“If I could bottle your pussy up and sell it as incense, I would.” I thought about that for a moment before shaking my head. “Never mind. I can’t have motherfuckers knowing what you smell like. I’d have to break some necks.”
“Something is really wrong with you” she teased, pushing against my shoulder. “Seriously, you should see someone.”
“Ha, you’re joking, but I’m not. A fool gets one whiff of what’s mine, and he’d lose his shit. Reasonably so, but then I’d have to take his life. Then we’d have to go on the run because I’m too pretty to go to jail.”
I listened fervently to the sound of her laughter, and a vision of forever came to mind. I suddenly wondered what she’d look like forty years from then. Would her laugh sound the same? Would our children have the same smile?
God, I hoped so.
“Hey,” she said, pulling me from my musings.
“Yeah?”
She didn’t immediately respond. Her eyes got a slightly far-off look as she continued playing in my hair.
“I was thinking it might be a good idea to hold off on talking to Corey. About us.”
I sat up on my elbows and peered down at her. Instead of talking, I took in her schooled facial features, and the way she avoided making eye contact with me. She held something back. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear what it was, but I had to ask anyway.
“What does that mean, Jocelyn?”
“Nothing. It only means that he’s fragile right now.”
I grunted unwittingly. “You said physically, he’s much better. He’s able to go out by himself.”
“He is, but I don’t think he’s healed emotionally yet. He’s still not ready to take your calls. He barely talks to me when I’m there. Hearing about his best friend and his sister...” She chanced a look into my eyes.
“I refuse to hide or keep us a secret.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m not trying to hide you or us. All I’m asking is that we give Corey some time. He’s been through a lot this year.”
“I was there. I remember.” The force in my voice came out harsher than I’d meant it to be.
She pushed out a heavy breath. “Please, Don. I just think it’s best for right now. That’s all.”
There was a sincerity in her tone that quelled the burning suspicion in my gut.
I took her chin in between my fingers. “I’ll allow it for now, only because Corey is as much my brother as he is yours. But I’ll be damned if I wait too long.”
He had been through a lot, no doubt, especially with losing his leg. But I knew Corey, and I knew he’d be pissed to find out we’d hidden something behind his back.
“There isn’t a soul on this planet that can keep me away from you, Jocelyn,” I declared, looking in her eyes. I pressed a kiss to her lips and felt relief when she melted into it.
I pulled back and rested my chin back on her stomach. She moved her hand to my hair again, continuing to brush the strands tenderly, sending tiny ripples of pleasure down my back.
Silence wrapped around us. My eyelids slowly drifted closed as I thought about Corey and talking to him about us. Maybe Jocelyn was right. I fucking hated it but, between us, she was the one who’d seen him since that night.
“My dad cheated on my mom,” she said into the stillness that surrounded us.
Lifting again, I gave her my full attention.
“I thought they had the perfect marriage my whole life. One day, I went to the fire station to visit him by myself. He didn’t see me, but I saw him with another woman. Kissing her.”
The hand in my hair stopped moving, and she looked over toward the bedroom window.
I despised the tone in her voice. It sounded like betrayal, and I wanted to erase the entire memory from her mind.
“I never told him what I saw that day, but I started to put two and two together. He often stayed out late, even after he got off shift. I would hear him come in, and he’d tell Mama there was a big fire that kept him away. She accepted it.”
