Virtually Mine (The Lindstroms Book 5)

by Katy Paige

  “Zoë—” he said.

  “You first,” she said, staring down at the hand on her lap.

  “I have a surprise for you. I was going to save it until after the dance, but I’d like to give it to you now if that’s okay.”

  “Sure,” she murmured, taking a deep, uneven breath.

  He dropped her hand and started the car.

  ***

  When she’d mentioned leaving on Saturday, something inside of him had changed, snapped, hit a wall.

  Theoretically, he knew she’d be leaving at some point, of course, but he hadn’t spent a lot of time dwelling on it, at first because he didn’t feel right pursuing her, and then because he couldn’t imagine his life without her. Because he knew: even if she had to go back to Connecticut, they were far from over.

  But hearing her say the words “I’m leaving” suddenly made the reality less theoretical and more actual, and Paul found he couldn’t stand to waste another moment of their time together with half-truths hovering between them. It was time for them both to come clean, and if she couldn’t bring herself to initiate the conversation, he would.

  He’d meant to save this surprise for the end of their night together, but from the moment he’d picked her up, her eyes—her beautiful baby blues—had been unbearably sad and conflicted. If they didn’t talk, it would be a miserable evening filled with fake levity and inner turmoil, grinding out the hours until she confessed. He wanted to get it over with. He wanted her to feel the same freedom to love him that he felt to love her, and he’d figured out the perfect way earlier today.

  So, he’d surprise her now, not later. Hell, they’d waited long enough to be together.

  He drove in silence down the two or three blocks to his school pulling up in the fire lane, in front of the double doors.

  “School?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling at her with every bit of love in his heart. “Do you trust me?”

  Her face flushed and she bowed her head. He knew that the word “trust” had hit a nerve.

  He reached over and cupped her cheeks, forcing her to meet his eyes, briefly surprised by bright blue where brown used to be.

  “Zoë, love. Just trust me,” he murmured, leaning forward to press a light kiss to her lips before drawing back and opening his door. He walked around the car to help her out, taking her hand and leading her to the front door.

  ***

  His words seared her soul. He asked for her trust when she hadn’t been able to offer him honesty. It just about flattened her.

  At the same time, she couldn’t deny that underneath all of her fear and regret, curiosity was also making a play for her attention. What were they doing at his school? Wasn’t the plan dinner and the dance and then—unknown to him—her choking out her confession that she was really Holly? What was going on?

  He unlocked the door and pulled her inside, lacing his fingers through hers, the dim red glow from the emergency lights making the school hallways a shaded rose color that felt strangely warm and intimate in such a cold and public place. Her flip-flops smacked lightly on the shiny tiles as he pulled her in the direction of the art studio where she’d pilfered supplies on Sunday.

  “Zoë, I have a confession.”

  He had a confession?

  “I can really seem like a jerk about some things,” he continued. “Shallow. About looks and status. It’s a remnant of my fairly screwed-up childhood to be initially impressed with beauty or power, but I swear to God, it’s not really who I am. It’s just a shitty leftover bit of my upbringing. The truth is, I care about who people are, not what they look like or what they do.”

  She was following his words, one by one, unable to process where he was going or the big picture of what he was saying.

  “Okay,” she whispered beside him, and he squeezed her hand tighter.

  “If it ever turned out that I made someone I loved feel less than spectacular, less than wonderful, less than amazing, I’d hate myself for it, even if it was inadvertent.”

  “Paul, you’re the most amazing per—”

  “No.” He stopped in front of the art studio door and took her other hand. “You are.”

  His eyes sparkled in the dim light, bright and shiny with emotion, as she held them.

  “I’m not,” she insisted. The words were soft and thready, a sob waiting in the back of her throat. She couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes. She looked away.

  “Zoë.”

  He squeezed her hands, demanding her eyes again, and they prickled and watered behind her glasses until one tear fell from the well of her eyes, coursing by her nose to rest on her lip. He reached up to brush it away with his thumb.

