She shakes her head a couple of times. “It’s not,” she breathes. “He’s still half you.”
Lowering my head, I touch my mouth to hers. “Perfect, just like his mother.”
Releasing one of her cheeks, I grip the fabric of the shirt she’s wearing tightly. She lifts her hands, placing her palms against my chest as she tips her head back slightly so she can look up into my eyes.
“I wish it could always be this way,” Wrenly whispers.
“It can, baby,” I rasp. “No, that’s not right,” I say. Dipping my chin, I touch my mouth to hers again, but I don’t deepen the kiss. It’s just my lips touching hers. Chastely. “It can’t be right because I don’t want it to always be this way.”
“You don’t?” she breathes against my mouth.
“Nope,” I state. “I want it to be better. Each and every fucking day. Just like tonight is infinitely better than last night.”
Then I press my lips against her hard, and I kiss her—owning her.
Wrenly is mine. When I break the kiss, I shift back slightly, my gaze never leaving hers, and I give her a small smile. “Better every day,” I whisper.
“This feels like a fairy tale,” she breathes.
Humming, I release her face and scoop her up into my arms before I carry her to bed. Placing her down on the mattress, I crawl in behind her, wrapping my arms around her and touching my lips to the top of her shoulder. I decide that I need to get to know her better.
“Tell me something,” I say.
She laughs softly, then lets out a yawn. “I’m not sure there’s much more to tell.”
“If you could eat any dessert in the whole world, and it was your last day to eat dessert ever again, what would it be?”
“Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling and vanilla buttercream frosting, where every single bite contains a rose.”
“That’s very specific,” I say with a laugh.
She smiles, her cheeks tinting pink as she searches my gaze with her own. “I take my dessert very seriously,” she exhales.
I hum. “I am sensing that you do. Far too seriously maybe.”
Her body shifts, and I feel her hands press against my chest as she pushes herself up. Looking down at me, her eyes are wide as she watches me for a moment.
“Dessert is possibly one of the most serious food choices to ever be taken,” she states.
“Good quality meat? Potatoes?” I ask, trying to keep from laughing.
I’ve never had a conversation like this before, and I like it. So much. It’s different from pumping and dumping with women like I’ve done in the past. I never made it a priority to get to know anyone.
But Wrenly isn’t someone who is trying to be overly sexy and over the top in everything. Even if she is sexy as fuck—it’s effortless. She isn’t trying at all. Honestly, she’s not over the top in anything that I’ve seen so far, and maybe that’s what draws me to her.
She’s so fucking subtle unless it has to do with Ryan. When it comes to him. When she’s talking about him. Looking at him. Thinking about him. She is, without a doubt, over the top, but only because she’s head over heels in love with him.
WRENLY
The late-night conversation with Eli is something I’ve never done with a man before. I’ve never dated and only ever flirted with him the one night he slid into my DMs two years ago. But then I ran, terrified. There’s no more running, though. Not when it comes to Ryan and his happiness.
As much as I have wanted to just get the hell out of Ohio a few times since I arrived, Ryan deserves better than a mom who runs away. I know what that is like, except mine didn’t take me with her.
I’m not sure what time we doze off, but it’s with a smile on my lips. I am falling for him. In my head, I’d already done that a million times, but this is real. This isn’t fantasy or my dreams. This is reality, and so far, he’s everything that I dreamed he could be.
And more.
Gone is the embarrassment of waking up alone the morning after. Gone is the majority of the guilt that I felt for keeping Ryan from him, although I will always harbor some of that guilt. There is no way it will ever just vanish because Eli missed so much, and it’s because of me that he missed it.
