“I haven’t decided yet,” she told him.
“You don’t get to decide. It is what it is.”
With than, he firmed up his touch, pressing down on that hard little button and getting the very reaction he’d hoped for. Her face twisted with unmistakable rapture. Her entire body jerked, shuddering against him, and her thighs closed tight around his fingers, holding him there while he milked all the pleasure he could find out of her body with grim satisfaction.
Which was, he supposed, the only real kind of satisfaction he’d be getting until Friday.
Maybe Reeve wasn’t ready to admit she was falling for him the way he’d fallen for her, and maybe he hadn’t been the first man in her life, her first lover or her first husband.
But he’d damn well be the last.
Meanwhile, he’d be happy to dispense these little reminders that her body, at least, was his.
“I. Own. This.” His kisses tapering down to gentle brushes against her lips, he watched her face, waiting for her to recover. “Don’t I?”
At last her lids lifted and she met his steady gaze with glazed eyes and a woman’s sated smile.
“You own this,” she whispered.
He grinned like a kid on Christmas morning, happy with the world and ridiculously pleased with himself.
“That’s right. I do.”
Scowling, she raised her hand to smack him on the arm, but she was too slow.
Snatching that hand out of midair, he pressed it to his erection, which was still raging and still straining for some attention.
“And you own this,” he told her, enjoying the way her scowl turned to a gratified smile. “You own all of me, Reeve. You have since the day I met you.”
* * *
Chapter 17
On Friday night at 6:55, Reeve scurried around her new apartment like a mouse on amphetamines, making sure everything was ready for Edward’s imminent arrival. She’d made several lists and checked them all twice, but it never hurt to triple-check. Triple-checking had gotten her through med school.
In the kitchen? Chardonnay chilled in the fridge, as did the fancy green salad she’d thrown together. The paella kept warm in its big pan on the stove and would be perfect by the time he got there. Sourdough browned in the oven, as did her baked apples, which were easy to make but looked complicated, and were always a hit. Her small dining room table, which sat in the corner of the living room amid a sea of boxes she hadn’t had time to unpack yet, was set with her pretty blue stoneware. Flickering candles on the table and mantelpiece were pretty much it for decorating at the moment, other than her blue kayak, which had been delivered this afternoon and sat in pride of place on the floor along the living room wall, but her furniture had arrived safe and sound from Atlanta, which meant she had a sofa.
And a bed.
Excitement spiraled inside her, coiling deep in her belly and dancing across her skin.
Turning to the seat in the bay window that overlooked the sidewalk, she made eye contact with Muffin, who’d claimed the space as his new favorite spot and was now curled into a tight ball, watching her.
“Edward’s coming for dinner,” she told him. “Try not to act foolish.”
The cat blinked its yellow eyes at her, clearly remembering her three wardrobe changes and mini meltdown of a few minutes ago, all fueled by her urgent desire to look casually and effortlessly beautiful when Edward got there. She’d finally settled on a peach dress, but wasn’t at all sure she’d made the right decision.
“Do I look okay?” she asked, smoothing the skirt.
“Meow,” said Muffin, turning his head away and going back to sleep.
“Thanks for the encouragement,” she muttered. “I don’t know why I bother asking for fashion advice from a cat that’s been wearing the same green collar for the last four years.”
Muffin did not dignify that with a response.
Reeve blew out a breath, telling herself to relax because there was no need for nerves.
After a week of exhausting days at the office, followed by unpacking and setting up as much of her new apartment as she could, she’d ended every night in bed on the phone with Edward, talking until eleven or twelve. They’d discussed big topics, like their families and hopes for their careers, and trivial topics, like their favorite TV shows, sports teams, vacation spots, childhood memories and everything else they could think of.
He was endlessly fascinating to her. The more she learned about him, the more she wanted to learn. Only it was hard to hear everything about him when he seemed equally determined to hear everything about her.
She had, somehow, resisted the urge to return to his house for another impromptu visit, but it’d been hard. She wanted to see and touch him, to eat, sleep and breathe him. Her residency was the most demanding thing in her life right now, but Edward had carved out a huge chunk of space in her thoughts, and he zealously defended his borders. She doubted she could get him out now, even if she wanted to.