  “You are the most amazing person, Zoë. The bravest. The kindest. The sexiest, most tempting girl I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

  Her face crumpled and her head fell forward, shaking back and forth in misery.

  “I’m not. You don’t know,” she sobbed.

  “I know, Zoë. I know who you are, Zoë Holly Flannigan,” he said.

  Her head snapped up, blue eyes wide and watery and shocked.

  “Y-You know?”

  “I know I will never love anyone as much as I love you,” he said softly. He flicked his eyes to the art studio door and when she followed them, she saw a neatly handwritten sign taped over the existing teacher’s name, reading “Miss Flannigan.”

  When she looked up at him, he grinned at her.

  “Oh…also, I need an art teacher. I was sort of hoping you’d stay.”

  CHAPTER 19

  It was too much.

  It was too much to have everything her heart desired presented to her so hopefully, so lovingly, as though she deserved such immense, selfless sweetness in her broken life.

  Her face fell and her chin hit her chest. Her shoulders rolled forward as all of her fears and sadness and worry engulfed her, chased by bewilderment and—finally, unbelievably—relief. Sobs wracked her body as she clutched her arms around her chest, which heaved from the effort of crying.

  It was too much goodness for her to process at once.

  She wasn’t supposed to win.

  She wasn’t supposed to have good things in her life.

  She wasn’t supposed to have this sort of love.

  She wasn’t supposed to be happy. Not like this. Not like fairy tale-style happy. She didn’t deserve it. No matter what he said, she didn’t deserve it.

  And yet…here it was.

  He pulled her into his arms, offering her sanctuary and solace, offering her his compassion and understanding and love. She pressed her cheek against his chest, trying to convince herself that this was real, that his beating heart belonged to her.

  “Aw, sweetheart. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry, Zoë. It’s going to be okay now.”

  “Y-you knew?” she asked, realizing he’d just called her by “Holly’s” nickname and the sweetness of it made her sob harder.

  “Not all along. I figured it out on the phone. Tuesday morning.”

  His hands rubbed her back, slowly up and down, as her sobs subsided to those deep, intense ragged breaths that follow an epic cry.

  “Can we sit down?” she asked, the shakiness of her legs a result of her feelings, not her injuries.

  “Sure.”

  He slid down the painted cement block wall behind him, settling on the floor, holding a hand up to her. She took it and sat down beside him.

  “Too far away,” he said, pulling her between his legs and wrapping his arms around her.

  “You don’t hate me?” she asked softly, laying her tired head back against his shoulder, and trying to get her mind around the full scope of the massive shift between them.

  “I just told you that I love you, woman. Weren’t you listening to my speech?”

  A laugh bubbled up inside of her as she leaned back, comfortable against him, in the bliss of his arms.

  He knew. He knew who she was. And he still loved her. Still wanted her.
>
  “Oh, man. I always loved that giggle. From the beginning.”

  “You’re not angry with me?”

  “I was.” His voice grew dark for a moment. “I was pretty angry on Tuesday.”

  “What happened? How did you—”

  “How did I get from there to here?” He sighed. “Maggie, partly. I lit into her on Tuesday morning, but she explained a lot to me. How you felt unlovable after your accident, which kills me since you’re the most…” His voice broke and he squeezed her tighter, kissing the top of her head, before resting his chin on her black hair. “She and Jane helped me see that you’re you, whether you’re Holly or Zoë. They helped me see how much courage it took for you to come out here.”

  “But I lied to you.”

  “You did.” He paused. “Don’t do it again.”

  “I won’t. Not ever.” Then she added, turning to look at him, “Can you really trust me?”

  He searched her eyes before offering her a reassuring smile. “I want to.”

  “I promise I’ll never lie to you again. Not about anything. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

  “I’m not hurting anymore, Zoë.”

