“You mentioned it one night while chatting with…” he trails off. Neither of us have brought up her name since Christmas. Not out loud, at least. “I thought Rhett might get you one for Christmas. But he didn’t so…” He his beard before sighing heavily, shrugging and looking out the front of the car. I circle his wrist, running my thumb over the bite marks I’d left behind on his thumb.
“Thank you.”
“Let me know if anything changes,” I say to the young man as I run his credit card for the multi-thousand dollar deposit. “Otherwise, I’ll touch base about four weeks before the wedding to confirm everything we talked about today.”
He nods, his eyes bright with happiness and excitement.
I hand him back his credit card along with a receipt for the deposit.
“Congratulations!” My smile is warmer than before, a lick of determination shooting down my sternum. It’s a sensation I’ve slowly figured out means the puck’s dropped for the night’s game.
The man blushes, then quietly leaves the shop. I clean up my reference photography books and lay them under the counter, then go through my standard process of documenting and scheduling a new custom order. It’s hard to believe it’s only a few short months before wedding season kick into high gear. I’m already tired thinking of it, if I’m being honest.
I pull up the job listing Marilyn helped me build yesterday, reviewing it yet again. I only save it as a draft, though, some part of me unwilling to make that final jump into accepting that she’s not actually going to come back. That he need for space to figure everything out has actually led to her not wanting to figure anything out at all… which is her choice, and one I can’t even fault her for.
The custom orders are finally caught up, so I spend the last hour the shop is technically open to reorganize the work room, catching up on all of the small tasks that have fallen to the wayside over the last month while the game plays quietly in the background. Quietly because the media is back to hating the Scorpions, criticizing every action each of the guys make, especially the James brothers, and I’m at my limit of hearing people talk about them. When all of my supplies and stations are sorted and wiped down and the floors mopped, I glance at the clock perched by my purse. Twenty more minutes.
I turn off the game as it drop into the first intermission. Then I pull the roses I’ve been working on drying the last couple days, carefully twisting them to making sure they dry evenly. Then I grab the rose I’d had to pull from an arrangement for droppingtoo many petals and pull the rest of them off, stashing them in the portable portion of the press to take home and add to the slowly growing collection I’ve been building all week.
The bells chime about five minutes before I’m ready to lock up. I roll my shoulders back and drop my phone into my pocket before heading into the front of the shop.
“How can I help…” I trail off as I see the black hair and hip-hugging jeans. It’s been nearly three weeks, but I’d recognize her anywhere. She turns toward me, and her ring catches the light.
She’s still wearing her ring.
An entire lifetime’s worth of emotions race through me as she locks eyes with me, and I’m sure they’re fucking up whatever Paxton’s trying to do on the ice. Her throat moves with her swallow. Her eyes are sad but not red or puffy like she’s been crying. She doesn’t wear any makeup, but she’s gorgeous without it. Her voice blends with the shop, nervous like that first time she showed up and I was drowning under a custom order.
“Can we talk?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
CARYS
“‘Rys,” Billie murmurs. “You’re so beautiful. It’s painful.”
I glance up from the flowers with a frown, flinching at her voice.
We’ve been holed up in my apartment for nearly two hours. Despite her question of being able to talk, neither of us had said much of anything as we ate. Afterward, she’d poured a glass of wine while I pulled out the flower press, still not saying a word. The silence hasn’t gotten any lighter in the time since then, either. Now, her wine glass is nearly empty where she holds it with a recklessly loose grip, the low light of the living room reflecting off her grown out nails. Pink dusts her cheeks, and her teeth bite into her lower lip as she traces a flower petal.
“Painful?”
She nods then takes another drink. My eyes catch on the way her throat flexes.
There’s that tug in my belly again, just like I feel with Rhett and Paxton—exactly the same as when I want to reach out and touch them, kiss them, breathe in their scents. Confusion blends with the slow-burning flame in my stomach and between mythighs. On instinct, my fingers twitch with the urge to trace the scar on my hip, my body seeking any kind of reassurance right now. It’s been three days since I made out with him in his car, and I already want to do it again.
Forcing my body still, I shove thoughts of Paxton away, terrified she’ll know I’m thinking about him. Everything is still too messy, and I can’t stand the thought of her disappearing again. My chest twists with a stabbing longing I don’t quite understand. It’s a half-shade lighter than the ache in my soul during the road games when my bed is empty. Like… like seeing a garland of wisteria when you’ve become accustomed to freesia.
“I’m jealous of him.” The edges of her words are just a bit fuzzy, and her eyes are glassy. “That he knows what your lips feel like. He knows your moans and sighs and… and if you scratch up his shoulders when he’s eating you or if you twist your fingers into his hair instead.”
Nerves fill my throat. I’m not entirely sure whichheshe means. I don’t really remember that time with Paxton, just flashes of sensation. His arm around my waist, his hand holding my knee against his hip as he wedged his knot into me, his teeth as they sank into my hip, the way his warmth cut through the heat’s bone-deep pain. There wasn’t any kind of slow seduction or exploration. Neither of us were capable of it.
I set the small portfolio of petals on the ground beside me, terrified I’m going to crush the pressed flowers, and shove my trembling hands under my legs. I have no idea what to say. She doesn’t seem bothered by my continued silence, though. She takes another drink of wine.
My eyes catch on the way her lips part around the glass, the way her throat ripples as she swallows, the way her tongue traces her lip after like she’s chasing every last drop. That lick of flame burns hotter, my pussy clenching around nothing. My orchidscent blooms around us, overpowering the lingering smells of the pressed flowers. Her nostrils flare.
“For a long time, I wanted to be an Omega so that we would coordinate. So I knew without a doubt that he belonged with me,” she whispers. “But now… now I wish I was an Alpha like him.”
My mouth is so dry. I swallow to try and soothe the sudden ache.
