by K. M. Scott
She made an expression that seemed like she was angry, but I knew otherwise. “Why be so cruel to the cobbler? I bet it turned out great.”
“We’ll never know because after it sat out for days, Tressa tossed it in the garbage when she walked in here today.”
“Well, next date night I’m going to make another cobbler and we’ll try it again,” she said with a smile and a twinkle in her eye before adding, “Along with a few other things that did work well.”
I thought back to that night and nodded. “I’m game. Until it all went south, we were having a pretty good night.”
An adorable pink blush covered Nina’s cheeks, and she grinned like a cat who’d eaten a canary. “We were. Then again, that’s never been a problem between us.”
She was right. We’d never had a problem with wanting each other, but now as my mind drifted back to all those times I’d thought about in the past few days, I realized what had come easily to us in the beginning had been kept alive by more than physical need or desire.
And after all our years together, I still loved her in the same way as I had that first night we went to Tony’s Pizza Heaven on a date. That night had been my chance to show her I wasn’t that uptight, business suit wearing man she thought I was, but now she knew me better than anyone else in the world and I didn’t have to impress her anymore.
Still, I wanted to, and I’d had a thought about how when I stood watching her and the kids once she finally came out of the coma. Nina had been the best thing in my life for so long, and I wanted to do something big to show her how much I loved her.
Standing from my chair, I walked around to where she sat and knelt down in front of her. She looked down at me and squinted her eyes in confusion.
“Did you lose something? What are you looking for?” she asked, leaning down toward me.
“I’m on one knee to propose.”
“What?”
I didn’t have a ring, so I took hold of her hand and slid her rings off her finger. “Unfortunately, I didn’t plan this out ahead of time, so work with me. Nina, will you marry me?”
“Marry you? Aren’t we married already?” she asked, still confused by my spur of the moment idea.
“Yes, but I’m asking you to do it again. You know, like I said, this is a second chance for us. So, will you marry me again, Nina?”
She looked down at me with tenderness in her beautiful blue eyes and smiled. “Of course, I will. Are we doing it today? Is this a run off to Maryland kind of eloping thing?”
I slid the rings back onto her finger and stood up. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and we kissed like two people madly in love.
Pressing my forehead to hers, I smiled. “No, it’s not an eloping thing. I thought we’d renew our vows and have a party for all the people who love us. Say early August?”
She looked up at me and smiled in a way that made my heart melt. “Then this August, I’ll marry you, Tristan Stone. I love you. You’re the best husband a woman could have.”
“I love you. And this wedding comes with a honeymoon, too. You can either tell me where you want to go, or I can surprise you. Your choice.”
For a moment, she thought about it and then she kissed me again. “I’d like to be surprised, Mr. Stone.”
Standing up, I smiled. “Then a surprise it will be. Be prepared to be swept off your feet.”
The sound of the front door interrupted our romantic moment, and Nina quickly whispered, “I want this whole thing to be a surprise, okay? We’ll tell people we’re having a party, and when they get here, they’ll get to see us renew our vows. Let’s keep this our secret.”
“Okay. Just between the two of us.”
As the kids’ footsteps signaled they were nearly to the kitchen, she added, “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”
I loved how excited she was about this idea, and I couldn’t wait to talk about it later when we were alone.
Ethan burst into the kitchen carrying all the pizza boxes, followed by Diana with the birch beer and Tressa with the diet soda she and I drank. “We’re back with the pizza, and it smells incredible!” Ethan announced before setting the boxes on the counter.
“That place is adorable. From what you said, it looks the same as it did all those years ago,” Diana said with a smile. “It made me want to go to Italy just looking at those pictures.”
And just then I had an idea.
When everyone had their pizza and drinks, I raised my glass to make a toast. “To having second chances.”
Although they didn’t know exactly what I meant, the kids all raised their glasses and made the same toast. “To second chances.”
“Looks like you’re going to be stuck with me for a while longer,” Nina said with a chuckle.
“There’s no one else I’d rather be stuck with,” I said from the other side of the table.
Ethan elbowed Diana. “They’re getting all gushy again.”
“I loved that pizza place, Mom. What a great place for a first date,” Diana said as she bit into a slice of pizza.
“That wasn’t their first date, Diana. Remember how Dad used to tell us the story of their first date when we were small? He always said Mom was a princess,” Tressa said sweetly.
“A princess in a ridiculous get-up. Do you remember that?” Nina asked, turning to look across the table at me.
“I remember you were beautiful. That’s all I remember,” I said as the memory of that first night I saw her flashed through my mind. “My beautiful princess from the first night we met.”
“And you were her prince,” Tressa said with a smile.
“Always. Your father was always my prince from that moment on.”
I didn’t know if that was true, but we had a second chance at that fairytale ending now, and I planned to take full advantage of it. First, we’d renew our vows. Then, we’d have a second honeymoon that would be everything Nina ever dreamed of.
I’d spent the last few days afraid I might never get the chance to show Nina how much I loved her. Now, I had something too many missed out on.
More time with their soul mate.
