by A. J. Pine
“How’d you know I’d come back to the room?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I didn’t. After your note, though, I guess I bet on you wanting to find me. Good thing I was right or I’d have probably been out there until after the reception.” He laughed quietly. “God, Brooks. I just wanted to give you the perfect proposal—a perfect memory to kind of, I don’t know, replace the painful ones from the last time we were in Europe.”
Her hands reached for his face, and she urged him up on the bed next to her.
“Is that what this is about? You think I regret anything about the year we met?”
That little spot above his nose crinkled, and she wanted to kiss his adorable confusion away.
“Don’t you?” he asked. “It’s because of me we spent so much time apart that year.”
She crossed her arms. This stubborn, wonderful man. When was he going to get it?
“Do you regret that year?”
He shook his head. “I met you.”
“Then why would it be any different for me?” she asked, and he opened his mouth to say something, but she wasn’t done. “Our road may have been a bumpy one, Noah. And maybe it still is from time to time. But it’s our road. Do you get that? I can’t regret anything that was on the path that led me to this moment—to the man I love wanting to spend the rest of his life with me.”
She kissed his forehead. “Nothing, Noah. I regret nothing.”
He let out a long sigh. It killed her to think that for three years he’d been carrying this with him, that he’d ever doubted how she felt about what she considered one of the best years of her life because it was the experience that brought her to him.
He pulled her legs over his, and he pushed up the narrow skirt of her dress so he could bend her knee. She winced when she saw the swollen pinkie toe on her left foot, but the heat of the pain turned to something else entirely when Noah pressed his lips to the top of her foot, then her ankle. Her calf. The bend of her knee.
“I’m sorry for making you think last night was anything other than our version of perfect,” he said, lips still traveling farther up her thigh. “I love you.” More kisses. “God, I love you.”
“I love you, too. So much,” she said, her head falling back onto the pillow. “I’m sorry for leaving.”
He had already made it to the spot where her thigh and hip met, and Noah was getting dangerously close to rendering her speechless as he peppered kisses down the edge of her panties.
“I think,” he started, kicking off his shoes, and then surprising her by sliding his thumb along that same border, lifting the lace away from her skin and allowing his tongue to startle her with a quick flick against her swollen center.
Jordan gasped, and he peeked up from between her legs, his eyes glinting with mischief.
“I think we can find a way to make it up to each other,” he said, and then dipped his head again.
“Wait!” Jordan cried, and his head bobbed up, that adorable crinkle between his brows present once more. “The ring,” she said. “My ring. If this isn’t a proposal, we’re already engaged, right?”
Noah’s face broke into a smile, and he nodded while his other hand produced the small box. He popped it open with the flick of his thumb while his other thumb massaged the slick spot where his tongue had just been.
Jordan squirmed because, shit, she didn’t want him to stop, but first things first.
She held out her left hand, and Noah dropped the box onto her belly, maneuvering the ring out with one hand so his other could stay otherwise occupied. As soon as the ring was back in its rightful place, Jordan fisted both her hands in Noah’s hair, and he gave her one last grin before his face dropped out of view.
He wasted no time freeing Jordan of her underwear, spreading her wide to take his fill.
His tongue swirled around her outside while two fingers slid in, and Jordan bucked against the maddening pleasure, her heated belly coiled tight and ready to explode.
“God, Noah, I’m not going to last if you don’t slow down.” She gasped with every word, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to ease up or bring her the fuck home, and then somewhere in her state she remembered that this gorgeous man between her legs was wearing a skirt, too.
“What’s under the kilt?” she asked, and that stopped Noah in his tracks. He pushed himself up so his eyes met hers, his gaze heated like nothing she’d seen before. Sweat trickled between her breasts, and she was sure this dress was toast, but she was too far gone to care.
Noah unbuttoned his shirt and wriggled out of it so Jordan could feast on his lean, muscular torso—his runner’s body—a sheen of sweat on his collarbone and chest. And then his hands went to work unfastening the kilt, and when it fell to the bed, Jordan had to swallow twice to make sure the saliva didn’t pour from her lips. Because there was Noah, his full, beautiful erection unguarded and unsheathed.
“I figure you’re only pretend-Scottish once, so might as well get into full character.” He waggled his brows, and she almost came just at the sight of him.
She had no words, only gratitude that she was an organized woman, one who prided herself on routine, and in three years she’d never forgotten her pill, which meant she was ready for all the spontaneity she could handle.
She hooked her feet around his waist, and without saying anything at all, told him what she wanted—what she absolutely needed—because she knew he needed it, too.
He fell forward and tugged the zipper down the side of her dress, and Jordan dropped her legs so she could shimmy free of the garment.
“You’re so beautiful.”
“Tell me about it later,” she said, and Noah barked out a laugh.
“Later it is.” He pressed her knees so they fell open, and he rubbed his thumb up and down her wet folds, and Jordan was sure she would die of arousal if he didn’t do something quick.
