CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Macy
I woke to the strange scent of toast, burning. I blinked and sniffed. The smell wove with my dreams, distantly, and I wondered if the house was on fire. Then I sat up.
Memory flooded back to me and, with it, a slow joy. I was in bed, where Maddox had been with me. I could see his clothes, dotted about on my bedroom carpet. He had left the sheets piled up on the one side, and had recently showered—I could smell the clean, fresh scent of soap drifting from the bathroom indistinctly.
“Maddox?” I called. I slid my legs to the edge of the bed, about to go and investigate, when he appeared in the doorway with a big grin on his face.
“Breakfast is almost ready,” he said with a smile.
I stared at him. He was wearing his shirt and underwear, his long, strong legs bare below the waist. His hair was fresh washed and just drying on the top of his head and his brown eyes shone. There was a smell of coffee and toast around him and he looked inordinately pleased with himself.
“Maddox!” I giggled. “Thank you, my dear.”
He blushed. “Of course I want to spoil you. Will you have it in bed or in the kitchen?”
I smiled, pretending to consider my options. “Well, if you’re joining me, I can think of one strong reason to have it right where I am.”
He chuckled. “I see where you’re going with that line of thinking, Ms. Trent. I like the way you think.”
I giggled, feeling so happy. Everything seemed so beautiful to me. I nodded. “Indeed.”
He went back to the kitchen and a moment later appeared with a tray I barely remembered I owned. On it he had arranged two coffee cups, two plates of egg and toast, and two sets of knives and forks. He smiled.
“Breakfast is here.”
“Mm,” I nodded. “Well, put it on the side table and come and join me.”
“I take that as an order.”
“I should hope so.”
He slid into bed beside me and we kissed. He took of the shirt and held me against him, and I twisted round so I could look into his eyes.
“Maddox,” I said softly. “I don’t know what to say.”
He smiled. He kissed me, holding me close. Then he leaned back and passed me a cup.
“Coffee?”
I giggled and took it. He had made it just the way I liked it, though I didn’t remember telling him it was one sugar and no milk. I guess he must have seen me drink it and noticed it. He was like that—thoughtful in ways no one else I’d ever met was thoughtful.
“Thank you,” I said.
“A pleasure.”
He said the word pleasure in a way that lit my body up and I tried to focus on the present moment, not letting my imagination go wild on me.
He set his own coffee aside on the table and passed me the tray with its plate of breakfast. He settled his own carefully on his knee. I smiled.
“This looks good.” I was impressed. I wasn’t particularly good at cooking things. His fried eggs looked considerably better than mine did.
“Thank you,” he said. He took an experimental taste and I did the same. I closed my eyes, chewing happily.
“These are good,” I said when I had swallowed. The yolk was well cooked, but not hard, the toast neither too pale nor burned.
He grinned and we ate in companionable silence for a while.
As I felt my blood sugar rising again—we had forgotten about dinner the night before, and I was amazed by how ravenous I was feeling by now—I found I wanted to talk.
“You have to work?” I asked, cutting off another slice of lightly buttered toast.
“In the afternoon,” he confessed. “But only for a few hours…it’s a gym training thing.”
“Oh.” I smiled. “Well, I have the day off. Which gives us a good few hours together, doesn’t it?”
He grinned. Set his coffee aside carefully. Kissed me slowly.
“It does,” he said when we moved apart. My body was already vibrating with longing and I could barely think straight for how much I wanted him. The breakfast had revived my desire along with the rest of me.
He smiled at me, that lovely, naughty smile that warmed his eyes.
“Well,” I said carefully, “I think we need to clear some things away.”
“Indeed,” he commented, taking the tray from me and carrying it and the plate from his lap across to my dressing table. He set them down carefully and then came back.
“There,” I said smiling. “Well, then.”
“Well then.”
He slid under the covers and reached for me and I reached for him. It didn’t take long before he was naked again and I was pressed against him, my fingers in his hair and my mouth firm on his.
I wanted him and I reveled in the chance to show him that, in the way I could stroke him and kiss him and make his body come alight under my touch.
We made love again, tenderly and slowly, his hands stroking me as my own hands explored him. I took him in my hand and then tenderly lowered myself onto him, smiling as he gasped beneath me, his body filling me and fulfilling me in ways that I had never known before.
In his arms, as we returned from the realms of wonder where we took each other, I lay and thought about how remarkable it was to be here, together, now. So much, and so little, had changed.
The way we were together was exactly as it always had been. Imperious and playful and gentle and funny. We responded to each other as we always had. But there was a new closeness between us. A mutual respect. And we had learned to trust, and matured in our needs too. There was a lot he’d learned since he was first with me; and not all of it was psychological.
I smiled, thinking of how completely satisfied I felt. He seemed to catch my thought, because he rolled over and smiled down at me.
