chapter twenty

 

Her nightly text messages have given me hope, but waiting for Vivian to get back is like a rare form of torture.

That first night was the confession about her nickname. Another night she confessed she wishes she’d spent some time making her apartment feel more like a home even though it’s a temporary living situation. She also confessed out of the clear blue she isn’t sure she really loves her job anymore. She was honest with me when she said it was a contributing factor to her failed marriage, but she also stressed it wasn’t the only factor.

And then there was the night she told me she tried white wine just to change things up, but she’ll always prefer the red. That right there was a sign to me she’s ready to move on from her past. She gave it a try, but she’s ultimately the same person on the inside. The commitment type, not the one fun night type.

Every text she sends pushes me deeper in love with her to the point that she’s all I think about. And that’s why I’ve been using every spare moment I have to work on an epic surprise for when she gets back.

I thought about heading to Chula Vista to visit her, but I know she’s working day and night. She texts me right before bed, we go back and forth for five or ten minutes, and that’s it. I want to see her, but I’m trying to give her the space she needs.

So instead of skipping town for the weekend to see her, I busy myself with tasks like looking at houses for sale on the beach and finding Christmas gifts for my family members who already have everything they could possibly ever want—or have enough money to buy it themselves.

My realtor is disappointed when I don’t put any offers in, but something holds me back. Maybe I want Vivian’s opinion, or maybe I’m not completely sure I’m ready to buy a house here yet. It’s just so...permanent. Buying a house is admitting I failed in my business ventures with my friends, and I’m not ready for that.

Once I’ve got a decent handle on gifts for my family members, I head in search of a particular store. I know exactly what I want to get for Vivian, but there’s just one little problem. I don’t know what it’s called.

I find some chain beauty store, and one of the girls working there swarms me the second I walk through the doors.

“Can I help you find something?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say. “I need to smell every single one of your fragrances that has a light rose scent.”

She gives me a strange look. “A light rose scent?”

“It’s for the woman I love,” I explain. “I’ll know it when I smell it, but I don’t know the name of it.”

Her eyes soften. “Cherise!” she yells across the store. “Cherise is our fragrance expert. If anyone can help you find it, it’s her.”

Cherise saunters over, and after the first girl explains my situation and hands me off to Cherise, we head over toward the fragrance center.

She sprays the first scent on a card, and I sniff it. I wrinkle my nose. “Too musky.”

She hands me another one.

“Too flowery. It’s much lighter.”

We go through several more before we find a bingo. I recognize it the very second the soft rose notes hit my nose, and it’s Philosophy brand’s Amazing Grace.

“If you buy two bottles, you qualify for a free gift,” Cherise tells me, and since I’m obviously a sucker in this store, I clearly need the free gift. I grab two bottles along with the lotion and shower gel and head to the register.

My next stop is the Home Depot, and after a quick trip to Target, I head toward Santa Monica. Thanks to my brother and his connections, I’m about to pull off a huge surprise.

 

* * *

 

I look nervously out over the beach as I draw in calming breaths, only they don’t seem to be calming me. I take a sip of wine, but I only allow that one sip. I need to save some.

My heart races, my stomach flips, and my jaw clenches. I look inside the patio doors from my spot on the balcony as I survey my work, pleased with what I’ve accomplished. The sad Christmas tree in the corner is now lit with thousands of white lights and covered with silver, red, and green ornaments. Soft instrumental Christmas songs play from the speakers I brought with me. A few wrapped gifts sit under the tree, and the same white lights shine through garland stretching across the mantle and in the huge red poinsettia plants and smaller fake pine trees decorating the hearth.

The lights twine around various items littering the kitchen table, across the way to the counter, and over to the coffee table in the family room. The second she walks in the doors, she’ll see the lobster and the Boston Baked Beans, the first souvenirs I bought her in Massachusetts, with a note:

The tour began in Mansfield, Massachusetts, and I found myself thinking of you every second of every day...but that was no different from usual. You texted me about the daily report, but then you asked about the tour. The fact that you cared enough to ask told me we were far from over even though we had a lot to overcome.

After Massachusetts, we moved onto New York.

The note guides her to the next souvenir, the I-heart-N-Y coffee cup and a deck of cards from Madison Square Garden. All eighteen souvenirs are laid out chronologically, each with its own note. Some have details about what I was thinking or feeling about her during that particular tour stop, while others share anecdotes from the road.

She texted me this morning that she’ll be home by seven. I asked her if I could bring her dinner, and she said yes. As she follows the path of the tour, she’ll eventually wind up on her balcony, where she’ll find me waiting with a bottle of her favorite red wine, two glasses, and dinner, a maple-glazed salmon with risotto.

It’s a Friday night four days before Christmas, and I’ve got nothing but time.

