Old pain ghosted over his face, and I softened, just a little bit. As reasons went, it was a valid one. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
He shut his eyes. “Might not seem like it, but I am ready to move on. Callie’s gone. You’re not, and I’d be a fool to let you get away because I was scared. And if I’d taken a few moments that morning instead of bailing before I put on my coat, I wouldn’t have left. I called you and you wouldn’t pick up. So I came here. You wouldn’t answer the door.”
So that’s who’d been buzzing me.
“I figured you were out. I waited for you to come home. You didn’t. I came back yesterday, same thing. Hannah, I’m sorry. I fucked this up, and I don’t deserve another chance. I’m asking for one anyway.” Pain warred with determination, chasing each other over his face, and my heart couldn’t decide if it wanted to sigh and melt or harden and kick him in the ass.
He’d screwed up. It was possibly the screw up to end all screw ups. He left without explanation. I gave him plenty of chances to slow down, back up, and he’d plowed full steam ahead, sweeping me along with him. I could take responsibility for my own heartbreak. He would have to do the same.
“When Jonah broke off our engagement,” I said slowly, “he was blunt. He never had any intention of marrying me. It hurt, but it was an explanation.” Icy air seared my throat. “When you walked out of my apartment, you left me with a sticky note. Your text made it clear I should move on.” I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat. “If I wouldn’t take Jonah back, a man I loved, a man who when he walked away offered me a reason, why would I give you another chance, when you didn’t give me a reason in the first place?
“You gave me one night. It was beautiful, a fantasy I didn’t even know I had. Please let me keep that,” I whispered.
His face closed off, those dark eyes hardened, and I turned away. Maybe I was making a mistake, but I had to think about what was best for me. And if he’d already hurt me this much, I couldn’t risk letting him close enough to do it again.
The good thing about the cold was I was numb all the way through by the time I reached the store.
*
The first letter arrived the next day.
The address bore my first name, no last name, yet it found its way to my mailbox anyway. The return address was A. Sagalla.
The envelope shook as I tried to open it. Giving up, I walked upstairs, clutching my mail to my chest. I dumped my keys in the bowl by the door, peeled off my coat, scarf, and boots, and curled up on the couch, disturbing the kittens. Lucien crawled over and into my lap, followed by Remy.
It wasn’t a letter so much as a list.
My favorite color is gray.
Favorite movie: Goodfellas
Book: For Whom The Bell Tolls
90's band: Soul Coughing
On February 14th, I met the most incredible woman. On February 15th, I lost her.
God fucking dammit.
I dropped the paper on the floor as the first tear splashed down. Remy mewed and climbed up my arm. Why was I crying again? Pathetic. I let the tears run free for a minute, Remy’s fur absorbing the worst of the storm, before I gently set him aside, scrubbed the damp from my cheeks, and picked the letter up. It belonged in the trash.
I put it in a drawer instead.
For the next three days, I received a letter. Alex told me everything, from the time he’d slept walked into his closet and pissed in his Castle Grayskull, to his nickname in high school.
I have three younger sisters, all of whom are married.
My mother's convinced I'll never give her grandkids. She's right. I love my nephews, but I don't want kids of my own. Shit. Probably shouldn't have said that, right? Couple of buddies struck out in the end when it came down to the question of kids. They didn't want them, the girlfriend did, and they had to split up.
The first stamp in my passport is Manila. We went to visit my dad's parents when I was four. Oh, yeah, I'm half Filipino.
I played soccer in college. Striker.
And every one of them ended with same line.
On February 14th, I met the most incredible woman. On February 15th, I lost her.
I didn’t cry again after the first one. But I kept all of them, all four, in the same drawer, and I didn’t know what I’d do on Sunday when there was no mail delivery. Those letters, those pieces of Alex, were fast melting the ice in my veins.
Snow blew through the city again, burying the streets under a fresh, thick layer of it, snarling traffic and testing patience. I curled up on the couch to work, rather than in my office, because the fireplace was in the living room and since it was snowing again, a fire seemed appropriate.
