Chapter Twelve
It was nearly eight before we went to bed. When I woke up later, I’d moved out of JC’s embrace, but I could still feel his presence next to me before I opened my eyes.
Then he was kissing my temple. “Good morning, sleeping beauty. Or should I say afternoon?”
My smile turned into a yawn as I rolled to nuzzle into him. “You’re here.”
“You thought I would sneak out?” He wrapped an arm around me, drawing me even closer.
“Mm,” I said, which was more of a response to the feel of his bare chest against my cheek than it was to his question. “I thought I might have dreamed you.”
“Nope.” He ran his fingers lazily up and down my back. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
I lay pressed against him like that, enjoying his warmth and musky scent while I wrestled off the last remaining remnants of sleep. If I had ever felt this relaxed and free in my life, I couldn’t remember it.
After a few minutes, I may not have been all the way awake, but my arousal was, and I found myself wondering if we had time for another round before I had to get up and shower. I shifted but couldn’t see the alarm clock behind me without moving out of his arms, and I wasn’t doing that.
Instead, I tilted my head up and kissed the underside of his jaw. “What time is it? Have you been awake long?”
“Almost four.” His throat vibrated as he spoke, tickling my chin with his scruff. “And no, not long.”
“Wow. It’s late.” I stretched, and my muscles complained, reminding me of all the ways we’d fucked before surrendering to sleep. Nope, definitely not a dream. “You’re probably all screwed up on your sleep now. Welcome to the life of a woman of the night. This is my normal wake up time.”
JC scooted down so we were face-to-face. “Then I’ll just have to make it my normal wake up time.” He pushed a piece of hair behind my ear. “I’m not officially back to work yet, but even once I am, I make my own hours.”
After the events of the night before and that morning, it was surprising that such a simple statement could make me giddy, but it did. He wanted to adjust his life to fit with mine. That felt huge. That felt like commitment. And, for once, commitment didn’t feel so scary. JC and I had only been back together one day, and already he’d knocked down most of my walls. So much for my go-slow plan. His method of jumping back in was a much better one.
“You’re glowing,” he said, a smirk on his lips. “I haven’t even had my way with you yet.”
“Must still be from this morning. But I think I feel it wearing off.” I blinked at him coyly.
“Do you have to go to the club tonight?” His subtext was clear—how much time do we have?
“No club. I always have dinner with Hudson and Laynie on Thursdays, though.” Maybe it was because we’d been so long apart, but I didn’t like the idea of leaving him for my weekly date with the Pierces. “Should I cancel? Or would you want to go with me? I’m supposed to be there at seven-thirty.” I hoped my subtext was clear too—we have plenty of time to fool around before then.
His eyes genuinely brightened at the invitation. “I’d love to meet your friends. Will they mind if I intrude?”
I shook my head. “Alayna has heard me talk about you so much, I’m sure she’s dying to finally meet you.”
“She’s heard about me, has she? What exactly has she heard?”
“Good things. Mostly. She was with me when I watched your wedding video.”
“Ah, fuck.” He fell onto his back, a hand covering his face.
I laughed. “No, she’s a fan. I promise.” She was also a fan of Chandler, but I didn’t mention that. Laynie would love whoever made me happiest, and my gut said that was definitely JC.
He moved his hand from his face to behind his head. “Okay. Then we’ll go. I’ll have to stop by the Ritz for a change of clothes first.”
“You’re not staying at the Four Seasons?” It felt strange to think of him staying anywhere other than the room that we’d spent almost the entirety of our affair.
“I couldn’t be there without you.” He swiveled his head toward me, his gaze bold and challenging, as if he thought I might have gotten cold feet again while we’d slept and that his statements of affection would cause me to withdraw.
The joke was on him because I hadn’t gotten cold feet. In fact, I was feeling particularly brazen myself. I propped my head up with my hand, eager to test my newfound courage with an idea that had suddenly popped into my head. “Hey. Where are you going to live?”
He rolled to his side, mirroring my position. “In New York. If you want me.”
A thrill shot through my body. “I want you.”
“That’s convenient, since I want you too.” His tone was suggestive, and he lifted the sheet up to peek at my naked body underneath.