“What were you thinking?”
I smiled up at him. “If you must know,” I said pompously, “I was thinking about how nice it would be to wake up every morning like this.”
He froze. He looked at me with utter wonderment on his face.
“You were? Macy,” he sighed. “Do you mean…”
I laughed. “Maddox,” I said with tears pouring down my cheeks, only this time they were happy tears, tears of joy and laughter and fulfillment. “When will you stop thinking that I want to be rid of you? You are positively exasperating sometimes!”
He chuckled. “Very well, Macy.”
“Very well?”
“I promise I’ll stop thinking you want to get rid of me. If you promise me something too.”
“What?” I asked suspiciously.
“That you’ll always tell the truth to me. Even if it’s that you want to be rid of me. I won’t stop trying to guess, if you don’t.”
I chuckled. I could see in his eyes that he was serious, though, and I could also see that it was really important to him. I sighed and cleared my throat.
“Yes, Maddox,” I said softly. “I will always tell the truth to you.”
He let out a long sigh. “Good. Thank you, Macy. And I promise the same.” He paused. “I promise I will always tell the truth to you. Absolutely always.”
I giggled. “No matter how bad?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
We lay together with his arm round my shoulder and my hand on his chest and together we watched the sun rise high over the buildings opposite, filling the room with light.
It was the first promise we made to each other.
Epilogue:
The weeks past in a kind of haze of wonder. We had promised to tell each other the truth—the whole truth—always. That was our first promise to each other, but it wasn’t to be the last.
We decided to get married.
Of course, that meant finally coming out of the haze of vagueness in which we had been hiding our renewed relationship, and telling our families. Telling my parents.
To my surprise, they took it very well.
“I always worried it wouldn’t last,” my mother said with a soft smile. “That the two of you would lose interest in each other. I can’t really say that, now, can I?”
I giggled and kissed her head, breathing her floral smell. “No,” I said with a smile. “No, you can’t.”
We both laughed.
My father looked surprisingly upset. He said it would have been the same for him no matter who I said I was marrying.
“I can’t really think anyone is worthy of you, my Macy,” he said. “But if you love this man, that’s another thing.”
“I do love him,” I said through a throat blocked with emotion. “I love him with all my heart.”
So that was that. The only person in the family who didn’t seem surprised was Cousin Grady.
“I always thought the two of you were right for each other,” he said with a big grin. “How is my old pal, Maddox?”
“Extremely well,” I said dryly.
He laughed. “Congratulations, Macy.”
We planned the wedding for the springtime. We would hold it on the estate, in the same place where, all those years ago, we had first met at that event we attended together. The baby in question, my cousin Morton’s child, was now a pretty ten-year-old girl, Grace. She was our flower girl.
It was a warm, sunny day in spring when I stood in that tent on the field on the estate just outside LA. There were arrangements of roses in the entrance, and the tables were laid out just the same as they had been for the christening, a decade ago.
I smelled the fragrance of roses, drifting up from my hands where I held the bouquet, standing under the trees outside, where we would make our vows.
The parson smiled at us and I smiled radiantly back. I was in love with everything that day—the guests, the parson, the trees and flowers and birds, flying high overhead. I was so, so happy.
“And do you, Macy Arlene Trent take thee Maddox Norman Jefferson to be thy lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death you do part?”
“I do.”
“And do you, Maddox Norman Jefferson, take thee Macy Arlene Trent to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold in sickness and in health, until death you do part?”
“I do.”
I let the sound of his words move through me, the certainty and surety, the strength.
Then we were kissing under a spring sky of perfect, cloudless blue.
After that, all the sorrow and confusion and lessons learned, we were man and wife. In truth.
We kissed.
As we drove off after the reception, my arms wrapped around Maddox, his body pressed close to mine, I felt a thrill of anticipation pass through me. Not just for our honeymoon, for which we’d decided to go to Thailand, but for the excitement of the future ahead of us.
It had already been decided that he’d move in with me. He had recently got together a group of his old football pals and other friends and they were starting their own security company. I had high hopes that it would take off extremely well. Being in charge of his own business suited him well.
I glanced at him where he sat beside me in the seat, his arm wrapped around me and my head nestled under his chin. Our legs rested next to each other and his hand was on my thigh, my hand over it. I could see the ring glistening on my finger in the light from the streetlamps outside. It reminded me that I was married now. To Maddox: we had the rest of our lives to spend together. With anyone else that might have been a daunting thought, but with him, it was exciting. I knew that whatever the future held, we would be able to overcome it. We trusted each other, after all. We loved each other. And I felt sure we could face anything, together.
After all, we’d overcome the many obstacles we’d built between us ourselves—his insecurity, my belief in his indifference—and that was no small thing. We had enough love and enough trust in one another, now, for anything. I was sure of it.
The End