Scott glanced over his shoulder as Tori wandered out into the living room in a tank top and panties. Damn, she was fucking fine.
“Good morning, pretty. I like your outfit.” He turned back to the stove and flipped the bacon in the pan as it sizzled. “Sleep well?”
She nodded, trailing her finger along the wall as she walked over to the entry to the kitchen. “Better than I’ve slept in a long time.”
“Sit. I’ll get you some coffee while I finish breakfast.”
She reached out for the high-top, wooden island that separated her kitchen from her living area and took a stool.
Scott sat her coffee in front of her. “A shit ton of creamer, right?”
She smiled and nodded. “You know how I like it.” She slid her hand across the bar and palmed the mug.
“So,” Scott smirked. “I broke into your office and left a dozen roses on your desk that will probably be dead by Monday morning.”
Tori practically choked on her coffee. “You what?” she sputtered, placing the mug on the counter. “You broke into the Smithsonian?”
“Yeah, that was fun.” He grinned.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I didn’t actually break in,” he admitted. “I just walked in—well, kind of. We’ll circle back round to that story in a bit.” Scott chuckled as he cracked two eggs into the pan.
Something in her expression softened. “Thank you for the roses. That was very sweet of you. Although, I don’t feel that I deserve them. The things I said to you…”
“We both said things we shouldn’t have.” His voice cracked, betraying him. “What happened to you was…” My fault. He should have fought for her heart sooner. He took time for granted, assuming one day, they’d get there. He had so many regrets. He sucked in a breath, “…an accident,” he finished. “I had no business branding you with a scarlet letter. I was no better than the media hounding you.”
“Speaking of that…” Tori grimaced.
“Don’t worry about any of that. I paid a visit to your friend Hunter, or Connor. He won’t be printing anything.”
Tori buried her face in her hands. “Please tell me you didn’t murder him.”
Scott grinned. “I only choked him a little.”
“I just want you to know, I may be a slut, but I’m a slut with standards. I never was with Nathaniel before the separation. I’d just met him that night and we started flirting.”
“So, you never fucked him?”
“I never said that…” Tori bit her lip. “We may have gone to my office for a bit…”
Scott let out a displeased grunt.
He flipped the eggs onto her plate and placed it in front of her. “Fried eggs at two o’ clock, bacon at seven, and toast at ten, fork is to the right of the plate.”
“Thanks.”
He sat next to her at the counter. It was quiet for a few moments while he broke up his yolks with the fork. “You fucked him in your office?” Scott said curiously. “You dirty bird.” He jabbed her in the arm playfully.
“You’re breaking the rules.” She bit into her food.
He dropped his fork on his plate and looked at the cute smirk on her face as she nibbled on a piece of bacon. Acid bubbled in the pit of his stomach thinking about Nathaniel in her office, pulling off her dress, touching her smooth skin—with their photo sitting on her desk right behind that action. “Maybe the rules need to change. I’m tired of sharing you. Like you said last night, I know what I want, and I want you.”
He was done waiting. He was done playing it safe. It was time to lay all the cards on the table. He loved her, and he wasn’t about to let her slip through his fingers ever again.
Tori gulped down her bite of bacon and sat there quietly. He grew tired of waiting on her response. “Do you have nothing to say?”
Tori stood, rinsed her plate, and placed it in the dishwasher. She turned around and faced his direction. “What do you want, Scott? The white picket fence in the suburbs and two point five kids and the dog?” She laughed nervously and shook her head. “You know that’s not us. It never has been.”
“Yes, because you’ve always kept me at arm’s length, running whenever we get too close, protecting yourself behind all those walls built of one-night stands,” he bit back.
“As if you’ve ever been any better.” She crossed her arms.
“Who, me?” He laughed and walked over to her. “There have been some other women.” He paused when he saw the oh really frown on her face. “Ok, a lot of other women, but there’s only one Tori.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “No chick could ever blow my mind like you do.”
“You mean blow you?” Her mouth quirked up.
“Well, that, too.” He chuckled and put his arms around her. “Tori, neither of us have settled down with anyone else, and I think, deep down, we both know the reason why. Why do we continue this silly charade when we both know what we mean to each other? You said it yourself last night, you know.”
He put his chin on her head. He could feel her heart pounding rapidly against his own chest. Finally, she pulled back from his embrace.
“Ok, so let’s say we try that. Let’s get the house in the burbs, except make the dog a guide dog, and then you leave me there for months at a time, worried sick about you, to care for the kids that we’ll probably never have!”
Tears filled her eyes. “That was a lot in one sentence.” He didn’t know what to address first. “First, I’m still ironing out the details, but I’ve been planning on transitioning to working primarily out of the DC area as more of an administrative role. I’ll have occasional field work, but nothing near what I’m doing right now. I’m getting too tired of traveling so much,” he fed her the lie, praying she’d buy it.