  His face was so bare, so open and vulnerable and stunningly beautiful, her breath caught.

  “You know. You know who I am,” she whispered with wonder. Tears flooded her eyes again as she gazed at him in the ethereal pink glow of the empty high school hallway. “You have no idea where I was when you found me. You gave me hope that life still had something good in the wings for me. You gave me my life back.”

  She rotated in his arms, kneeling between his legs, reaching up to touch his cheeks, tentatively at first, with tenderness and awe.

  “My God, what a relief,” she whispered, cradling his face in her hands.

  She leaned forward and he bowed his head as she tilted hers. Their lips fit together perfectly, soft and flush, waiting, then ready. He slid his hands down her back to her hips, kneading his fingers into the soft flesh, before moving them around to rest them flat on her thighs.

  She broke off their kiss and drew back from him, capturing his eyes. His hand was resting over the ragged bunches of scar tissue on her right thigh.

  “Is this okay?” he whispered, his fingers continuing their gentle exploration of her broken flesh through the fabric of her dress.

  Zoë swallowed against the painful lump in her throat as big tears ran down her cheeks, but she didn’t look away and he didn’t move his hand. The old question haunted her…What if I repulse him when he sees? How can anyone love this fractured, imperfect body?

  As though he could read her mind, his lips turned up tenderly and he whispered. “I love you, Zoë Holly Flannigan. I love all of you.”

  Her heart exploded with love for him and she couldn’t speak. The tears rushed from her eyes as she covered his hand with hers, lacing her fingers through his as he flattened his hand along the ravaged skin of her injured leg. She leaned forward to kiss him again, pressing her open mouth to his, their tongues finding one another urgently. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingernails scraping lightly against the short, prickly hairs there, until she felt him shiver in her arms.

  His hands returned to her hips, and he pulled his legs together, shifting her onto his lap as the skirt of her dress bunched up around her waist. He pulled her up against him until her chest was flush with his, until she felt his hardness pushing through his pants. His hand slid up her leg slowly, tracing the warm, soft skin of her thighs until it dipped inward, finding no barrier between his hand and her mound of soft curls.

  He tore his mouth away from hers like he’d been electrocuted. “You’re not wearing—!”

  She touched her lips, smiling at him, holding his eyes. She panted softly as she shook her head back and forth slowly.

  His eyes were wide and wild, his hand resting over her most intimate place.

  “Zoë,” he groaned through a strangled breath.

  “I want you,” she gasped, arching forward. Her blue eyes held his, her chest heaving with the force of her breathing. “I know we have a lot to talk about. But…”

  His eyes burned for her. He flicked his glance to her lips, then back to her eyes, his fingers still stroking her gently.

  “I want you to make love to me,” she whispered.

  He searched her eyes, and for one, brief moment she wondered if he’d push her away, if he’d insist they should wait, or tell her they needed to sort things out first.

  “My place or yours?” he asked in a low, taut voice, sliding his hand back down her thigh and holding her waist to help her stand up.

  “Yours,” she answered, her insides hot and liquid. “Now.”

  He stood up beside her, kissed her lips then pulled her back down the hallway, back out the double doors, back into his car, driving back to his driveway with alarming speed, without dropping her hand except when they got into the car.

  When they pulled in front of his house, he cut the engine, but neither of them made a move to leave the car. His thumb rubbed the pad of her palm softly in silence and his other hand lingered on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead in the sudden silence of the car.

  Finally he turned to her and her heart clenched in gratitude, in wonder, in disbelief…in belief, in spite of everything. He belonged to her. His eyes said so.

  “Are you sure?” he asked softly.

  “Paul. I am—” She reached out to cup his cheek with her palm and smiled back at him, her voice soft and certain. “—madly in love with you. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

  He twisted his head just enough for his lips to graze her hand, his smoldering eyes holding hers.

  “We still have a lot to talk about,” he whispered.

  “We will. Later. Right now, I just need to be with you.”