It’s a little before seven when I hear the dead bolt on her front door slide. I step back into the shadows on the patio, but I can still see her face when the door opens and her eyes fall on my Christmas surprise. She gasps and brings a hand up to her chest. I watch as tears fill her eyes when she sees the trees and the lights. She abandons her suitcase then slowly eases the door shut behind her without taking her eyes off the Christmas wonderland in her apartment.

I can’t take it. I can’t stay out here and not hold her in my arms.

Screw the surprise. I open the patio door and rush inside. I stop just before I get to her, and irrational fear beats through my chest. Did I go too far? Is this overwhelming? Is she ready for this?

Her eyes meet mine, and she brushes one of her tears away. “You did all this?” she asks softly.

My lips tip up in a smile.

“For me?”

I nod. “For you.”

She rushes at me and throws her arms around my waist, and I chuckle as I breathe in her scent and press a gentle kiss to the top of her head while she squeezes me.

I tighten my hold around her, afraid to let go and afraid the moment will disappear.

She backs up a little to look me in the eye, and I see all the warmth and love I feel reflected back at me. I let go of her to cup her delicate neck with my big hand. The skin there is cool and porcelain, and as I keep her close with one arm around her back and the other hand on her neck, I lean my face in closer to hers. We don’t kiss at first, not right away, but our eyes meet and we dance around the kiss. She tilts her head back and I tilt mine forward, and then she tilts hers forward and I tilt mine back. We’re so close I feel the desperation set in as I try my hardest not to rush this. My cock presses with an ache against my jeans, and instead of pushing my hips toward hers as the animal instinct inside me is telling me to do, I tease her a little as I run my nose along hers. She leans up and closes her eyes as our lips finally connect.

It’s not the battle and crash of lips and tongues like on the beach in Miami. This one’s different. It’s love. It’s reverence. It’s soft and subtle, like her, but it still screams the passionate story of us.

I don’t deepen the kiss, don’t press my tongue against her lips to beg for entrance. I simply hold her and allow my lips to move in time with hers. She tightens her grip first, and then her tongue makes the first move into my mouth, and that’s when I allow myself to let go. I kiss her with the desperation of a man parted from the woman he loves for far too long. I kiss her with hunger, with desire, with all the pent-up passion I’ve stored away in our time apart.

I loved her before she dropped the bomb that she was married. I never stopped, and now as I hold her in my arms and kiss her after all this time apart, I know I never will.

We both pant for a second to catch our breath when she breaks the kiss first. I’m still holding her close to me when I ask, “Was ten days long enough?” I’m careful to keep the desperation I feel out of my tone.

Her swollen lips tip up and her eyes darken with something sensual and lusty. “I think it was a little too long.”

I chuckle.

“How’d you even get in here?” she asks as she pulls out of my arms and walks back to the kitchen table.

“I have my ways.”

She shakes her head with a giggle as she fingers the first note. “I’m going to have to talk to management about tightening up security.”

I chuckle. “I had this whole thing planned out where you’d follow all my notes and end up out on the patio. But then you walked in and I couldn’t stop myself from ruining the surprise.”

“It’s not ruined.” She gestures around her apartment lit with the glow of Christmas lights. “I’m definitely surprised.” She picks up the lobster and her brows furrow with an unasked question as she looks at me.

“I picked up a few things for you when I was on tour with Vail.”

She laughs as her eyes start to follow the path of souvenirs. “Oh my God,” she says when they fall on the stuffed flamingo a few feet away from her.

“Read the notes,” I say.

She picks up the first one from Massachusetts and then proceeds to follow the path. She grins at some, seems to get emotional at others, and holds up each souvenir to inspect it with a soft smile. “I can’t believe you did all this for me,” she says once she picks up the fresh bouquet of California poppies sitting in the middle of her patio table next to our salmon dishes that are probably cold by now. Maybe I didn’t think this through. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

I step over to her and take her in my arms. It’s dark outside, but the glowing lights from inside light up the patio and the moon lights up the ocean just across the street to my left. If I listen closely, I can hear the waves crashing against the shore, and it sets the perfect soundtrack for this conversation. “It was my way of showing you I thought of you every second we were apart. I mean it, Viv.”

Her expression warms at my use of the nickname she always yelled at me for using.

“This is it for me,” I say. “You’re it. It came when I wasn’t expecting it with someone I never expected it with, but I love you in a way I’ve never felt before. I want to be the one to make you smile every day. There’s no one in this entire world I’d rather laugh with, fight with, make up with, work with, travel with, and make love with than you.”

She swipes at a stray tear and heaves out a breath. “I want that, too. I want it so bad, and I never thought we could have it. I’ve wanted it since I realized I didn’t really hate you in Miami, but there was just so much in our way.”

“Our path is clear now, Viv.”