The fire was down to embers and it was edging toward two in the morning when the lobby buzzer went off. I bobbled my laptop and almost dropped it, my heart thumping hard enough to break through my rib cage. I carefully set the computer on the coffee table. The neighborhood was a safe one. The weather had been keeping people indoors for the most part. There’d been no sirens, no screeches or yelling. Because of the way the apartment was laid out, you could see the lights on in my apartment if you were down in the parking lot—my unit took up the back half of the floor, the other unit the front half.
Whoever was at the door most likely knew me or lived in the building
I got up and went to answer. “Hello?”
“It’s Alex.”
Alex. Alex was ringing my doorbell at two AM. Alex was standing outside my building in the freezing cold and snow.
“Come on up.”
I released the door and unlocked the deadbolt on my apartment door. A few seconds later I heard the thuds of his footsteps on the stairs and opened the door.
He had an envelope in his hand, and he held it out as soon as he was close enough for me to take it. “I didn’t get a chance to stop by the post office, and I didn’t think they’d be running mail routes tomorrow anyway,” he said quietly. The light spilling from my apartment caught his face, and I drew in a breath. He looked exhausted.
I grabbed his coat sleeve. “Come in.”
He shook his head. “Sweetheart, I’d be fucked up company tonight.”
“I don’t care.” I pulled him through the door. “Take off your coat and go sit down.”
He must have been really out of it, because he didn’t argue, just unzipped his coat, pulled his hat off and stuck it in a pocket, then threw the whole business over one of my kitchen stools. I followed him into the living room, curling up on the opposite end of the couch as he slumped down. He still held the envelope in his hand.
He held it out again, and I took it. He was here. In my apartment. He’d been here exactly one week ago, and by this point, he’d already brought me to several mind-bending orgasms. I stared at the envelope. Strange how much changed in a week.
He’d tipped his head back to rest on the couch and his eyes were shut. Stubble coated his jaw. I scooted forward, unable to resist touching him. I cupped his cheek. He leaned into me, and the shoddy barricade I erected around myself collapsed. I wrapped my arms around him, his head resting against my breast. Tension drained from his body and he lifted me up, settling me on his lap.
“Something wrong?” I loved his hair. The soft, silky weight of it on my fingers sent little bolts of pleasure through me.
He groaned. “Where do I start? Lost an amazing woman because I was an ass. Wrote her letters without knowing if she’d even read them or if she’d let me see her.” He was quiet for a moment. “Shift tonight was one of the worst in a while. Twenty car pile-up on the highway. Ten casualties. Three died enroute to the hospital because we couldn’t get through the snow fast enough.”
I stroked his hair. “Were they in your ambulance?”
“One of them was.” He shuddered. “Little girl, about five. Same age as my middle nephew.”
We sat there, wrapped around each other, the air growing colder as the fire died. Alex broke the silence. “I feel guilty. I never
told you that.”
That didn’t sound promising. “Guilty about what?”
“That fucking click. Heard it with Callie. Heard it immediately. With you? Same thing, only it was a hell of a lot louder. He tipped his head up. “There was something about you that fit right away, and I realized if I’d met you before Callie, I never would have fallen for her. Feels fucking awful.”
I glided my fingers down his neck. “But you did meet her first. Don’t tell me you regret that.”
“No.” His answer was fierce and immediate. “I don’t. Feel guilty just the same, though.” He took my hand from the back of his neck and kissed my knuckles. “I keep saying it, but I’m sorry. I messed up, and I messed you up.” I shivered a little from the cold, and he tried to move me to the side. “I’ll get out of here. You probably want to go to bed.”
I grasped his wrists. “Don’t.” I dropped my gaze and took a breath. Let it out. Drew in another. “You want a second chance.”
He stilled beneath me.
Fear uncoiled in my belly. “What’s your obsession with my hair?”
He blinked, then smiled, his lips spreading slowly. He freed a hand and lifted it to my hair, tucking it behind my ear. “Saffron. Had a huge crush on Saffron. I saw you, and it was like I had a chance with my dream girl.”
