Page 63 of Love Always

“Okay. He was white, about nineteen or twenty, yeah. Black hair kind of longish,” she moves her hands against her collarbones to show the length of his hair. “He had a … I don’t know. Like a red shirt, maybe a jacket. I can’t remember if he had a jacket on or not, and he had—oh he had duct tape on his shoes. That was funny.”

“Funny is not weird. There’s something else.”

“He had on kind of baggy jeans?” Suddenly she looks at me as some realization hits. “I know what it is. He didn’t have a backpack. He didn’t have any books. He wasn’t studying.”

I translated. “He didn’t look like a student.”

“Yes. That’s it. He didn’t look like a student and I also remember, just for a second, thinking, well that’s weird. He doesn’t look like anyone I’ve ever seen coming out of that classroom.”

“Well done,” I say. I want to touch her and take my hand and circle it around her wrist, sliding up her arm and then moving over her shoulders to her neck, just so I could press my lips to hers. But I don’t want to do all this at the counter where Cruz just tormented her.

Over her realization, she smiles. “I think you made him piss his pants.”

I arch an eyebrow.

“Cruz. The whole bodyguard thing? I didn’t even know you carried a weapon ’til the other day.”

“Well …”

“Wait? Are you really my bodyguard?”

“Don’t think of it as a bodyguard. We don’t like to use that term either—just say ‘protection services.’ Finn just wants me to keep an eye on you, and I agree. None of us like the fact that gun was planted in your car. They may be trying to implicate you, or they may think you saw them. That puts you at risk.”

She shivers and then wipes her hands on her ass. Her adorable ass. “What do you think?”

I take two steps, turn the corner until I’m standing behind the counter right next to her. “I think I have a great idea,” I say and slide a hand on that ass.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“That’s what I mean.”

΅

Devon is off running errands for Chloe, grabbing a list of groceries for the kitchen at The Inn and Cory is still in school. He has a special needs bus that runs him home, so he’s usually back around three-thirty.

Their apartment is so tidy, with a small foyer about six by six and then a step up to the rest of the living space. The place is old—I remember Chloe telling me the store was one of the first places built and dates to 1826. The hardwood floor at the base of the stairs leading up is stained blond. Devon explained it’s because farmers would bring their cattle in to milk them and the urine bleached the wood.

Everything in California seems so brand spanking new. Any older buildings aren’t that old and the few that are Mexican are tied to the Spanish or the gold rush. It feels oddly comforting to be in a building that’s nearly two hundred years old. I can’t imagine what Europe is like—you can go to school in a building constructed in 800 A.D. or a grocery store with cannon balls still imbedded in the walls from the First World War.

I’ve seen pictures. One day. I have my passport.

“So,” she says, setting down a mug of hot tea, which, though nice, I have no interest in whatsoever. I take her wrist and do exactly what I wanted to do in the store. Her gasp leaves me hard, and my chest shudders with thoughts of giving her everything, all of me.

All of me, despite myself. Despite what I’ve become. I breathe into her hair and she turns to the microwave clock.

“We have forty-five minutes,” she says and then looks up into my face. She is so fucking practical, and I want to move her off of that—move her to a place where she doesn’t have to think about the time, the day, the year. A place where she is only aware of herself, her body, and what I’m doing to her and how she can’t escape her own pleasure.

She offers me her hand and starts to lead me down the little hallway to her bedroom.

Instead, I pull her close, whisk her off her feet, check myself, and carry her, a move that surprises us both. She slips both arms around my neck and smiles, kisses me on the cheek.

“I want you so badly,” she whispers as I ease her onto her bed. She sits up and sheds her sweatshirt and top while I peel off my shirt.

“Oh my god, look at you in this light,” she says, and I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about. I am marveling at her throat, at the curve of her large breasts, the roundness of her arms, the faint flush across her chest. Her bra latches from the front and that’s all she has on now—that, and a scant pair of lacy panties.

In about ten minutes, I’m going to have her lost in a place where light doesn’t matter and only I will be able to find her.

And, she’s going to love it.