As much as I was interested in pursuing that suggestion, I was intent on finishing this conversation first. I pulled the sheet back down, clutching it to my chest so he wouldn’t be distracted. “I mean, I want you in New York.”
“Excellent. I’ll start looking for a place.” He inched closer, obviously assuming that would end the discussion.
“Or, you could…” I hesitated, not chickening out, exactly, but wondering if I should.
“I could…what? Rip the sheet from your hand and fuck you blind? Oh, I plan to.” He pulled me into him so that the length of his body was pressed against mine. My skin buzzed despite the barrier of the sheet between us.
“That’s a whole lot less forward and presumptuous than what I was going to say.” Also, his plan was a whole lot more of a turn-on. Maybe the discussion could be put on hold after all. “Let’s go with yours.”
But now I had JC’s curiosity. “Tell me what your plan was first.”
“Well. I was just thinking that you could move in with me.” As soon as I said it, my courage wavered. “Too soon? Yeah. It’s too soon. Forget I said anything and get to blinding me.” Though technically we’d been together for a year and a half. Maybe too soon wasn’t the right reason moving in together was a potentially bad idea, but there was probably something, and I was sure he was probably thinking whatever it was.
He frowned and tapped me gently on the nose. “Our way. Remember. There are no rules we have to follow. There is no too soon.” He tugged the sheet out from between us, and our skin met, the shock sputtering through my nerves. “And yes, I’ll move in with you. I actually had the idea myself but didn’t mention it yet because I thought it would scare you.”
My chest bubbled with elation. “Really?”
“Really.” He leaned in to nip along my jaw. “You can be easily frightened.” Nip. “Maybe you don’t know that about yourself.” Nip, nip.
I threw my arms around his neck. “I meant, did you really want to move in with me, smartass.”
He moved his mouth to hover just above mine. “I really want to move in with you,” he whispered. His lips slid between mine and kissed them with just enough intensity to promise more would follow soon and with just enough restraint to say that soon wasn’t yet. After a minute or several, he broke away. “I’m happily surprised that you beat me to the asking. I could show you just how happy if you like.”
“Yeah, your happiness is poking me in the stomach.”
He shifted so his erection was now notched with the crease at my thighs. “Morning aim. I’ll do better when I’ve further aligned my target.” If I spread my legs, he’d be aligned just fine.
I kept them shut, enjoying the foreplay too much to move on to the actual play. “It seems to me you’ve already hit your target. I don’t even recognize myself after you and your dirty dark arts.”
“Dirty dark arts? Are you saying I put a spell on you?” He was trying to put a spell on me right that minute, his hand tickling above the seam of my pussy.
My breath hitched as his finger found my clit. “You do something to me. You change me with those magic fingers and that magic wand. Give me orgasms and suddenly I’m brave and impulsive.”
“Then my plan to fuck you into giving me everything I want is working. Stay the night? Check. Meet the friends? Check. Live together? Check.” He slid his touch lower, but I clamped my legs shut tighter. “Come on. Let me in so I can get working on my next check mark.”
“I want to hear what else is on that list.”
He retreated, settling his hand on my hip. “Ah, no. That list would definitely scare you.”
“I don’t know. I’m feeling extraordinarily courageous at the moment.”
“Really?” He moved his hand to the crease of my ass. “How brave?”
I reached back and grabbed his wrist, halting his descent. “Uh, not that brave.” Another time, maybe…“Tell me your list.”
He sighed and I couldn’t tell if it was with frustration or consent. “Well, instead of moving in with you, I’d want to get a place together.”
I pulled his hand between us and laced his fingers with mine, preoccupying them. “I could be agreeable to that.” My apartment was only mine temporarily, anyway. It had been purchased through Ben’s boyfriend, Eric, and eventually they planned to tear the wall down between their unit and mine to make one large one.
“And then I’d want you to marry me.”
My heart did a flip. “What? Like, down the road, you mean.” He was messing with me, of course, but my pulse was skyrocketing nonetheless.
JC tightened his grip around my fingers. “No. I mean now.”
I froze, panic edging in under my bravado. “You can’t be serious.”