My heart plopped right at his feet.
“We do this, we go slow. We do it the way we should have in the first place. We start with a date, a real one.” Gathering my courage, and my heart, I held them both out and cupped his face. “You knew I was scared,” I whispered fiercely. “You knew, and you walked away. If I’d known you were just as freaked out as I was, we could have talked. Backed off. So you want this chance, you have to promise me we talk.”
He nodded once, a long, slow bob of his head, and released the breath he’d been holding. I tapped a finger on the end of his nose. “Go on in the bedroom. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
His brows drew together. “Hannah—”
“Quiet. You’re exhausted, in more ways than one. I’m not letting you try to make your way home, and you need to sleep. I’ll be fine on the couch. Take the bed.”
He glared at me, and I glared back harder. He was my guest, and as such, he’d get the bed. The couch was plenty comfortable. He broke first, grumbling his agreement. I slid off his lap and got to my feet, then made my way out of the living room in search of extra blankets and a pillow. I made up a bed for myself on the couch while he shuffled around in my bedroom.
Staring at the ceiling, the occasional crack and pop of wood breaking the quiet, I knew this was the right thing. Not just giving Alex another chance, but sleeping apart. We’d gone with our gut the first night, and it had spooked us both. This space, this time, it gave us a buffer.
It was so damn hard to do the right thing.
As I was drifting off to sleep, the floorboards creaked, and I was scooped up, blankets and all. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t stop until we were in the bedroom and he lay me on the bed and slid in beside me, tossing the extra blankets on the floor. “I’ve had a shitty, shitty day. I appreciate you not kicking me out, but I can’t sleep, knowing you’re out there. Just sleep,” he said quietly. “Will you tell me? About the tattoo?”
The one on my foot. The Archer. I shifted and held up my arm, pretending I misunderstood him. “Anger’s a poison. You hold on to it, it eats at you from the inside. This was my reminder to let it go.” I moved to wind my legs through his. “Dragons are symbols of strength and luck. When I decide to quit my job and start working for myself, I figured I’d need all the luck and strength I could get.” I rubbed my foot over his calf. “My favorite aunt was a Sagittarius. She died of breast cancer a few years ago.” He picked up my hand and squeezed it, turned it over and pressed a kiss to my palm. I brought our joined hands to my hip. “Cats in ancient Egypt symbolized poise. It’s my version of a confidence booster, that the ones who could see beyond the skin and not assume were the ones worth hanging on to.”
He edged closer and brought his hand around to stroke up my back, tracing over the tattoo at the base of my neck. “Gaelic for wisdom. Pretty self explanatory.” Down, down, worming under the hem of my tank, following the lines from memory, the veins and bones and shadows. “Lucy always said I needed to toughen up. That I trusted too easily, that I’d offer my heart to anyone. She wasn’t quite right. Just to the ones who matter,” I whispered.
The silence stretched, my last words lingering in the shadows. Finally he nudged me around, my back to his front. His arm was strong and warm over my stomach. “I’ll take care of you, Hannah,” he whispered.
His face buried in my neck, tears burning in my throat, I shut my eyes and allowed myself to hope.
*
One Year Later
“Baby, I get it, okay? Stop bitching about it.” I rolled my eyes and let myself in the building.
“I asked for the night off three months ago. This shouldn’t have happened.” Alex sounded furious. I grinned. He’d wanted to make Valentine’s Day amazing, he said. I’d had a meeting with a client late in the day, and I’d planned to go straight from the meeting to the restaurant. But Alex had left me a message in the middle of the meeting, saying he’d gotten called in. So no fancy dinner for us.
“Seriously. It’s fine. Go save a puppy or something.” I tried to locate my apartment key on the ring, juggling my laptop bag and purse at the same time. “Look, I’m about to drop something. I’ll see you when you get home.”
He grumbled and hung up, and I slipped my phone in my pocket, then located the key. Before I could unlock the door to my unit, though, it swung open. Alex grinned at me, reaching out to take my laptop. “Surprise.”