Then he lowered himself to her, giving her one small nudge with his tip before burying himself completely, and she cried out. He rocked inside her and slid his hands up the length of her arms, pinning them above her head.
His kisses were firm and relentless, and she couldn’t get enough of him.
“How could you ever think we were anything but perfect?” Jordan asked, panting as if she were on her final breaths.
He slid out slowly, teasing her like the lovely, maddening, beautiful man he was.
The corner of his mouth quirked into a crooked grin. “My mistake,” he said, and then rocked her until she called out his name…and promptly forgot her own.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Maggie
Maggie meant to walk into the restaurant. It was as simple as putting one foot in front of the other, yet there she stood, holding her breath as Griffin approached. She’d shared an apartment with him for a year—shared her heart with him since the moment they’d met—yet he could still make her nervous, so much so that she couldn’t decide if those were butterflies in her belly or just full-blown nausea. Not like he hadn’t seen her lose her lunch before, though, right?
And there it was, the elephant in the room. She had survived a brain aneurysm but was forever changed, and she had learned to live with that—to accept this new version of herself. But Griffin had barely known her more than a year. He was still learning.
“Hey,” he said, stepping outside the door and letting it fall closed behind him.
“Hey,” she replied.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?” he asked, and God how she wanted his easy smile instead of the hesitant one he gave her now, as if her answer determined whether or not that smile remained or fell completely.
“Back to the hotel?” she asked and immediately thought better of it. Things happened when she and Griffin were in a room alone together, and right now she wanted no distractions.
He must have read her afterthought, because when he said, “I just want to talk, Maggie,” she let out a nervous laugh.
“I just don’t want to get…distracted,” sh
e told him.
“I’m good at that?” he asked, and there was the smile, the one that melted her heart and sent a different kind of heat to other…parts.
“You know you are, so just shut up. We’re supposed to be talking.” But Maggie couldn’t suppress her amusement.
Griffin took her hand, threading his fingers through hers, and the action was so unexpected, the touch of his skin so missed by her own, that she gasped.
“May I escort you back to our hotel, Ms. Kendall?”
He squeezed her hand, and the only response she could manage was to simply squeeze back.
Though the air was crisp, there was no breeze. Either the cardigan she had on over her dress was enough to keep her warm, or Griffin’s heat pooled from his palm into hers, warming her from the inside out. She was pretty sure it was the latter, which would make letting go that much harder. And she had to let go. For Griffin to reach his full potential, she had to let him go.
But for the short walk down the brick-laid street, she pretended. Maggie dug into her small purse with her free hand, searching for her camera, but to capture the beauty of the old white buildings, the arched doorways, she’d need the hand that Griffin held, too. The longer she hid behind the camera, captured what was going on in other people’s lives, the longer she could avoid what was happening in her own. Wherever this conversation was headed, she wanted to avoid the destination for as long as possible.
“How about this?” he asked, slowing his pace until they were both stopped in front of a café where patrons sat under heaters at the outside tables. Griffin positioned her in front of him, wrapping his arms around her midsection, and Maggie couldn’t help but lean into him. For balance, for warmth, for the sheer pleasure of just being near him, she pretended some more.
She focused on a brown pillar that extended from an ivory archway, pinpointing a spot where the paint had peeled away.
Click.
The photograph slid out from the bottom of the camera like a serpent’s tongue, and Maggie wasn’t sure she could handle the sting the venom would leave. As the image came into focus, she let out a breath. It wasn’t that she needed the camera like she used to, her short-term memory issues getting better each day. But when a moment presented itself, one she wanted to preserve for the long term, it was important to get it right.
The shot was wide, the small spot on the pillar in focus, but the swarm of people around it a colorful blur.
She dropped the camera back into her purse and handed Griffin the photograph before starting to walk again.
“This is really good, Pippi,” he said, and her heart leapt just a little at the sound of his nickname for her. They would get through this talk, and then they could be Pippi and Fancy Pants for the remainder of the trip. Hell, they could pretend for eight more months if she wanted, but they had to lay it all on the table now before they could get through the rest.
“That’s what Washington will be for you—a beautiful, amazing, chaotic blur.”
“Maggie, don’t…” he started, and she spun to face him.
“Don’t what? Be realistic? Come on. This?” She motioned between them. “This isn’t a fantasy. It’s work. That’s why you didn’t tell me about Washington, and that’s why you’re trying to convince yourself that you weren’t seriously considering it in the first place because you know it will be the kind of work that you might not be cut out for—that we might not be cut out for. I get it, Griffin. I get it, and I don’t blame you, and I’m not letting you say no to something you deserve…because of me.”
“Maggie,” he said again, but she wasn’t going to let him argue against his own best interest.
“Look at where we are,” she said, throwing her arms out wide and spinning around, her surroundings a blurred vision of pale concrete. “We are missing this because of us. I can’t ask you to miss out on your future, too.”
Griffin’s jaw ticked, and his eyes darkened.
“Like you missed the wedding?” he asked.