It was like he’d already become part of her. Like maybe he’d been a part of her before they even met, crazy as that seemed. And as the days passed, that fact seemed like less a cause of fear and more a cause for excitement.
Is it too soon to be crazy in love with you? he’d asked her.
She could’ve asked him the same thing.
Adam’s voice had been unusually quiet inside her head this week, as had The Black.
Maybe they couldn’t cope with Edward taking up so much space these days.
Or maybe she was finally ready to let go of the past.
Maybe being with Edward and letting go of the past were intertwined.
Maybe letting go of the past was a prerequisite to being with Edward.
She already knew it was a prerequisite to getting on with her life—really living her life—even if she hadn’t quite managed it yet.
Lost in her thoughts about all of this, she sat on the window seat. Muffin meowed his displeasure at being disturbed and crowded, but seemed to get over it pretty quickly once she started scratching his belly.
Her peripheral vision snagged on The Box over by the fireplace.
Right on cue, Adam’s voice started up again.
Did you forget about me, Reeve?
Turning at the waist, she stared at The Box, which was cardboard like all the moving boxes, but much larger, about the size of a small trunk. It predated her move, and if she’d thought it would somehow blend in with all the other boxes waiting to be sorted and unpacked, she was sadly mistaken, because it stuck out like a broken and bandaged thumb.
All the boxes were labeled in her neat handwriting: Kitchen.
Living room.
Dining room.
ADAM.
Inside that single box were all the physical remnants she had of her husband: A few shirts and T-shirts, including his favorite, from a Jay-Z concert they’d attended early in college, his high school track trophies and military medals, a tacky gold chain she’d scrimped and saved for and given him, with great fanfare, on his eighteenth birthday, all the framed pictures of him and the two of them together, no books because he’d never been much of a pleasure reader or student, his plain gold wedding band. When she was living in her med school apartment, she’d displayed much of it on her dresser, until the day, about a year ago, she decided she didn’t need to stare at it and wallow in her guilt and pain every night before bed. So she’d packed everything in The Box, thinking she’d know what to do with the mementos when the time was right.
Whatever that meant.
“What do you think, Muffin?” she asked the cat. “Should we unpack The Box? Or leave it?”
Muffin, showing complete indifference to her plight, squirmed beneath her hand, reminding her of her solemn duty to rub his belly until he officially dismissed her with a nip to her fingers.
“Yeah,” she said. “I can’t decide, either.”
Standing again, she walked over to The Box. She’d peeled the packing tape off the top of it, but th
at was as far as she’d gotten. Would it be okay if she decided she wanted a clean start with no crossover (contamination was a hateful word, and she was ashamed of herself for even thinking it) from her old life?
If she left everything packed away now that she had a new home, job and lover here in Journey’s End, did that mean she’d forgotten Adam? Forsaken him?
Maybe she should go through his things again— Knock-knock-knock!
Startled, she checked her watch and hurried for the door. Edward. And he was in a big hurry, from the sound of it. Giving her hair a final fluff, she swung the door open and—
“Sofia!” she cried, her heart dropping with disappointment. With a quick look up the street—no sign of Edward yet—she took Sofia’s arm and pulled her inside. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Not that she really needed to ask.
Sofia, who’d kept her updated, via text and video chat, on every breaking event, no matter how minor, in the ongoing saga of the disintegration of her relationship with Toby, was a mess. Red face, swollen nose, mascara-streaked eyes and cheeks, the whole ugly deal. Hiccupping herself into silence, she managed to take a quick glance around and issue a compliment: “N-nice p-place.”
“Thanks,” Reeve said, steering her into the living room.
“W-what smells so good? What’s with the candles?” Sofia’s face fell, if that was even possible. “Do you have a date or something?”
“Sort of,” Reeve said, trying to be gracious about the interruption to her night with Edward, especially when her best friend was in such crisis. “It’s no big deal. Don’t worry.”