He met my wide eyes with a look that said he wasn’t backing down. “We said pick up where we left off.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” I pushed his hand away and tried to wriggle out of the tangled bed sheet. “We’ve done this before. Next you’ll be talking about meeting you in Vegas and—”
He pulled me back to him, cutting me off. “It’s on my wish list. That’s all. And I don’t mean Vegas. I mean the traditional engagement that leads to a wedding thing that isn’t too far in the future but isn’t that day.”
That first time he’d asked me, before he’d gotten to the details of his crazy proposal, I’d felt this same crazy rush of adrenaline—half fear, half elation, woven with strands of affection and yearning and possibility. A blaring siren went off in my head, telling me to halt and end the conversation pronto.
But what was the harm in just talking?
I silenced the alarm. “A wedding thing with friends and family and bridesmaids and the whatnot?”
“Yes. Especially a lot of whatnot.”
Whatnot sounded intriguing, and I could picture JC in a tux waiting for me in front of a minister who looked vaguely like the one in the video he’d sent me.
Another siren went off, more urgent, causing me to cock my head suspiciously. “Why? Do you have to go into hiding again or something?”
“No. Jesus. Do you really not understand that I love you?” He waited a beat then fell to his back, running a frustrated hand through his hair.
I stayed on my side, not moving, the forcefulness of his words cocooning me like a bug trapped in molasses. I stretched a tentative arm out toward him. “JC…”
He captured my hand and rolled back to face me. “I love you, Gwen. I love you, and I want to be with you. Yes, I had other reasons to pop the question last time, but I would never have asked you if I didn’t really want to make a life with you. I wanted to marry you. I wanted to make vows and do the whole whatnot. The timing and execution of my proposal was not ideal. I know that. But if you had shown up, I would have done everything in my power to show you how much it meant to me. I booked that chapel for you.”
My head was spinning. He’d said so much, and all I could do was gape at him, not knowing what to process first or how.
“I even bought a ring,” he added to my heap of confusion.
This shocked my voice into returning. “You bought a ring? When?”
“On the way to the airport.”
“Where is it now? Did you return it?” The mention of a ring was probably one of the least weighty things he’d said, but it was the thing that felt most concrete to me. The one that somehow proved all the other things.
“No. I still have it.” He studied me carefully, intensely. “It’s in my jacket actually. I was a little nervous you’d look in the inside pocket when you were wearing it last night.”
I sat up. “It’s in your jacket? You carry it with you?” My heart was pounding so hard now I thought it might beat right out of my chest. It was momentous that he’d bought it in the first place. That he still had it, that he kept it with him…?
I couldn’t even.
“I did last night.” He lowered his eyes and admitted timorously, “Maybe I hoped you’d find it.”
I clutched the sheet to my chest and wondered if it would have been more or less shocking to discover it on my own. “If I had, I would have assumed it was Corinne’s and that you carried it as a keepsake or something.”
“Cori was buried with hers.” He sat up and leaned his back against the headboard. “And that ring was awful. Gawdy and too big. She picked it out herself though, so.” He shrugged.
A sort of hateful glee blistered inside of me. It was shameful—finding pleasure in the fact that he’d chosen my ring himself, and he hadn’t chosen hers.
What did I think it meant, anyway? It wasn’t evidence of the depth of his feelings for either of us.
But, he’d bought a ring. For me. And that was evidence of something. “Can I see it?” I asked.
“Your ring?” He sneered at me with mock disgust. “No way. You aren’t seeing that ring until I’m down on one knee.”
I sat in the wake of his words, absorbing them. He planned to propose. It shouldn’t be so stunning considering he’d already done it once before, but it was. Because this time, there wasn’t anything pushing him to it except his own feelings. He’d said his heart was open, and I’d thought mine was too, but was it this open? So open that I could reveal my greatest hopes and desires without being terrified?
He lifted his lip into a half smile. “See? Scared you.”
Scared me, yes. But he’d also given me an awakening jolt, as though he’d strung electric cables from the part of him that believed in seizing the day to the part of me that thought my wants should blend with conventional norms, and then revved the engine. I didn’t think I was ready to consider marriage, but I wasn’t quite able to not consider it either.