“What?”
“The wedding,” Griffin repeated. “Every second of every minute of every freaking hour we were apart today, I looked for you, but you weren’t there. I know you’re angry, but it isn’t like you to bail.”
Maggie plunged her hand into her purse and thrust a stack of mini Polaroids at him.
“Here’s how much I bailed,” she said, smacking the pile against his chest. She waited for him to look at the photos, for his eyes to widen.
“Maggie—” he started, but she interrupted him by shaking her head.
“I’m going to walk the rest of the way on my own, okay?”
What was happening with them? After everything, how could he think she’d bail on him? She set off alone, making it to the hotel in what felt like the space of a few labored breaths, the rest of the walk a blur.
Once inside the room, she pressed the door shut and whacked her head against it. Shit. That was sure to be the express lane to a headache. Then came the pacing, and after that the mumbling to herself.
“Bailed? I can’t believe he would think I was capable of missing anything this important. No matter what’s going on with us, I would never miss out on such a big part of his life. Bailed.”
She groaned.
“Are you through?”
Maggie jumped and spun toward the door where Griffin leaned against it, arms crossed.
Her mouth fell open, but of course now the words wouldn’t come.
Griffin took a step toward her, and she held her ground. Another step, close enough for her to smell the apple scent of the shampoo they now shared.
“Being apart from you last night was hell,” he said, and although she was standing firm, all Maggie could do was nod. Because yes, it was hell.
There had been nights she’d come home to a sleeping Griffin and woken to an empty bed, him already gone for work while she slept in before a late class. There was that long weekend she went to Florida to visit her gran while Griffin was swamped with a project and had to stay back in Minneapolis. And she had missed him. But the light at the end of the tunnel was that they’d be back together.
But last night? Last night felt like the beginning of the end of…something. And that, Maggie realized, was her hell. The possibility of a life without Griffin.
“This one is my favorite,” he said, handing her back one of the photos. She remembered sneaking out of the pew to get this shot, one where she had to squat to get the right angle to capture Griffin in his jacket and kilt behind the groom as the priest recited the wedding prayers. She’d been so focused on making sure she could see him from head to toe that she’d missed his expression—or the change in it.
“You were smiling when I set up the shot,” she said. “Smiling and watching Duncan and Elaina, but you aren’t even looking at them here.”
Griffin shook his head.
“I was looking for you,” he said.
“I didn’t bail,” she told him.
“I know.” He let out a long breath. “And I’m not bailing on you, either.”
Maggie held the photo against her chest. She’d had such a great argument prepared for this moment, and she was summoning the words to explain why he had to go, but Griffin never gave her a chance.
“What if I came down with the flu, right here and now?” he asked, and just as Maggie thought she was going to turn into a puddle of tears, she laughed.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“What if we get home, and I slip on some black ice and break my leg?”
“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “It’s not the same.”
He cocked a brow. “Answer the question, Pippi. If something happened to me, what would you do?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’d take care of you.”
The corners of his mouth turned up.
“And if I did break my leg because I fell on black ice, how would you feel about my taking a leisurely winter stroll after I was healed?”
She grabbe
d his hand and slapped the photograph into his palm.
“This isn’t fair,” she told him. “All of these what ifs aren’t fair. You know going in, that if I come with you, you’re going to spend energy worrying about me that could be better spent on your new job.”
Again he stepped closer, and she had nowhere left to go but against the wall behind her.
“Maggie, I’m going to worry about you whether you are in D.C. or Minneapolis, whether you are in the bed next to me or in another apartment hundreds of miles away. Don’t you get it? I love you. Above any other person or city or job—you matter most. Maybe I was scared to tell you the truth, and you’re right. I shouldn’t have kept any of it from you, and I’m a shit for doing that.”
His palms were on her cheeks now. He was dangerously close to distracting her, and she had to stay focused.
“I was scared,” Griffin said, and she closed her eyes and nodded. She knew fear all too well, knew that she was letting it take the lead with her as much as Griffin had let it with him. “And I’m still scared now—terrified, actually. But not for the reason you think.”
At this her eyes fluttered open, and Griffin’s gaze held her there, frozen in wait for what came next.
“Maggie, I’m not afraid of what will happen if you come with me to D.C. I’m scared of what will happen if you don’t.”
He kissed her then, and she couldn’t do anything but kiss him back, this infuriating man who said all these things that made it impossible for her to stay mad at him.
“You’re everything, Maggie. Everything. I may not have a ring to give you yet, but you have my heart. You have every part of me. It’s not a choice—Washington or you.” His lips found hers again, and then they were on her jaw, her neck, the lobe of her ear. “There is no Washington without you,” he whispered against her. “I know it’s not your dream and that you still have graduation, and if you decide it’s too much…”
“I’ll go with you!” she blurted, and then her hand flew to her mouth as if the sentence escaped her lips without permission.
“What?” Griffin’s voice cracked on the word, and her heart pretty much turned to goo.
