And I’d been plenty noisy while I did it.
Bee bit my lip, tugging at it with a smile, as I reluctantly eased myself from her body and got up to take care of the condom. After cleaning up, I found my pajama pants and pulled them up around my hips while I walked over to the small coffeepot near the bathroom.
“Coffee?” I asked the temptress currently tangled in my sheets.
“Only if it’s some obnoxious seasonal flavor,” she said. “Nothing plain.”
I looked down at the coffee pods organized in a dish shaped like a snowflake. “There’s chocolate peppermint, white chocolate peppermint, and . . . figgy pudding. That feels like a bold choice for a coffee flavor.”
“Figgy pudding, please,” she said cheerfully.
I grimaced but complied, making us each a mug of coffee—white chocolate peppermint for me, thank you very much—and then I walked carefully back to the bed with them in hand.
It was then, with the steam curling from the top of the mugs, with Bee sitting up and reaching for her disgusting coffee with adorable grabby hands, that the truth punched me in the chest.
I didn’t want this to end.
Not this morning, not tomorrow. Not when I left the set. Not at any point in the foreseeable future.
I wanted her. This.
And I wanted this for more than just a handful of days.
I handed her the mug and then sat down on the edge of the bed, wanting to etch this moment into my memory forever. The morning sun glowed in, the kind of pale light that promised cold noses and snow-blanketed hills, and it loved Bee, caressing her lush mouth and high cheeks, fanning shadows underneath her long eyelashes. Her hair was tousled and tangled over her breasts and shoulders, and on the end table was an empty condom wrapper, a scrunchie, and her phone, scattered in a mess that felt so girlfriendy it made my throat ache. Everything smelled like sex and coffee and Christmas, and it was heaven.
It was actual heaven.
“What if—” I started, my heart flipping over as I realized what I was about to ask. What I was about to risk. Becausewhat if she said no? Or worse, what if she thought I was like those creepers in her ClosedDoors comments, the men who craved her not as a person, but as a disposable fantasy?
But I had to ask, didn’t I? Because the thought ofnothaving this whenDuke the Hallswrapped felt like getting hit by an INK tour busandits caravan of cargo trucks. So I cleared my throat and started again.
“What if this didn’t end?” I asked quietly. “What if it was like this all the time?”
She blinked at me. “Like this? Drinking figgy pudding coffee in Vermont?”
I set my mug on the table and turned so I could face her completely. “Likethis,” I said, curling my hands around hers cradling her mug. I looked deep into her gaze, which was as green as a Kansas prairie in spring. “Us.”
Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak at first, her eyes searching mine. Then she said, slowly, “Us?”
“I like you,” I whispered, taking her coffee from her and setting it on the table next to mine. “I like you so much that it scares me. And when I think about leaving and never seeing you again, it makes me feel like something’s being yanked out of me. Something important, something that I need to breathe and eat and live. I want more than memories with you, Bee. I want moments upon moments.”
She swallowed, her eyes dropping to our hands, which were now laced together.
“I like you too,” she murmured. “More than is good for me. But I don’t know, Nolan.” She looked back up to me again.“You feel like a mirage to me, like the closer I get, the less real you’ll become. And sometimes I wonder if it’s better to keep you at a distance.”
Her voice was soft, but the words made me ache, both for her and for myself. “I’m not a mirage,” I said, leaning in to brush her lips with mine. “I’m real. I’m here. And I’m not going to disappear.”
She pressed her forehead to mine. “You promise?”
“I promise. Not a mirage.”
A small sigh. “I want to see you after this too.”
My heart surged against my chest, and I couldn’t help it, I kissed her again. I dug my hands into her hair and moved my lips over hers until she impatiently deepened the kiss like she always did, as if she were hungry for my taste.
“But,” she said, breaking off, “you’ll be in Kansas City. I’ll be in L.A.”
“We’ll make it work,” I pledged.