  As he drew back, his eyes narrowed briefly and he shook his head, love making his face soft and reverent. His words were trance-like, soft and rhetorical. “How did this happen? How did I finally get the girl?”

  “You’re all turned around.” She grinned tenderly, stroking his cheek with the backs of her fingers, her body throwing off heat with the force of her want, with the strength of her love, with the certainty that he was all she would ever need. “The girl finally got you.”

  ***

  An hour later, she lay beside him on her side, facing him, her arm under a pillow and her face illuminated by the moonlight that flooded his room from the window over his shoulder. His body mirrored hers, one of his legs thrown over hers, his arm resting on her naked hip and his face close enough to feel her breath on his skin, to stop talking and kiss her whenever he felt like it.

  She was telling him about the group of older ladies who had accompanied her and the Lindstroms to the park, and he smiled distractedly at her, barely able to concentrate on what she was saying. She had a tiny, flat, dark mole on her face, on her left cheek, and he stared at it, marveling at it, wanting to own it, desperate to kiss it every morning when he woke up and every night before he went to sleep. He never wanted to get into bed again without seeing that little mole last of all things in the world before he fell asleep. He felt a profound yearning for her, wild and real—a longing to own her, to possess her, even to hate her a little if that tiny brown speck was ever further from him than it was right this second.

  “You’re not even listening to me,” she said, and he took a deep breath, gazing into her eyes.

  “I am,” he whispered. “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe we just…”

  “We did.” She smiled and leaned forward a fraction of an inch to touch her red, swollen lips to his.

  “Don’t leave on Saturday,” he whispered against her shoulder.

  Don’t leave ever, whispered his heart.

  “I have to,” she murmured.

  He maneuvered her onto her back and braced his weight on his elbow beside her, hovering over her.

  “Don’t.”

  “I have to. I hav
e a surgery scheduled in a few weeks.” She swallowed, rolling her head to the side, hiding her scar.

  “What?” he asked, softly tilting her head back up so he could see her eyes. His brows knotted together in worry as he stared at her.

  “My face,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears, and he couldn’t bear it.

  “When?”

  She sniffled once as a tear spilled from her right eye, catching in the lavender crevasse of her scar before sliding into her hairline.

  “C-Columbus Day weekend,” she murmured.

  Columbus Day weekend. The weekend he was supposed to go and visit her. Oh, my God. No wonder.

  “That’s why,” he said, feeling terrible that his insistence on seeing her had forced her into this situation. “That’s why you didn’t want me to come. Why you had to come here instead.”

  “Only partly,” she said, reaching up to cup his cheek, her cool fingers a relief on his hot skin. “I had to come to tell you the truth. No matter what.”

  “I’m sorry, Zoë. God, no wonder you were so upset on the phone…”

  She nodded, giving him a small smile. “I felt so bad. Making you stop talking, hanging up on you.”

  “No. No, I was an…an ass to force your hand. I just wanted to see you. So badly.”

  “I’m glad everything happened the way it did. It got us here.”

  He leaned down and kissed her, and she rolled under him, arching her body into his.

  And then there were no more words needed.

  ***

  The tremors in her body were subsiding, but she shivered lightly in his arms, the aftershocks of their lovemaking raising goose bumps along the soft flesh of her belly and hip. His arm under her breast held her back tightly up against his chest and his lips rested on the back of her neck, his panting slowly changing to breathing, though still fast and ragged against her damp, heavenly skin.

  “Happy,” he murmured between breaths, his arm relaxing, then tensing, then relaxing again as the last shudders eased him into an exhausted, sated contentment. His eyes were so heavy, he closed them, burrowing into her neck. “Zoë, I’m coming to Connecticut. In October. I want to be there for you.”

  She turned in his arms to face him and he opened his eyes to find her face stricken and hopeful at once. “Oh, you don’t have to—I mean, I don’t expect—”