Maybe I didn’t really know what I was saying. Maybe I was truly just overcome with curiosity. Or maybe I understood exactly what it meant when I straightened my spine and said, “Show it to me.”
He hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he bolted up from the bed, not bothering to cover up before disappearing from my room.
Anxiousness trilled through my nerves. I wrapped the sheet around me, as if that would make me feel less vulnerable or more secure, and moved to my knees, tucking my feet underneath me. A hundred heartbeats seemed to pass.
Then he was back, his hand held out in front of him to display the diamond ring pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
I started to sit up to see it better when JC dropped to the floor, one knee on the ground, the other bent in front of him.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!
“Marry me, Gwen.”
“Oh. My. God.” I was way too excited about this than I should be, since I only wanted to see the ring. JC was excited too, in an entirely different way, his hard-on from earlier fighting as much for my attention as the ring. “Jesus. Get up!” I exclaimed through a fit of giggles. “You look ridiculous.”
He leapt from the floor and pounced, throwing me backward on the bed with the length of his body. “Is this better?”
“I’m…not sure.” Because, though his naked body no longer pulled my gaze, it was just as distracting pressed against mine.
And the ring…
Now he was holding it in front of my face, and I could see its details up close. It wasn’t as blingy as the diamond I’d seen on Corinne’s finger in their engagement pictures, but it was more intricate, the round brilliant stone set within ribbons of smaller diamonds. It was beautiful and perfect and exactly the kind of thing I’d wear and how the hell had he picked something so quintessentially me when he didn’t even know me?
Maybe he knew me better than I gave him credit for.
God, I just wasn’t sure.
“Well, I’m sure.” He shifted, taking me with him so that we were both lying on our sides, facing each other. “It’s okay if you’re not ready for this. I can keep this ring in my pocket for as long as you want. But I need you to know that I am ready. Maybe it’s unconventional to ask when we’ve been apart so long. Call me crazy. Call me impulsive. Really, it’s just that I know what it feels like to look back and say, ‘I wish I had.’”
He slipped the ring—my ring—onto the tip of his thumb and cupped my cheek with his palm, his eyes searching mine, or urging them to search his. “There’s so much that I wish I had with you, Gwen.” His voice was raw, each syllable he spoke licking at me with the pleasant roughness of a cat’s tongue. “You wanted to do things differently this time? So do I. This time I don’t want you to go a day without knowing where I stand. I love you.”
My eyes were already stinging when he brought his hand down to find mine. I watched intently while he poised the ring at the top of my finger, and then the diamond doubled in its shine as tears covered my vision.
“Marry me,” JC said, sliding the band down over one joint, then the next. “Just…marry me.”
I blinked and blinked again, my attention fixed on the token of JC’s love. A billion different thoughts clamored in my head. Everything from caution to he loves me to why the fuck am I even considering this? There was no reason to rush. But what were the reasons to wait? Because I didn’t know him? Because I loved him but maybe I didn’t love him enough? Because he might never love me as much as the woman he’d loved before?
If I did marry him, I’d get to be one thing that she never was—his wife.
That thought I shooed away immediately, but it only quieted, refusing to hush up all together.
Through all the noise, there was one thought that screamed louder than the rest, resounding so raucously that it vibrated in my bones. I have I wish I hads with him too. And even though it wasn’t particularly useful to play Monday morning quarterback with the decisions I’d made the year before, but if I knew then what I knew now—how miserable and lonely I’d be without JC, how much I’d still want him after so much time—then I would have said yes.
“It’s okay if you need to think about it,” he prodded gently, “but if you’re going to keep wearing it, I think that means you’re saying yes.”
I opened my mouth and let the single word fall off my lips. “Yes.”
“Can you clarify?” JC’s voice was high and hopeful. “Yes, that’s what wearing it means? Or yes, you’ll marry me?”
“Yes.” I lifted my gaze from the gem to his equally bright eyes. “To both.”
“I’m. This is. Are you?” He was flabbergasted and nervous and it was adorable and all I could do was grin like an idiot. “I don’t even know what to say,” he managed finally. “Are you really telling me yes?”