Sofia tipped her nose up in the air and sniffed hopefully. “Did you make paella? I’m starving. Is it Edward? I totally know you went home with him the other night, by the way, you filthy slut. And after all your yammering about how you don’t need sex when you’ve got your little handheld appliance. How was it?”
“Okay, first of all, I’m not a slut. Second, if I were a slut, slut shaming is no longer allowed, so knock it off. Third, none of your freaking business. Fourth, it was the most amazing night of my life. Fifth, none of your freaking business. In fact, let’s make that numbers five through ten.”
“I knew it! Details, please.” Grabbing one of the oversized bowls off the table, Sofia headed to the kitchen and washed her hands while keeping her keenly interested gaze on Reeve. “Start with how big he is.”
“Sofia! Shut the hell up!” Reeve screeched, blushing like a virgin.
“Oh, this looks good.” Sofia scooped herself a massive serving of paella, found the chardonnay in the fridge and poured herself some wine in one of the blue plastic tumblers that were sitting in the rack on the counter waiting to be put away. She’d taken a couple steps toward the dining room table when she reconsidered and turned back around. “Is there salad? You should serve salad with paella. And bread, too—oh, I found it.” Stooping, she grabbed one of the hot sourdough rolls from the oven, bobbled it in her hands, and wound up dropping it on top of the paella in her bowl.
“Oh, my God,” Reeve sighed, closing her eyes as she slumped back against the sofa’s cushions. “Doesn’t heartbreak cause a loss of appetite?”
Sofia, who’d juggled all her items and parked herself at the table by now, took a big bite of paella and washed it down with half the wine. “I’ve been swinging back and forth.”
“Great,” Reeve muttered. “So, do you want to tell me what happened?”
Sofia put down her fork, her expression bleak and her lips twisting with suppressed emotion. “Toby’s packing his stuff. He’s leaving me, just like I knew he would. It’s over.”
“Oh, honey.”
The sympathy seemed to be more than Sofia could handle at this vulnerable moment. Planting her elbows on the table, she dropped her face into her hands and resumed sobbing, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.
Knock-knock-knock.
Edward!
Reeve hesitated, torn between wanting to comfort her friend and wanting to be with Edward.
Edward won.
Hurrying to the door with a last worried glance at Sofia, who laid her head on the table and continued crying, she swung it open. “Edward, hi—oh, my God, what’s all this?”
Wearing a white linen shirt with khaki pants and looking amazing, as always, he was surrounded by a potted tree with a lavender silk bow tied around its trunk, a high-end espresso machine with a matching ribbon tied around its box, and a cat’s carpeted jungle gym with yet another ribbon tied around it.
“Housewarming gifts,” he said with a wide smile, looking enormously pleased with himself. “This, as you can see, is a nine-foot ficus, so I hope you have a sunny spot with high ceilings. My brother Ethan says plants are the only acceptable housewarming gifts, but he’s a landscape architect, so his worldview is pretty limited. The jungle gym’s for Muffin, because I want him to feel comfortable in his new home, although you’re free to enjoy it as well, if you want to. The espresso machine is because I need espresso to get going in the morning. I already have one, but I didn’t know if you did, and that’s not the kind of thing you leave to chance.”
“You’re unbelievable. Thank you so much—”
“What’s that noise?” he asked, cocking his head and listening.
“Sofia,” she said sourly, dropping her voice. “She’s having a meltdown. She really puts her heart into it.”
“Uh-oh.” He also dropped his voice and adopted a somber expression. “Did she and the guy break up?”
“Looks like it,” she said, stepping aside for Muffin, who chose that moment to begin his nightly roaming outside. “And they’ve been together for a really long time, so I’m sympathetic. I really am. But this drama has been going on all week. They keep going back and forth, back and forth, and she won’t listen to me when I tell her she needs to cut the SOB loose. I’m exhausted.”
“Are you whispering about me?” Sofia called, sniffling.
Reeve rolled her eyes at Edward. “You’d better come in.”
