slid off the couch to join me on her knees on the floor after setting the rest of the taco aside. “Are you still hungry?”
“What?” I frowned, utterly confused. “No. Why?”
“Good. Neither am I.” She shuffled as close to me as she could get, flung her arms around my neck, and brought her lips to mine in a kiss that told me she felt the same way.
Chapter 38
APRIL
He loves me? That couldn’t be right, could it? I’d known for a while that I was falling for him, but I really hadn’t expected that he felt the same way.
He did, though. I could question it, or I could accept the truth that had been in his eyes and his voice when he said it.
He loves me. My heart soared in my chest as I thought about the incredible man I was kissing. I should’ve said it back, but I was too overwhelmed to do anything except to get as close to him as I possibly could.
Part of me still felt like this had to be yet another dream about him, but the rhythmic beating of his heart against my chest and the feel of his firm lips beneath mine convinced me that it wasn’t.
The kiss was sweet and soft at first, like he was welcoming me home after missing me for seventy years apart. Like he was trying to fuse our souls together. Honestly, I thought he was succeeding.
I warmed up from head to toe, inside and out. This kiss was a branding, but it was coming from both sides. It felt like a new beginning and the end of a chapter all at the same time. Whatever happened after this, we wouldn’t emerge as the same people we had been just minutes before.
My legs shook as I pulled away and looked into his eyes. Thankfully, I was already on the floor so I wouldn’t fall, but I also knew that if I did, he’d catch me.
Chris wasn’t a man I would ever have thought of as vulnerable, but as I looked at him now, that was exactly what I saw. I’d been right. Our kiss had been more than a simple touch of lips. It had opened his heart and soul to mine, and mine to his.
A moment of total peace and acceptance passed between us. Neither of us were going to fight this anymore, and neither of us were going to be scared away by anything that happened from here on out.
The realization made my heart skip a beat. I’d never had as much certainty about anything in my life as I had about him right then. I mashed my chest against his in an attempt to get even closer to him. At this point, if I could’ve, I would’ve happily fused our bodies together as a literal representation of what had happened to our souls.
He looked at me in a way that said he felt the same. Cradling my face in one large hand, he placed the other on my lower back and pressed me even tighter against him.
“I love you,” he whispered. Then he smiled against my lips before moving his to brush over my jaw, neck, shoulders, and even my eyelids.
As he held me to him, he slowly brought his mouth back to mine and groaned as our tongues met once more. With our bodies pressed as tightly together as they could get, I felt his hard length against my stomach, and suddenly, our kiss became hot and wet. Tender and loving turned to strong and needy, so intense and all-consuming that there could’ve been an earthquake and we probably wouldn’t have noticed.
My fingers speared into his hair from the nape of his neck, tugging at the silky strands while his hands roamed lower until they were cupping my ass. Not caring that we were on the floor, I pulled him down until he was lying on top of me, then wrapped my legs around his waist.
My skirt might as well not have been there for the way it rode up, but it hadn’t covered all that much to begin with. Chris moaned when he realized I was pretty much naked from the waist down, except for a lacy scrap of panties that were literally the smallest pair I owned.
Rolling his hips against mine, he continued to devour my mouth. Both of us let out soft sounds of pleasure as he ground his hard length against my core. Sparks of pleasure rippled through me on each one of his thrusts, like he knew my body as well as the machine he himself had created.
My hands acted of their own accord when I reached between us to find the buttons on his jeans. I wouldn’t be able to do much from this position, but I wanted to touch him, to feel him, and make him feel as good as he was doing to me.
<
br /> Chris broke our kiss and a soft growl ripped out of him when I dipped my fingers into his waistband, brushing the tip of his cock. It wasn’t a lot of contact, but it was something and pretty much all I could get.
My own need also ramped up about a million times when I realized that the backs of my fingers were wet. I let out a low, almost pained-sounding moan that made him rest his forehead against mine. Both our hearts raced wildly and our breathing was labored.
“I really don’t want to stop what we’re doing, but there’s a futon in the other room,” he said, his voice no more than a rough whisper. “Here’s what going to happen. I’m going to get up and hold my hand out to help you up. You’re going to take it. Then we’re getting to the futon as fast as humanly possible. Lie down exactly as you are now, and then we’ll hit un-pause and carry on from where we are.”
I scrunched my nose in disapproval that he wanted to stop right then, but he had a point. This wasn’t really the kind of moment for doing it on a concrete floor.
My clit throbbed, and my nipples were practically poking holes in my shirt, but I nodded despite my aching body’s protests. “If you insist, but I’ll race you there. In less than thirty seconds, I want you right back where you are.”
“Deal.” The muscles in his arms bulged beside my head when he planted his palms on floor on either side of me, hovering there as he ran his nose down the length of mine. “It’s not like I’m all that eager to stop either.”
He jumped up then, following through with his plan of helping me up even though I’d said we were racing. His eyes smoldered as he looked down at me, but he smirked and smacked my butt once I was on my feet.
“Your thirty seconds start now.” We just about tripped over our own feet to get into the adjacent office, but when I hit the mattress first, I realized he had no intention of following me down.
He sat between my knees instead, his gaze riveted to mine as he spread my legs to fit between them. Still without breaking eye contact, he rolled up the front of my shirt to expose my stomach before lowering his mouth to plant a kiss beneath my belly button.
She’s Mine Now Page 24