He continued. “Next, I don’t care that you’re blind. I mean, I care, but it doesn’t bother me… Oh, fuck. You know what I mean. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change a damn thing about how I feel about you.” He grabbed her hands and squeezed them, hoping she understood what he was saying. “You’re still Tori.”
“Third,” he chose his words carefully to not scare her off. “We can figure out all the other shit. I mean, I said heck, let’s do this for real, not hey, let’s get married and start a family. I—”
“You don’t get it, Scott. I wasn’t saying let’s get married and have kids, but there’s something you need to know.” Her face twisted as she chewed on her nail.
“What? You don’t want kids?” His heart broke. He really did want a family someday. “Is it because you're blind? Because there’s no reason to let that—”
“Scott.” She held up her hand. “I found out several weeks ago I was pregnant.” She breathed deeply. “It was yours.” She walked out of the kitchen, reached for the sofa, and flopped down. “I…”
Was? Scott sucked in a breath, trying to not be angry and hear her out, but he could feel himself getting heated. The Oxy, the Xanax, it all added up now. So that’s what Keith was hiding. He boiled inside. “You terminated it? Our child? Without even talking to me?”
She shook her head quickly. “God, no. Let me finish, dammit! I couldn’t have done that. Not something that was part me and part you. I lost it, Scott.” Her voice thinned, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
His anger quickly dissolved into sorrow.
She lost our child. We could have had a baby.
He braced to the counter as the weight of that hit him. “How? What happened?”
“It was a tubal pregnancy. Nothing could save it. I had to have surgery to take care of it, but they found more damage than expected.” He could tell she didn’t want to go into detail. “My point is, Scott…it may be a long shot for me to get pregnant again.” She grabbed a pillow and curled it into her chest and rested her chin on it.
He came and sat next to her. “Why didn’t you tell me, Tori?” A hollow ache filled his chest, and his eyes clouded with moisture.
“Because your job is hard, and dangerous. The last thing you need to do is worry about me.” Tori wiped her nose.
“But Tori, you didn’t even give me the opportunity to be there for you, to grieve with you.” Just like everything she’d gone through this past year. “That was my child, too.” Scott swallowed the lump in his throat.
“It all happened so fast.” She tugged at her lip. “I didn’t want you to grieve or worry about me. I need you to stay focused out there so you can come home,” she reluctantly admitted. “Even if you do come back in pieces.” She tapped his prosthetic with her knuckles.
He snorted a wry laugh and put his arm around her, swallowing his grief to deal with later. “So, you do like me.”
“I suppose I always have.” She sighed in defeat.
“What do you say?” he asked. “No more one-night stands. No more friends with benefits.”
“Scott Harris, are you asking me to go steady?” she said with a silly sing-song tone. “Shouldn’t we do this over a shared milkshake at the soda shop?”
He chuckled. “You goof.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Seriously, me and you. Let’s do this.”
“You know I’m no damn good for you, right?”
“I’m aware.” He grinned. He didn’t care.
“This could end in disaster.”
He was willing to take that risk. “Or it could be the best thing either of us ever had.”
“Me and you, huh?” Tori smirked, tugging at her lip.
“Ok, me, you, and the occasional threesome with the housekeeper,” Scott teased.
She let out an obnoxious snort. “Ok, I’ll hang up my whore hat and only wear it for you if you can iron out those details and be around more often. I mean, I need to get wildly fucked at least once a week, you know.”
He roared in laughter. “You better bet on more than once a week, babe.” He pulled her down quickly on the sofa and pounced on top of her. She squealed playfully.
He thought about that for a minute as he kissed her. “Once a week? Is that how often you get laid?” He did the math, over ten years, that would be… “Are you telling me you’ve fucked over five hundred guys? Is that your number?” He knew full well it couldn’t possibly be.
Tori made a disgusted face and snorted. “Oh, lord, that’s nasty. I wouldn’t allow you to ever touch me if that was my number. I wouldn’t even touch myself.” She covered her mouth, giggling.
They spent the entire weekend in bed, making love—the rest of the world shut out from their private sanctuary. It. Was. Glorious. The sunlight beamed through the large windows in Tori’s bedroom, and Scott rolled over and smiled, watching Tori get dressed for work. He hated to see her go.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” he yawned.
She jumped a little. “Oh wow. You startled me,” she said as she put on a pair of tall, black high heels. She looked amazing in her little black skirt and grey top, but Scott couldn’t help but be concerned about her in those stilettos. “Good morning.”
“You heading to work? In those shoes?”
“Yes, and yes.” Tori sighed. “Don’t even try to convince me otherwise. I’ll have an Uber here in ten minutes, not too much walking, so it’s a perfect excuse for me to wear these babies.” She stood on one foot and twirled her ankle.
“Why don’t I roll with you?” Scott suggested. “We could grab some coffee on the way.”
“What, you haven’t had enough of me this weekend?” Tori smirked.
“I can never get enough of you.”
“Scott, I’ll be late. Stop smothering me. Not to mention, you need to stay off your leg.”
They’d gone for a jog the day before, and with the new prosthetic and humidity, it had taken a toll on his skin.
