We continue to walk at our slow pace, enjoying the quiet moment of just the two of us together.
“I can only imagine what this will look like when things are in full bloom in a couple of months,” she says when we reach the gardens.
She becomes solemn when we pass Mom’s prized hybrid tea roses, probably remembering our conversation the other night when I mentioned how Mom requested her ashes be spread here. Douglass lightly flits her fingers over the red blooms that adorn the thorny bushes.
She unglues herself from my side and reaches down to take my hand. I swear I tear up when she says, “Good morning, Mrs. Hammond.”
This goddamn woman and her kind, incredible heart. A heart that now belongs to me, and one I will cherish and protect until the day I die. Because I’m not just falling in love with Douglass. I’m already there.
I give her a tug to get us moving again, more eager than ever to get her inside and into the shower. I need to feel her slicked skin in my hands. Taste her sweetness. Lose myself in her warmth as I push her up against the marble tile of the shower. Show her how much I love her as I pound into her until she’s crying my name and coming all over my cock.
Voices carry across the distance from the courtyard to where we are. I register Harper’s excited chatter immediately. But it’s the other voice and the tall, blond-haired man that catches Douglass’s attention.Aw, fuck.
She stops dead in her tracks, almost pulling my arm off in the process.
“Is that… no way.” With an exuberant shout of unadulterated joy, Douglass takes off with me still attached to her hand. “Oh my god!” she shouts, and my stomach drops to my feet when Mason sees her.
His face alights, his smile huge and directed only at her. No one else exists.
“There’s my gorgeous girl.”
The fuck?
As soon as we reach the back patio, Douglass lets go of my hand, and I stand by and dumbly watch as she hurls herself into his arms.
She’s so happy to see him. All I see is a green tincture of bitter jealousy. I briefly register when Harper says something, and don’t pay attention when Bennett appears through the kitchen French doors because Mason and I lock eyes. There’s a challenge he throws my way seen in the contemptuous curl of his mouth.
The ominous worry I’d been feeling ever since Bennett told me Mason was coming with him materializes into actuality when he pulls Douglass to him and kisses her.
Mason is kissing Douglass.
His lips are on my woman’s.
I’m going to fucking kill him.
Chapter 44
Shock. Elation. Confusion. Surprise.
Mason is here? How?
Pulling Jordan along with me, my feet fly across the ground—completely forgetting that they hurt after jogging two miles and walking one more—toward the blond-haired, blue-eyed man.
Mason’s denim eyes see me coming, and a smile as wide as the expansive universe takes over his entire face. I let go of Jordan’s hand and jump into Mason’s open arms.
“Surprise,” he says in my ear. “Missed you like crazy.”
“Missed you too,” I rasp out, overcome with emotion.
It’s been months and months since we’ve seen each other, and video calls don’t count because it’s not the same.
“Let me get a good look at you,” I tell him, wiggling out of his grasp. He looks good. Healthy, tanned, and vital.
Mason has a similar build to Jordan, but Mason is bulkier with dense muscle on a tight frame forged by years of playing baseball. His blue eyes, however, are more navy compared to Jordan’s pale cerulean. Mason’s hair is longer than the last time I saw him, not cropped short on the sides anymore, but curling at the ends around his ears. I like it.
“Did you know?” I ask Harper, who’s standing behind him with an overjoyed smile of her own.
“Nope. Best surprise ever.” She beams.