“I’m really telling you yes.”
Then he was kissing me, his hand pressed against my cheek, my hand (with its sparkly new addition) pressed against his. It was a short, salty-from-tears, passionate kiss, and when he pulled away, he was smiling as goofily as I was. “We’re getting married,” he said.
“I know.” My whole body was shaking. “Oh my God. Am I insane?”
“Absolutely and I approve. We can be crazy together.”
I shot my hand up in the air and squealed. “I can’t believe you bought me a ring! I can’t believe I’m engaged!”
“I can’t believe you said yes! I hoped you’d say yes, but honestly I thought it would take a little more time and a whole lot more convincing.”
“Maybe you need to be more optimistic,” I teased.
“Yes. That’s my problem. Obviously.” He swept his hand down my face, looking at me as though I were as precious as the stone on my finger, beaming as though I’d made his entire world.
After a beat, he laughed, and I didn’t have to ask what was funny because I was as bursting with emotion as he was. He finished his laugh with a happy sigh. “Now we’re definitely going to need a new place.”
“What’s so wrong with my apartment?”
“It’s only one bedroom. Where will we put the baby?”
I sat up. “Okay, now you’re scaring me.”
“Fine, fine.” He tugged me back down. “We can wait until the wedding night to start talking about children.”
“Oh my God, stop.” I covered his mouth with my palm, but now the thought was front and center in my head, screaming you’re an idiot to have said yes before talking about this!
A possible wrench in my bliss, but there was still time to iron it out.
I removed my hand from JC’s mouth. “Uh, we should probably discuss that. In case it changes things. Are kids on your must-have list?” I held my breath.
“The must-have list has one thing on it, Gwen—you.”
“So that means no to kids?”
“It means I want kids, but I want you more.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Do you not want kids?”
I almost lied. It felt so good to make him happy, and I didn’t want to take that away so soon.
Fortunately, I had enough sense to know that this was something I had to be upfront about. “Honestly, I’ve never wanted kids.” I waited for an indication that this was a deal breaker, but he didn’t give one, so I went on. “I had such a shitty experience with the whole parent/child thing, and I don’t believe that I learned the skills necessary to be a mother. But I can imagine you as a dad. You’d be a really sexy dad.”
He pulled me to him, enveloping me in his arms. “You’d be an incredible mother, Gwen,” he said at my ear. He leaned back to look at my face. “But I’m being completely truthful when I tell you that I don’t need kids to be happy. I need you. If I get you, then I have everything.”
The tears had stopped, but now another one rolled down my face. “Well, you do get me. I’m yours.” I’d always been his. Why I ever thought it was something I could fight, I didn’t know.
“Boom. I have everything.”
“And maybe kids would be okay.” I shivered at the thought. “I promise I’ll think about it.” Later. Much, much later.
“We could practice making them at least?”
He was already climbing on top of me, but I answered anyway. “We should practice right now.”
Talking ceased as his mouth met mine, his tongue sliding in to smother any words that lingered there. His kiss had a language of its own, and whatever I didn’t know about him was made up for in what I knew about this silent speech. With his lips, he told me everything he’d said before with words. Meaning was gained in the translation, and now I could truly understand the things he wished he had with me. Now I could feel the entirety of his love.
There was half a minute, though, that his kiss was too soft to take center stage and my head spoke louder. Half a minute when doubt crept in and reason prevailed over emotional attachment. What happens if you aren’t enough forever? doubt asked. Wouldn’t he be happier with someone who wanted babies, someone who wanted to be a mom?
He’s building so much of his life around you, reason piped in. What kind of a man does that? What hole inside him is he trying to fill?
And then JC’s cock was between my legs, nudging at my entrance, and the voices were gone, every negative thought chased away with one thrust inside me. When I was open for him like this—emotionally and physically—there wasn’t room for uncertainty or confusion. He filled me too completely for that. Filled me with his cock and his affection and his promise of a future, that right or wrong, we would spend together.
Soon, my orgasm began to gather wind. With a contented sigh, I wrapped my legs around his waist and hoped I was ready for the storm.