She peers up at me sadly. “I don’t know if we can have more.”
“We’re never going to know unless we try.”
“That was always our problem, wasn’t it?” She sighs, dropping her forehead against my chest.
“Maybe we could’ve put more effort in before, but timing is everything. It wasn’t our time then.” I hold her close, relishing in the feel of her being in my arms again. I don’t know how long we’ve been standing together—it could’ve been five minutes or five hours—when she pulls back with a determined look on her face.
“Just because I move in doesn’t mean that we’re back together and living happily ever after.”
Victory!
My mouth splits in a wide grin, releasing her when she pats my chest. “Does that mean you’re moving in?”
Taylor puts distance between us, moving around to the other side of the table where her bag is. “Let’s say I do.IfI’m moving in, there should be some ground rules.”
“I never took Taylor Baker for one to lay down the rules.” She’d always been wild, free, and less likely to paint inside the lines.
“In this case, I think it’s very necessary,” she says.
“Okay, boss. What is it?” I lean a shoulder against the wall, crossing my ankles and my arms. Her eyes latch on to my exposed forearms and then continue down my body. I feel it as surely as if she were touching me with her hands instead.
“No sex.” She blurts out.
Not at all what I was expecting. I blink at her in surprise. She slaps a hand over her mouth like she spoke her inside thoughts out loud.
Clearing my throat, I offer, “I wasn’t proposing a friends-with-benefits situation.”
“Great, then we’re on the same page.” Her voice is tight and everything about her demeanor, from the hitch in her breath to the flicker of a frown on her face as she picks up her bag to leave, tells me she misinterpreted my attempt to save her from embarrassment as rejection.
“To be clear…” I prowl towards her. She steps back a few paces until her back hits the wall near the door. Draping an arm next to her head, I lean in close. “I’d love nothing more than to fuck the sass right out of you, but when we fuck again it won’t be because of some hookup arrangement.” Her breath hitches. I swallow hard at the thought of affecting her like that but forge ahead. “I made a promise a long time ago that the next time I had sex, it would be with my wife. And while you are technically my wife, you like to pretend you’re not.” Leaning even closer until we’re barely a centimeter apart, I feel the whoosh of her breath against my lips. “So until you’ve changed your mind about that, no sex.” Her chest rises and falls in quick succession as I linger in her space.
As much as I’d love to stay in this moment with her, I need space before I show her exactly how much I want her, so I push off the wall, open the door beside me and wait for her to leave when one final thought hits me.
“One last rule. The only one who makes you orgasm under my roof is me, wife.”
“I’ll think about it,” she saunters down the hallway, leaving me speechless because I thought I won that round.
Stupid.
This is stupid.
Colossally stupid.
The most stupid decision I’ve ever made.
Okay, not the worst, but it’s up there.
Yet, it doesn’t stop me from clearing the last of my clothes from the closet in my hotel room. It doesn’t keep me from removing each article of clothing from the hangers. Nor does it prevent me from meticulously folding them before placing them in my suitcase to move upstairs.
To move in with my husband who I haven’t lived with since I was twenty-three, even though we barely lived together at all. We met in July when I was twenty-two, married in November, he left for spring training in February, and by the next August I was moving to Los Angeles. We barely survived a year the last time, and my mind is spiraling with all the ways this is a terrible idea.
Not the least of which is that I’m still in love with him and living together brings me that much closer to heartbreak all over again.
Yet, I can’t help myself. He basically challenged me, hinting at the idea that we couldn’t live together without something happening between us, and I’m not one to back down from a challenge. The gauntlet was thrown and I need to provehim wrong.
Sure, keep telling yourself that,my stupid inner voice pipes up.
I couldn’t deny the feelings he stirred up, awakening things in me I thought were dead a long time ago. Yet, he seems so sure that this is the right move for us. I see it now for what it is. This whole time Grant has been methodically laying the foundation for our second chance with acts of service front and center.