Chapter Eighteen
Nina
My first day home from the hospital had been far more exciting then I’d expected as a result of Tristan’s surprise proposal. Something in him seemed different, but I wasn’t sure what. I knew how my health scare affected him, but it was something more.
Something deeper.
I sat in bed and watched as he absentmindedly wandered around between the bathroom and bedroom like his head was somewhere else entirely. He seemed preoccupied, but about what?
As he stopped in front of the bed for the third time in less than a minute but didn’t say anything, I finally asked, “Tristan, are you okay?”
He lifted his head and stopped loosening his tie to give me a confused stare. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I’d never seen him like this.
“Did you hear me?”
Nodding, he gave me a smile. “Of course I heard you. I’m right here, Nina.”
“Then how about you tell me why you’re acting like a zombie?”
For a moment, he didn’t say a thing, but then he just shrugged. “I didn’t realize I was. Sorry.”
He returned to undressing, but that answer didn’t do it for me. Pushing myself up on my elbows, I said, “Tristan, sit down with me. I want to talk to you.”
After he tossed his tie on top of his dresser, he turned back toward me and I patted the bed beside me. He sat down like nothing he’d done in the past ten minutes had been anything but normal and waited for me to speak.
“What’s wrong? I get that you didn’t realize you were doing your best zombie impression, but you were, which tells me something’s on your mind. Do you want to talk about it?”
I knew Tristan well enough after all the time we’d been together that talking wasn’t something he preferred, at least most of the time. I did enough talking for the two of us, so I’d grown used to it over the years.
>
But this felt different. Now he seemed to be distracted, not just his usual quiet self. Since I knew he’d been as scared as I was by what happened to me, I feared if he didn’t talk about what was on his mind, it would fester inside him and lead to him worrying even more when he didn’t have to. I was fine, and I planned on staying fine for a long time to come.
Tristan leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips. “I’m sorry. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“Like?” I asked sing-song, which made him chuckle.
“Like a lot on my mind. You’re just going to have to wait to find out what, so no more asking.”
His answer surprised me. He hadn’t sidestepped a question from me like that in years.
“Did you somehow make us time travel back to when we first met? You sound as evasive and mysterious as you did when we first got together,” I said as I examined the odd look in his eyes.
Was he being playful or was he truly hiding something from me? And if so, what?
Suddenly, my mind began to race. Had the doctors told him something terrible and he felt he had to keep it from me? Why? This Still’s disease hadn’t sounded so bad when they explained it to me. Was there something else wrong with me?
He opened his mouth to say something, but I held up my hand to stop him. “Forget about the time travel stuff. Tell me the truth. Is there something else wrong with me? Why didn’t the doctors tell me? I’m the damn patient. They have to tell me. What is it, Tristan?”
His eyes opened wide in surprise. “What? You were there when the doctor explained about what was wrong.”
God, I hated when he got like this. Whether he thought he could be stubborn or just lie to me to protect me, I hated it.
“Don’t lie, Tristan. You know that’s the one thing I hate. Just don’t lie. Tell me the truth, no matter how bad it is.”
With each word, my panic level skyrocketed. If he didn’t tell me what was going on right now, I’d have to march over to my phone and call that doctor myself.
Tristan gently put his hands on my shoulders when I moved to get out of bed and stopped me. “Nina, relax. It’s not that at all. You have exactly what the doctor told you. He didn’t say anything to me that he didn’t say to you. I want you to relax. You’re less than two days from being in a coma, for God’s sake.”
I stared into his dark eyes to see if he was telling the truth. He looked honest enough. Actually, he looked worried, but that was probably because of my current spinning out of control right in front of him.
My shoulders sagged, and I let him ease me back against the soft pillows. “Just tell me the truth, Tristan. Why are you acting so strangely?”
A slow smile brightened his expression and made him look so cute. Even after being married to him for all these years, he still had a way of charming me without doing anything but flashing that sweet and sexy grin.
“I thought you’d like it. You know, me being mysterious like I was when we first met,” he said.
“What are you talking about? I love you the way you are. Sometimes that means you don’t say anything for hours and I do all the talking, and other times that means you’re the one who decides what’s happening.”
“But you fell in love with me when I was hiding things from you.”
Utterly baffled by where this conversation had gone to, I shook my head in confusion. “Do you really think that’s why I fell in love with you?”
He didn’t answer for a long moment, but then he said, “No, but I think there was something alluring about not knowing everything about what I was thinking all the time. I just thought I’d inject some of that mystery back into our relationship.”
I took his strong hands in mine and brought them to my lips to kiss them. “I fell in love with you because you were sweet and sexy and sometimes even funny. You’re still all those things, Tristan. After people are married for so long, the mystery naturally sort of falls away, but I didn’t fall in love with you because you were this mysterious billionaire guy. I fell in love with you because while you had everything you could possibly want, you did things like take me to Tony’s Pizza Heaven for a date.”
He lowered his head and said in a low voice, “I found the letters you kept in that box at the back of your closet. I read through them and thought if I was more like that Tristan that you’d like that.”