Her eyes sparkle with unshed emotion as she looks up at me. “I love you, Brian. I want to give us a try.”

My smile widens. “Yeah?”

She nods. “Yeah,” she says softly. She tilts her face back and I kiss her again, really kiss her, and as our tongues dance together and my arms hold her tightly against me, my broken heart suddenly feels whole again.

She cuts our kiss off abruptly and backs up a step as she tries to regain control of her breath. My heart drops a little as this is where I expect her to say she needs me to slow down, that we’re barely out of the gate yet and she’s not ready for all of this. I don’t know if I can take it. My dick aches painfully for release, my arms ache without her in them, my chest aches not knowing where this is all leading.

I beat her to the punch in some effort to try to make her feel comfortable. “Do you want to take things slow?”

She glances up at me from lowered lashes, her eyes sparking with the reflection of the Christmas lights inside. She shakes her head slowly and seductively. “I don’t want to go slow.”

God, I love her.

“I’ve been missing out on feeling alive for over ten years. I need you to show me what I’ve been missing.”

That I can do.

I don’t need to ask twice. I don’t ask for confirmation. I simply spring into action.

“Take me to your bedroom,” I demand softly.

She grabs for my hand and clutches it firmly in her own. She leads me through the patio doors, past the room lit with Christmas surprises, and down the hall. When we get to the last door on the left, just before she turns the knob, I say, “I have one last surprise.”

She opens the door to the last surprise. Huge bouquets of red roses cover every available surface.

Her eyes widen in surprise. “How did you know red roses are my favorite?”

I smile. “You once told me red is your favorite color, and you always smell like roses. They reminded me of you.”

She glances around the room as she inspects each bouquet from where she stands. “There are so many.”

“One hundred ninety-eight. One for each day I’ve known you. One for each day that represents all the time we’ve already wasted.”

“But how’d you know we’d end up in here?” She narrows her eyes at me, and I laugh.

“I didn’t. I figured if we didn’t, you’d find them eventually, and if we did, it would kick the romance up a notch.”

She shakes her head. “God, this is all I’ve ever wanted. A man who cares about me, who notices the little details like my perfume or my favorite color, who’s willing to wait for me while I go to a job in Chula Vista and is excited when I come home. Not just someone like that, though. You. It always had to be you.”

I reach out for her and wrap my hand around her neck. I pull her closer to me and rest my forehead against hers. “It always had to be you for me, too.”

“I have something for you,” she says softly. She moves away from me and disappears into her closet. I miss her the second she’s out of my orbit. When she returns, she’s holding a small notebook. It’s gold on the outside and looks to be well-worn.

She hands it to me then eyes me nervously.

“What’s this?” I ask as I look down at the front of the notebook.

“One hundred ninety-eight journal entries.”

My eyes flick from the journal up to hers.

“I happened to bring a new journal with me the day I started at FDB,” she says as she wrings her hands together, “and even after I left Vegas, I kept writing about you. About my feelings. About my divorce. About how much I needed you back. It’s everything I wanted to say to you for six long months but couldn’t. It’s all the things my lawyer told me not to say, so I wrote them down instead. It was my way of talking to you even when we were apart. And if you read it from the beginning, you can see the exact day I fell in love with you and how much stronger that love got in the time we were apart.”

An unfamiliar lump of emotion forms in my throat. “One hundred ninety-eight days?” I say stupidly.

She nods. “I needed a place to talk about my feelings. I thought about you every moment we were apart. I tried to figure out how we could work it out, and I hoped against hope you’d still be waiting on the other side of my divorce. And you even waited a little longer. For me. And that just tells me how much I need you in my—”

I cut her off when I set the journal on the dresser beside me then press my lips to hers. She stands surprised for a beat, but she takes control as she deepens our kiss, opening her mouth and brushing her tongue to mine, and then she steps back and pulls my shirt over my head.

“Oh, God, yes,” she whispers, and her fingertips trace every muscle and ridge of my abdomen. She teases me by tracing a line from my stomach down to the top of my pants. She hooks her finger into them and yanks me closer, and I take the opportunity to rip her shirt over her head and unhook her bra.

“Fuck yes,” I mutter when her perky breasts are free of the bra. I grab them both in my hands and massage them before I drag my fingertips to her nipples and give them a light twist. She catches her bottom lip between her teeth like she’s trying not to scream out, but I won’t have that.

I lean down to kiss her, forcing her to free the lip, and I trail my lips down her neck and between her breasts, leaving kisses along the way. I kiss my way over to her nipple before I suck it into my mouth, and when I give it a good, hard suck that ends with a loud pop as I let it go, she cries out with the pleasure.