“Eh, it’s fine. With the vacuum suspension, I can still wear it, it’s no biggie.”
“Is it worth the risk of getting an infection?”
“Tori, I know how to take care of my damn leg.”
“And I’m safe taking an Uber. You do realize the double standard you’ve got going here, right?”
He ignored her comment. “I think it’s time to buy that sweet Jeep I’ve always wanted; it will look even better with a hot blonde in the front seat. We can carpool to work,” he rattled on. “I’m thinking gunmetal black with a lift, of course… Oh, and I was thinking about adding custom—”
“Scott.” Her crossed arms and frown told him she could care less about how he wanted to trick out a jeep. “What are you going to do, drive to Arlington each day so you can take me to work?” She placed her hand on her hip. “I suppose it’s easy to forget where your condo is since you’ve barely been there the past five years.”
It didn’t make sense for them to have two places when they would most likely always be sleeping over at one place or the other. Moving in together was a huge leap forward, but they had known each other for over a decade now.
We technically have lived together before.
He thought for a moment how to answer her. His condo was much larger, but she was used to things in Arlington, and with her blindness, he wouldn’t want to take her away from her familiar surroundings.
“I’ll let my place go and move in here, then we can eventually find something nearby of our own.” He watched her carefully for her reaction, praying he didn’t send her running in those damn dangerous shoes.
She sucked in a breath, then a cool look washed across her face as she tried to hide her panic. She smirked, crossed her arms, and walked over to the bed. “I don’t believe I’ve invited you to move in with me.” She straddled him.
God, she smells amazing. His hands drifted up the back of her skirt, feeling her smooth skin. She leaned into him. Her soft lips showered sweet kisses on his neck as she rubbed her hands across his chest. “That’s awfully presumptuous of you,” she whispered seductively.
His cock grew hard, straining against her. She pecked him quick on the lips. “I gotta go.” She pulled back quickly, stood, and gave him a wide grin.
“Oh, that’s just cruel,” he whined as she walked to the door.
“We can fuck after work!”
“What does that mean?” he shouted. “Is that a yes?”
“That means ask me before you plan to move in with me!” She waived her hand behind her. “Go ahead and list your condo, crazy man. Let’s shack up and live in sin.” He high-fived himself internally, grabbed his crutches, swung over to the balcony where he looked down and watched her safely get in the car.
“Ok, spill it,” Keith said between mouthfuls of food. Tori could hear it in Keith’s voice; he was dying.
“Scott flew into town on Friday and came looking for me, showed up at the museum, which you know, then when he couldn’t find me at home, he went to Hunters house…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all that. Now get to the good stuff,” he gasped in his high-pitched voice. “Please tell me how he kicked this guy’s ass in a fit of hot, sweaty man rage and then carried you off to bed where you had the most amazing sex ever. Then and there, he professed his undying love for you and promised never to leave your side again.”
“Are you going to tell the story, or am I?” Tori laughed. “It wasn’t quite like that, but you aren’t too far off.” Tori brought him up to speed on the rest of the weekend.
“So, what now?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Well, we’re headed to Florida this weekend.”
“I know that. I mean, are we wedding dress shopping yet?”
“Good grief,” she groaned.
“Will you take his last name, stay Johnson, or hyphenate?” Keith asked with a mouthful. “Normally, I’d say keep your name, but after the government sex scandal, I think getting rid of Johnson is the way to go.”
“It’s been two days, Keith!”
“It’s been ten years, Vic!”
“It’s crazy enough we are moving in together.” She bit her lip.
I’m the blind girl on a cliff about to jump, and I have no idea what’s in front of me. Please, God, don’t let me crash into the rocks. She swallowed a lump in her throat.
“How so? Everyone that knows you two knew this was coming someday. I saw it years ago, when you both were shacking up at my place, so you have technically lived together before. Now, you just don’t have me as the third wheel.”
She feared that Scott was only doing this out of obligation—the need to protect and take care of her. She didn’t want his pity. If that was his reason, it would only be a matter of time before he grew weary of it and resented her.
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m afraid him living with me…that it’ll become tiresome and inconvenient. I mean, I get tired of living with myself.”
Keith dropped his fork and let out a wistful sigh. “Ok, you got dealt a shitty hand in life, let’s face it. But this is Scott we’re talking about.”
“Exactly. It’s fun, sexy, and romantic for a wild fuck every so often, but how long until he realizes my day-to-day routine is tedious and not nearly as hot?”
“Opposed to him popping his leg off at night?” He cackled. “You forget he’s got issues of his own, dear.”
“Ok, you have a point there.” She recalled the problems Scott had the night before with his prosthetic. He came with a trunk load of baggage, as well.
“Ok, about this dress… This needs to happen soon, because my soul will be crushed if I never get to put your gorgeous ass into an ivory ball gown.”
“Ivory?”
“Oh, sweetie, everyone knows you can’t wear white.” He reached out and patted her hand.
They erupted in laughter.