“It’s in my truck because I’m not home.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “And if you’re home?”
“I’m usually gripping it like a lifeline,” I told her honestly. “Trying to figure out what to do. Trying to remember. Trying to hold onto the only part of you I had.”
Her head moved in as much of a nod as she could manage in her position. “I, uh...I found a picture. Of us.”
My hand stopped just as I began making my path up her back. “Of—in Aruba?” I clarified.
She swallowed thickly as she adjusted herself, pushing up just slightly and somehow making it so that she was lying even more fully on me. “Yeah, we, uh...we must’ve just eloped.” Before I could ask how she gathered that, she explained, “I’m holding my hand up and wearing the ring. You’re kissing me.” Her head tilted. “Well, the corner of my mouth.”
“Can I see it?” I found myself asking, desperate for this new piece of that night.
A humming sound of confirmation built in her throat. “I stared at that picture for hours. Every day.” The confession came out hushed, almost ashamed. Her stare had fallen as she’d spoken, but that didn’t take away my view of her or her slightly darkening cheeks.
When I spoke, my voice was a wry rumble. “Is that right?”
Her eyes rolled. “Don’t go reading into it.”
“Oh, I’m reading into it, Peach.”
A deep sigh left her as she planted her hands on my chest, forcefully pressing all her weight there and pushing a wheezed laugh from my lungs as she prepared to climb over me.
Wrapping an arm around her waist, I twisted us so we were lying side by side, facing each other, and felt the corner of my mouth tick up because she’d let me move her. She could’ve easily fought against me and maybe even succeeded in getting off the couch, but she’d allowed the movements.
Not only allowed them, she’dmeltedinto them.
This Mallory . . .
“I need to go,” she said in a way that let me know she was perfectly content to stay right there.
I just nodded as my hand trailed up higher and higher until I was tracing her jaw with my fingers and savoring that nearly inaudible inhale that was sure to be my ruin.
Openly loving each other might be new territory for Mallory and me, but I still knewher. I knew she was addicted to herroutines, just as I knew she didn’t need to look at a clock to know the general time.
Just another thing her dad had ingrained in her.
Cradling her cheek in my hand, I slowly passed my thumb across her bottom lip as I asked, “We going for a run, or getting ready for work?”
“I need to go for a short run,” she said, putting the slightest emphasis on the first word, even as she shifted deeper into the couch, intome. “You need to go to your own apartment and get ready.”
I tipped my head closer, holding her stare as I rumbled, “Or we could stay. Delay the morning for a little while longer.”
Her eyes widened in something like realization, stopping me before my lips could capture hers. Because it wasn’t just understanding in her dark blue eyes, it was longing and desire, unease and worry.
“Mallory,” I began, leaning back just enough to better study her expression, “that isn’t what I meant. Married or not, we won’t sleep together until you’re ready. And even when you are, I assure you, the first time I sleep with you won’t be on a couch.”
If I hadn’t been so close, if it hadn’t beenMallory, I might not have noticed the initial clash of relief and insecurity that swept across her features, only to immediately be replaced with shame and panic. Panic that twisted through my chest and gripped my heart when she tried to hide it behind all those walls before her expression abruptly fell.
Full lips slightly parted. Eyes wide and vacant, as if she was seeing something that wasn’t here.
And it felt like I couldn’t breathe because there was no logical explanation for her reaction.
Mallory didn’t panic. Not only that, butpanicwasn’t an emotion that should pour from anyone being told theyweren’tgoing to be pressured into sleeping with someone.
“Mallory—” I choked on her name, on the plea twisting up my throat, as the black hole of a night that was Aruba ripped through my mind.
Pushing onto my elbow, my hand fell from where I’d still been cradling her face as denials swirled and that grip on my heart turned lethal.