Edward stiffened with vague alarm, frowning. “Doesn’t sound like the kind of scene that I—”
“Edward?” Sofia yelled from the table. “Is that you?”
Edward, now wearing the pained look of a man about to meet his destiny in front of a firing squad, shot Reeve a help me! look, squared his shoulders and marched inside.
“Hey, Sofia,” he said, managing a strained smile as he slowly approached the table with Reeve trailing behind. “Sounds like you’re having a tough night.”
“Tough week is more like it. I’ve been fired, repossessed and dumped. I’m just waiting for the pillars of fire and the plague of locusts, and then I should be good to go.” As always, Sofia perked up in the presence of a handsome man, sitting up and wiping her nose and eyes on one of Reeve’s cloth napkins. “Sorry I ruined your date with Reeve, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go and I needed her shoulder to cry on.”
“I’m not worried about it.” He shot Reeve a rueful glance. “There’ll be other nights. Wait a minute. Is that a kayak, Reeve? You kayak?”
“I do now that my graduation present to myself has arrived,” Reeve said. “How you like me now?”
Edward grinned, his gaze leaving her face and skimming down the length of her body. “I like you very well, indeed, as you should know by now.”
“Speaking of that, I asked Reeve about you,” Sofia informed him. “She got all gooey-eyed.”
“Sofia!” Reeve hissed, her entire face going up in flames and probably turning her eyelashes and brows to cinders.
“Gooey-eyed is how I like her,” Edward said, his expression alight with wicked amusement. “Did you save me some paella? I’ve been looking forward to it all week. It’s my first taste of Reeve’s cooking. Very important. I could never marry a woman who couldn’t cook.”
His eyes flicked to Reeve at this mention of the m-word, whereupon Reeve’s brain flickered off, leaving her to stare at him in an unfortunate deer-in-headlights sort
of way.
“You can have mine,” Sofia said glumly, sliding her plate to him. “I’m not hungry anymore. But I’ll bite: what would you do if Reeve couldn’t cook?”
“Send her to a cooking class before the wedding,” Edward said, shoveling a quarter-cup sized bite into his mouth and moaning his approval. “This is amazing, Reeve. I’m saving my money on the class.”
Reeve snorted and went to pour herself some wine to hide her flare of delight at his approval. “Why would I want to marry a male chauvinist pig?”
He gave her a lingering look that reignited her face. “Because you can’t live without me,” he said simply, shoveling in another bite.
Reeve stilled, her heart thundering.
“Enough about you two lovebirds. You’re making me nauseous,” Sofia complained. “Back to me. I want to talk about my ruined relationship.”
Edward scooted his chair back with a loud scrape, grabbed his bowl and started to get up. “I hate to eat and run, but you two don’t need me for this—”
“Sit!” Sofia barked, pointing to his seat. “You can speak on behalf of your whole evil sex.”
Heaving a harsh sigh, Edward sat.
And resumed eating.
Reeve, feeling his pain, grabbed the wine, rolls and salad and sat opposite him.
“Thanks, baby,” Edward said, dimpling at her.
Reeve winked at him.
“Toby’s been cheating on me.” Sofia’s tears began to flow again, quietly this time. “With his ex. I found a bunch of texts and e-mails a little while ago.”
Reeve, who hadn’t heard this latest development, stiffened.
The Black, who was always looking for a new vulnerability to glom on to, sidled into the forefront of her mind, sounding smug.
Edward has an ex, it reminded her.
Edward’s expression darkened, as though he could hear the poison The Black was spewing into Reeve’s ear. Putting down his fork, he pushed his plate away.
“I feel like everything was a lie,” Sofia continued, her voice thick with emotion. “I feel like he always had her there in the background as an insurance policy in case things didn’t work out with me. The whole time he wasn’t working after he got injured, and I was working my ass off to keep things afloat, spending sixty or seventy hours a week traveling and working on my career, he was holed up with her. Spending money on her. But he still bought a house with me. He bought a car with me. Why would he tangle me all up in his shit when he knew he had this whole other life on the side? Why would he lie about it and screw with my mind? Why?”
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