My hands move faster than my brain as one grabs the breast I’m not kissing and the other trails down to feel her over her jeans. I’m moving on pure carnal instinct at this point as the rush of lust takes over and the only sounds I comprehend are her cries and moans mixed with the thundering beat of my own heart. I feel it rushing in my head, pounding in my cock, rattling in my chest.

As my hands explore her body, I find she’s hot with need. I’m no better.

Fuck, I’ve been hot with need for months now.

My lips go back to hers and I dip both my hands into the back of her jeans and squeeze her soft, supple ass. She yelps a little but doesn’t stop kissing me. The kiss turns more urgent. Her nails claw at my back and then move around to the front as she pops the button of my jeans before lowering the zipper. We’re moving fast—maybe too fast—but isn’t that just us? We move too slow, and then we move too fast, and somehow it’s all the perfect speed for what we are.

She reaches into my boxer briefs and squeezes her fist around my cock. I hiss in pleasure before I take a step back. “Take off your pants and lie on the bed.”

She puts both her hands on her hips and pins me with a glare. “Make me.”

My lips curl into a wicked smile. So that’s how she wants to play it? I’m game.

I lift her easily into my arms and toss her on her own bed. As she lands with a soft bounce and a definite smile, I’m thankful I skipped the rose petals. They were on my agenda, and I ultimately decided I didn’t know if she had a white comforter and they’d stain once I got her rolling all over them.

I charge toward her and yank her jeans down her legs without even undoing the button. I pull her panties with them so she’s lying completely naked on the bed. I want to go slower, I want to savor this. I’m a little gun shy after the last time we did this. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop the second we’re done, so I want to prolong the act as long as I can.

But she said she doesn’t want slow, and I’m horny as fuck, so I don’t go slow.

I pounce between her legs and dive face first into her pussy.

“Holy shit,” she murmurs as I flatten my tongue against her clit. I chuckle against her body at the very first time I’ve ever heard her say the word shit. The chuckle must do something wild to her because she bucks her hips toward my mouth. I reach a finger up and slide it into her wet warmth. I thrust my finger in and out, and then I add a second one for good measure. She moans out a string of unintelligible sounds that only spur me on to keep doing exactly what I’m doing because clearly it’s working.

Her legs are spread wide to accommodate me between them, but as her hole begins to tighten around my fingers, her knees come together quickly so they’re practically earmuffs squeezing the sides of my head. She cries out, “Yes yes yes yes yes,” over and over as her entire body tightens and then contracts with pulsing waves of her orgasm. Her eyes are squeezed shut and one of her hands pulls at my hair while the other clutches the sheet beside her.

I don’t let up on her as I continue to drive my fingers in with punishing thrusts while my tongue works her clit through her orgasm. When she finally relaxes back, she offers a little giggle as a signal for me to give her a second to compose herself.

I sit up on my knees, my erection pointing straight up toward the ceiling as I take in the woman on the bed in front of me.

Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is a wild, sexy nest around her. Her eyes are hooded and one of her hands still clutches the sheet, like she hasn’t quite fully relaxed yet, but the smile that plays at her lips tells me she’s calm and satisfied.

It’s the single goddamn sexiest sight I’ve ever seen in my life.

She exhales a long, contented sigh, and I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Wow,” she says softly.

I raise a brow at her. “You’re not kidding. That was...”

“Fantastic,” she says at the same time I say, “Delicious.”

We both chuckle, and then her eyes drift down to my steel erection.

“I want that,” she says, nodding toward my dick, “in here.” She points to the very wet pussy I just had the pleasure of tasting.

“I want this in there, too,” I say. I growl as I lean forward and plant a kiss on her mouth. She moans as she wraps her legs around me, and then she starts to urge me closer with her feet on my ass.

I line up my dick with her cunt and push in slowly. She’s tight like last time, but the sensation is so totally different without a condom. It’s smooth and wet and perfect.

“Don’t go slow,” she demands, and then I give the woman what she wants.

I hammer away at her from the top, and then I flip the two of us over so she’s on top. Fuck, I’m gonna fucking lose it as I watch her tits bounce inches away from my face. It’s like our bodies were made to do this with only each other as we find the perfect rhythm together. Just when I feel myself getting close, I flip us back over so I’m on top again. It’s too hard to pull out when she’s on top. I feel her start to clench all around me as I drive into her, our mouths hungrily seeking the other’s as we kiss our way into bliss. When she tightens like she did minutes ago with my mouth on her, the sensation is too good. My balls leap up and I feel myself starting to let go just as her second orgasm starts to wane. I pull out of her just in time and jerk my dick until I come.

I collapse on the bed beside her as we both struggle to catch our breath. Eventually she leans up onto her elbows, her gorgeous breasts jiggling in the process, and lifts her face up to indicate I should kiss her. I do.

“This is everything,” she says softly against my mouth, and I fall a little more in love with her.