This man truly made my heart skip a beat sometimes. He could be that hard-bitten businessman the whole day at the office, but when he came home, he said some of the sweetest things I’d ever heard.
“Look at me, Tristan.”
When he lifted his head to do as I wanted, I saw the man I fell in love with sitting right there next to me. For all these years, I’d been the luckiest woman in the world, and still he thought he needed to make me fall in love with him.
“That Tristan and who you are today are the same person. You’ve never failed to be the man I needed, so I don’t need you to change or go back to whatever you think you were then. You’re still that man, and I still fall crazy in love with you every time you look at me.”
Beaming a smile, he leaned in to kiss me. Against my lips, he whispered, “I’ll tell you what’s been on my mind then.”
He sat back and continued, “I’ve been thinking about where to take you on our second honeymoon. Since you said I should surprise you, I can’t tell you what I’ve decided. So even if you didn’t want mystery, you’re going to get it for the next month.”
I pushed him away and laughed. “You’re too much, Tristan Stone!”
“And I love you, Nina Stone,” he said in return.
That earned him a pretend pout. “I love you, too. For what it’s worth, I don’t like mysteries as much as I thought I did, so you can tell me where you’ve decided we should go on our honeymoon.”
Shaking his head, he grinned at me in that adorable way like he always did when he had a secret he refused to tell me. “Nope. You said I should surprise you, so that’s exactly what it will be. A surprise.”
“Even though I’ve changed my mind?” I asked, giving him my best wide-eyed look basically begging for him to tell me where he’d decided to go.
He pressed his forehead to mine. “Even though you’ve changed your mind.”
I loved whenever he did that forehead thing of his. It never failed to make me smile when he looked into my eyes like that and said something cute or sexy.
“You’re lucky I love you, Tristan, or I’d be angry.”
Cradling my face, he tilted his head and kissed me softly but insistently, like I was something he cherished more than he could put into words. “I know how lucky I am. I realized that fact even more in the past few days.”
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach with that kiss, and now I wanted more than just a mere taste of my husband. Sliding my hands down the front of his shirt, I started with the first button and began undressing him.
“Speaking of lucky, I think we should pursue that right now,” I said as I moved down to the second and third buttons on his dress shirt.
“Are you sure you feel up to that?” he asked, every word weighted down with worry.
I looked up at him and smiled as I unbuttoned the final button at the bottom of his shirt. “I feel more than up to it. How about you?”
Moving my hands under his shirt, I pushed it down over his muscular shoulders and slid my hands down to the front of his pants. For as worried as he may have been, Tristan clearly was up to it, too.
“I’m feeling like a certain part of you is ready to go,” I said with a grin before biting my lower lip.
I’d had enough of feeling like an invalid. I wanted to feel like a woman again.
He gave me a wicked grin. “All of me is ready to go.”
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled him to me as he hastily pushed his pants down his legs. His skin smelled incredible, like a tantalizing mixture of my favorite cologne he wore with the hint of vanilla and the clean scent of soap, and I nuzzled just beneath his
ear to arouse him even more.
“You know that drives me nuts,” he moaned as he kicked his pants and boxer briefs away from the bed.
I looked up and nodded. “I know. That’s why I do it.”
“Then turnabout is fair play,” he mumbled before pulling the covers back.
Before I could remind him how much I loved the boy shorts I was wearing to bed, he tugged roughly and pulled them down my legs and off my body. I opened my mouth to protest, but he kissed me hard so I couldn’t say a word.
I expected him to take my T-shirt off, but instead, he slid down my body and gently pushed on my knees to open my legs. Looking up at me with a devilish grin, he said, “Now we get to turnabout.”
Once more, I started to say something to play along with him, but it was no use. The first touch of his tongue to my clit made speaking impossible as waves of pleasure rolled through me. Tristan had a way of making my body come alive like no other man ever could, and he had a special talent with his mouth.
My head dropped back onto the pillow, and I arched my back to enjoy every sensual drag of his tongue over my sensitive skin. One second, he’d flick the tip of it, and then the next, he’d slowly slide up the full length of my pussy. The mixture of fast and slow drove me wild, and I pressed on the back of his head to urge him to stay right where he was.
“Oh…God, that feels so good…” I moaned as he returned to focusing on my clit.
But he had more in store for me.
A second later, he slid his finger into me and hooked the end of it to press on that spot that never failed to send me over the edge. I didn’t know why he wanted to make me come so quickly tonight, but I didn’t have time to think about it before my orgasm raced through my body.
I took a deep breath in and held it there as ribbons of pleasure pulsed through me. Tristan hummed his own pleasure against my tender skin and then gave my pussy one final lick before lifting his head to look up at me.
“Feel good? Now that the first course is finished, I’m ready for the next one. You?” he asked as he slid up my body to kiss me.
My answer came in the form of wrapping my legs around his waist and pushing my heels into the small of his back. He understood completely, and a second later, he slowly slid into me as he stared down into my eyes with a look of need that nearly overwhelmed me. I’d never been able to see that in Tristan without wanting him, and now was no exception.
