If she searches Zillow again, I’ll know.
If she emails an agent, I’ll know.
If she downloads a rental app or checks moving services or even scrolls for Oregon listings again, I’ll know before she can finish typing.
I don’t feel guilty.
I feel relieved.
Because loving Ruby isn’t something I can approach halfway or with caution. Loving her has already tipped something inside me past the point of return, and losing her — even as a distant hypothetical — is not a possibility I can tolerate or entertain.
Europe is coming, and thank God for that.
The tour will be chaotic and loud and relentless, which means she’ll be in my orbit every hour of the day. No Oregon. No fucking Zillow.
No opportunities for doubt to bloom into something reckless.
I need her close. I need her next to me.
I need her to see our future the way I see it, the way I’m building it, piece by piece.
When she falls asleep that night, curled against my chest, I lay awake and refine the details of what I’ve already been planning.
Operation Forever Ruby.
Permanentbecause she is it.
She is the only ending I’ll accept.
And Europe is where we make it real.
22
MORE CRACKS
RUBY
“Ilove your tattoos.” I trace the colors and whorls on his chest and six-pack.
“I know. You fondle them every chance you get. I’m beginning to think you fuck me just so you can slobber all over them.”
I slap his chest, half-laughing and half-shrieking because he deserves bodily harm for that sentence, but he catches my wrist and drags me straight back into his chest with the kind of ease that should be illegal.
His arm closes around my waist with a warm, solid finality, blocking my escape before I even commit to it.
Those silver eyes glint at me in that way that always pins me exactly where he wants me. “You’re so fucking beautiful when you laugh.”
“I thought I was beautiful when I was pissed.”
His head tilts, just slightly, enough to tell me he’s either teasing me or genuinely confused that I still haven’t figured out how he sees me. “You’re beautiful all the time, baby.”
The way he says it, steady, certain, infuriatingly sincere, makes something low in my belly twist. And once again, I wantto slap Zane Draven just a fraction less than I want to wrap every limb around him and cling while he ruins my life in increasingly pleasurable ways.
But I’m sore.
Beautifully, outrageously tender from how often we’ve been going at it across Europe — and Zane is always,alwayswilling to oblige with a hard dick and an eager mouth the moment I so much as breathe in his direction.
We fucked and climaxed while staring out at the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower at midnight.
