Page 68 of My One Week Husband
My heart thumps wildly, embracing her words.
I step closer, reaching for her, because I can no longer stand the thought of not touching her. I clasp her shoulders, then I run my hands down her arms. She shudders as I touch her.
“I want to know what it’s like to live again, to love again, and to feel again. Will you give me another chance?”
She laughs. Shakes her head. Laughs again. “Don’t you get it? That’s what I just said.”
I laugh too. “This is all new to me. But you need to know I’ve loved every second of the last week with you. I’m tired of moving through my days only half alive. I want to be fully alive, experiencing everything and experiencing it with you.”
She slides closer to me, looping her hands around my neck. “So experience me. Let’s take on the world together. Let’s do this thing here in Paris, you and me.”
“No ending. Just beginning every day.”
“Every day. And every night.”
I clasp her cheeks, bring her close, and kiss her like I’ve been searching for her for years.
I’m pretty sure I have. She is all I want. As we kiss by the river, I make a decision.
Because that’s what every moment is—a decision as to how you’re going to go on from here.
And so, I make a choice I’m ready for at last.
I let the past go. All I want is the present.
When we break the kiss, I stroke Scarlett’s cheek, cup her jaw, then whisper, “Thank you.”
Taking her hand, I set us off, and we walk along the river. This seems fitting—my violin case in one hand, hers in the other.
I ask her if her father sends ice-cream and dinner photos every day.
With a smile, she answers, “Every few days.”
“I’d like to see them. Will you show me when he sends them?”
She slides her thumb along my hand. “I would love to. And I want to hear you play again.”
“I will. For you.” That is an easy promise to make. No more nerves. Playing for her feels like what I’m meant to do with music now.
“I’ll be your audience,” she says.
That feels right too. Playing for the one I love.
When we reach her flat, I press a kiss to the back of her neck, and she shivers as she works the key into the lock.
As she pushes the door open, I graze my lips along her neck, inhaling her perfume.
“You’re wearing it,” I say as the door snaps shut behind us.
She gives me a flirty, dirty grin. “My husband bought it as a gift. He likes the way it smells on me.”
A rumble works its way up my chest and out of my throat. “He’s mad about you.”
“Is that so?” she asks as she leans against the wall inside her flat.
“He’s absolutely crazy in love with you,” I say, and I press a kiss to the hollow of her throat.
“What else?” she asks in a heady whisper as I graze kisses over her skin, savoring her.
“He wants to fuck you and love you and cherish you.” I raise my face, meet her eyes, and look deeply into them. “Because you’re the only one, Scarlett.”
“And you for me,” she says, sliding a hand over my heart, pressing her fingers against it. “For the record, I never thought your heart was black.”
“What color did you think it was?”
She brings her face close to mine, her eyes gleaming with heat and desire. “Red-hot.”
I take her to bed, and I show her exactly how red-hot I can be as I slide inside her, fill her, fuck her.
She wraps her legs around me, hooking her ankles together, bringing me closer. I go deep, deeper than I have before. And we are a tangle of limbs, flesh, heat, and skin.
Of love, trust, and intimacy.
Like that, we let go, moving beyond our fears, fucking and loving each other into a whole new possibility of us.
Epilogue
Scarlett
* * *
I sign the final page of the contract with a flourish.
We pulled it off. My first big acquisition since I became a partner in this luxury hotel group. Pride suffuses me—pride in a job well done. We got a screaming deal with terrific terms, and everyone is pleased.
I set the fountain pen down on the desk in Cole’s office at The Invitation in Las Vegas, where we’ve finalized the paperwork.
“And it’s done, gentlemen,” I say.
Daniel claps. “Congratulations, you savvy, moneymaking businesswoman,” he says with the same kind of sexual innuendo that rolled off his tongue the first time I met him, when he said he wanted me to help him make money turn into more money.
Cole lifts his chin, flashes a big smile, and says, “Congrats. Also, I’m glad you two so thoroughly worked through that little issue of ‘Can business partners date?’ and are now flirting in my office.”
