But it barely penetrates the buzzing in my ears. Which is almost all I can hear.
I blink a few times and focus on my woman’s mouth, replaying her last words in the attempt to figure out what the hell she’s talking about.
“What?” I breathe the question out and my woman smiles at me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” her words are firm and unyielding.
Disbelief fills me. There is no way I heard her correctly. It’s impossible.
The smile on her face grows even wider as she watches me struggle. “It’s true,” she confirms as if she can read all the doubts flying through my mind. “I’m not going anywhere.”
My hands shoot out, and I grip my woman and haul her against my chest. I bury my face in her hair and take a deep, cleansing breath. “Are you being serious right now?”
“I would never joke about this. It’s too big and it matters too much.”
Even though I could, I don’t need to look into her green eyes to tell she’s sincere. I can hear it in her voice, and I can feel it in the way her hands wrap around my shoulders as she holds on tight.
“I’ve been thinking a lot since the other day when I was awoken by a dream about Hillary, and you found me on the back porch drinking tea.” Hollyn takes a deep breath like she’s centering herself. “Even though it makes no sense, not really, I swear she visited me in my dream that night.”
“What did she say?” My words almost get lost in her hair with how soft I speak them, but she hears me.
“She told me it wasn’t ever really about the journey and was always about the destination.” Her words turn glassy, like she’s barely holding in her grief, “I think she was trying to tell me I have found my destination and shouldn’t feel like I’m letting down my best friend.”
“If you want to finish the road trip, I’ll happily go with you.”
She jerks back and studies me as if she’s seeing me for the first time. A smile breaks out on her face, and she starts to nod slowly. “Maybe we wait until the spring or summer?”
I bark out a laugh and nod. “I think that would be a good idea. Less ice and snow to contend with.”
Her hands come up and cup my jaw, the tips of her fingers running back and forth over the scruff there. “I think Hillary only talked about the road trip as a way to get me to look toward a future, one she knew she wouldn’t be there for. She wanted to give me a focus and hoped I would find a place of my own along the way. It’s why she never talked about a destination. She had no idea where I would end up and just wanted to give me a chance to find myself after putting so much time and effort into her and what she needed.”
“I think Hillary was the best kind of friend,” I whisper. “She wanted you to live for you and for her.”
“Yeah,” the word gets caught in her throat and unshed tears fill her eyes. “I won’t let her down.”
“You couldn’t even if you tried,” I tell her even though I never met the woman.
It feels like I have though. Through Hollyn’s stories and the loyalty she wears like a badge of honor. Through the kindness she shows, even though meeting new people makes her wary. Through the grief she wears as a shawl because the memories she has with her friend are too sweet to forget and the burden is light when made with love.
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
I hate myself for asking, for making sure, but I can’t help it. The last thing I want is for Hollyn to wake up one day and resentthe hell out of me because she stayed instead of riding off into the sunset.
“I’m sure,” Hollyn says with conviction in her voice so deep that my heart starts to hammer in my chest.
“Then you need to know something,” I whisper and her eyes turn curious as she looks at me. “I love you, Hollyn. I think I fell in love with you the moment you walked into the library, and the feeling has only grown with every moment we’ve spent together. When it’s time for you to finish Hillary’s road trip, I’ll be right there at your side. We’ll see all those places together while you tell me all about the woman who sent you to me.”
When one of her tears escapes her lash line and slides down over her cheek, I’m there to brush it away. And then I’m up and striding through the house with her in my arms.
“What are you doing?” She tries to sound serious, but I can hear the laughter in her voice.
“I’m taking you back to bed,” I chortle. “You just made me the happiest man alive, and I think the best way to celebrate is by fucking you until you pass out only to do it all over again when you wake up.”
Hollyn throws her head back and laughs as I take the stairs two at a time and barge into my room—no, our room officially now—and straight toward the bed. When I set her down on her feet, she wobbles, but it’s only for a second. And then I’m there.
I peel off her clothes, growling with every inch of skin I expose to my hungry eyes. I’m on the edge of feral and there’s a chance I won’t be able to control the need I have to claim my woman. Officially. Primally.
My own clothes become a blur of fabric as I rip them off my body and I’ve never been more grateful for lazy morning in pajamas in my life. It’s only seconds before my hands are back on my woman and roaming all over her soft skin.
