CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Lucy could have gotten used to waking up with gentle kisses trailing up her shoulder blade and along the back of her neck. Honestly, it had been a long time since she woke up cocooned in such a huddle of safety and security.
And then she cracked an eyelid and saw the clock read 6:04 a.m. On a Sunday. After the marathon sex they’d had, she’d been hoping for a sleep in before round…five? Six? She’d lost count.
She turned to Joel with a languid roll, her arms coming up to loop around his neck. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“I had a title to earn.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “What was it again?” Another kiss. “Sir?” This time, she felt his smile curve through his kiss, and she rolled over onto him, straddling his hips, propping her elbows on his pecs.
“Hmmm,” she considered. “I’d say you’re getting there, but a few more practice rounds wouldn’t hurt.”
When he moved, lightning quick, reversing their rolls and pinning her into the mattress, she shrieked.
“I’ll try to be a faster study then,” he growled against her neck before sucking hard on a spot above her collarbone,probably leaving another mark. It wasn’t the first one he’d left on her and she loved that he left marks of his untamed passion all over her.
Lucy giggled as she writhed under his weight, enjoying the ease between them, the carefree banter that had always existed before. “Also, why are we up? It’s the crack of dawn on aSunday. That’s torture, Joel.”
Some of his weight lifted off her as he propped himself up on his arms. When he tipped his head to the side, his hair flopped over his forehead, making him look younger, more relaxed. Less austere and more…what a healthy and well-off thirty-two-year-old should look like. Happy, content.
“You said you had a flight back to San Francisco at nine. I thought you’d want time to get ready.”
She shoved him off with the force only panic could induce. “Oh shit! I forgot.” Lucy rolled out of bed searching for something that wasn’t—she glanced around her—shredded golden fabric on the floor? Memories of what they’d done last night assailed her. In their desperation to be together, they’d made quite a mess.
Joel tossed something white her way, a t-shirt that was his. When she tugged it over her head, it fell down mid-thigh. “I need to be at the airport in an hour. I need to shower, and pack, and— Am I coming back here soon? Should I leave a toothbrush? Why have we nottalkedabout this?” She twirled around the room, like the answer would magically appear on the walls.
They’d talked about him coming to San Francisco intermittently to keep up appearances. But that was before. Before their talk, before last night, before she had fallen head over heels for him…again.
On her third spin around the room, collecting discarded segments of clothing—her dress was toast, her thong nolonger recognizable for what it was—Joel caught her by the shoulders and dipped his head so he could level her with a stare. She focused on those eyes like they were the magnet for her inner compass, pointing her due north again.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice steady and sure. “I took care of it. You don’t have to worry about anything. Grab a shower if you want, put a few things in your suitcase, and come to the kitchen for breakfast before we go.”
Why did everything sound easy when he said it? And what did he mean— “We?”
Letting go of her, he sauntered over to his closet, buck ass naked, pulled out a pair of gray sweatpants and tugged them on. No underwear, just him, his six-pack and his dick print, minding their own business. “I’m coming with you,” he told her conversationally. “I have business meetings set up, things I need to organize back home.”
“You do?” When had he planned that? Last she checked, Portland was his home base.
“Lucy, we’regetting married in a couple of weeks. You’re my wife.” This was all said very normally, like there was no contradiction there at all. “You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid.”
“For a year?” She almost whispered it. Last night had been soul-changing, earth-shattering, and they’d aired important things the night before that, but they hadn’t actually discussed how that changed their fake engagement situation.
The youthful, relaxed look she’d admired a moment ago in bed disappeared. The patient, quiet control returned, etched into the alluring structure of his face. “No,” he said, cupping her face in his wide palms, stroking his thumbs over the skin under her eyes. “A little longer than that.”
She melted against him, wrapping her arms around his torso as she hugged him. When he pulled her tight, she letthe tears flood behind her closed eyes. When she was with him like this, she believed anything was possible. And she so desperately wanted to believe that they were.
After a long moment, he kissed the top of her head. “Shower, change, eat. I’ll meet you in the kitchen in fifteen.”
It took her twenty-five (men had no idea how long it took to blow-dry hair), and when she walked into the kitchen, pulling her suitcase, Joel was there, holding a cup of coffee toward her like he’d promised.
“I made pancakes.” He beamed.
“Real ones?”
His smile fell as flat as a pancake.
She chuckled. “The ‘Just Add Water’ kind don’t count, Joel.”
“They will when they’re in your stomach and you don’t pass out from hunger at the airport.”