I scowled. “You did it on purpose, you sneak. No Valentine’s Day blow job for you.” I edged past him and stopped short at the entrance to the living room.
He’d built a fire. Candles lined the mantel, the windowsill, the coffee table. He’d set the little table under the window with more candles, and there was a bucket of wine chilling in the middle of it, two glasses at the ready. A bouquet of dahlias, nearly impossible to get in winter, sat in front of one of the chairs.
Strong arms slid around me from behind. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he murmured.
I turned around and looped my arms around his neck. “I love it.”
“You don’t even know what else I’ve got for you.”
“I don’t need to. There’s candles.”
He chuckled and teased my mouth with his. I rose on my toes, wanting more, a bigger, deeper kiss. Tracing the seam of his lips with my tongue, they parted on a groan, his fingers digging into my lower back. “Shouldn’t have done that,” he rasped when I let him up for air.
“Why not?” I kissed my way along his jaw, nipping into his earlobe.
“Because you know those boots make me want to fuck you.”
I drew back and smiled. They were the same boots I’d worn the night I met him, and he’d told me a while ago he’d wanted to bend me over a table while I was only wearing the boots. Of course I made him act it out, and we’d repeated the performance on more than one occasion.
Whatever he had planned for tonight, it could wait.
I unwound my arms from around his neck and reached for the hem of my sweater, pulling it over my head and dropping it on the floor. The skirt was next, pooling at my feet. Eyes locked on his, arousal growing as the gleam of desire in his eyes grew brighter, I twisted my arms behind my back, flicking open the hooks. The bra joined the sweater and the skirt, and as Alex tensed, I pushed my panties over my hips.
The feel of him completely clothed to my totally naked burned right through me. “I’ve got a confession,” I murmured, threading my fingers through his hair. “Did you know the first night I met you, I had thoughts of you fucking me against the wall? Wearing the boots, and only the boots?”
He stared at me. Chest heaving. Eyes bright with lust. C'mon. Take me.
His m
outh came down, our teeth clacking together in a vicious kiss. His hands raced over my body, trying to be everywhere at once, and I fought with his clothes. Buttons pinged and skittered over the hardwood floor as I yanked at his shirt. The buckle of his belt fought back, and I shrieked as he thrust his fingers into my cunt, greed rippling through me. Belt undone, fly open, I pushed his pants and boxers down far enough to free his cock.
He backed me up to the wall, hitched my legs around his waist, and thrust forward, burying himself in one brutal stroke. He withdrew, plunged again, setting a fast pace, the hard slap of flesh on flesh mingling with my pleading cries for more. He groaned into my mouth as my heels dug into his ass. “Christ. Hannah. I love you.” He rotated his hips in a circle, flipping the switch on my orgasm. As it rose in a towering, crushing wave, he kept up the pressure. “Marry me.”
Those two words pushed me over the edge, and I threw my head back as I came, hard, throbbing around him. Over the rushing in my ears I heard his shout of release, felt it pulsing inside me.
His arms trembled as he dropped his head onto my shoulder. Marry Alex. Marry the perfect man. Over the year we’d been together, he’d proven himself to be the perfect man, shown me that even with our rocky start, he was right. What we had was real and strong and amazing. And he wanted to marry me.
He carried me into the bathroom and set me on the edge of the sink, cleaning both of us up from our impromptu fucking. “Alex?”
Nerves tightened the lines of his face. “C’mon.” He picked me up again, carried me out to the living room and set me on the couch. I watched his very naked, very fine ass retreat to the table, and he came back with a jeweler’s box.
Inside was a ruby, the heart of it so dark it was almost black, the band a gleaming platinum. After that, I couldn’t see much, because the tears started to fall, blurring my vision. The cool metal slid over my finger, and I blinked furiously to clear the tears.
It looked right. Meant for me. Just as the man kneeling at my feet was meant for me. Who else would propose in the middle of sex, and then follow it up with a naked presentation of the ring? My perfect man, that’s who.
The Perfect Man Page 6
