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“I’ve had a serious boner since the boutique,” he said with a sigh.
I laughed. “Well, there are ways of fixing that.”
“I’m well aware, Miss Germaine, but not until tonight. Good things come to those who wait.”
“And those who don’t?” I asked, brushing a kiss against the corner of his mouth. He turned his head and caught me in a heated kiss, pulling me closer so his erection pushed into my hip.
“You taste so good,” he murmured when he released me. “Tell me you’re moving in, and I get to do this whenever I please.”
“David,” I started, placing a hand on his chest.
“We own a house together, for God’s sake,” he interrupted.
Oh, yes, the Oak Park house. I had purposely been avoiding the topic. David had bought my dream home on a whim because he couldn’t stand the thought of someone else buying it for me. Not two days into our relationship and there was a house involved.
“You own a house,” I corrected.
His eyebrows furrowed. “We, Olivia. Great as it is, that house means nothing to me without you in it.”
This I already knew, since he’d practically given it to me days earlier when he’d almost walked out my life. “That’s way in the future anyway,” I said. “I still have a whole divorce to go through.”
“Again, we,” he corrected. “I’m going through it too.”
“Right, okay, but it’s ridiculous for me to go from being married to someone else right to moving in with you.”
“What’s ridiculous is you paying re
nt on some shithole when you’ll be here with me every night anyway.”
“Every night?” I repeated.
“If you think I am willingly spending even one night away from you, after every night we’ve already spent apart, then you have no clue what’s been going on in my head the past few months. You’re my girl,” he said softly, “and I want you here.”
I smiled and touched his hair, because I thought it was cute when he called me his girl. I thought it was so cute that I shifted against his lap again.
“Don’t try to distract me. We’re having this talk now.”
I pouted. “You’re a cock block.”
He grinned. “Don’t worry, honeybee, I won’t let you off so easy tonight.” My insides clenched, and I wished we were already home from the party. I stood up and sighed. “Okay. You’re right. Let’s talk.”
“Where are you going?”
“I can’t think straight being that close to you.”
“If thinking straight is a requirement, then might I suggest we do this over the phone?”
“Very funny,” I said, moving to the couch on the other side of the office. I removed my shoes and sat against one arm with my knees bent. He followed my lead and after toeing off his own shoes, he sat opposite and extended his long legs on both sides of me.
“I could get used to this,” he said, letting his eyes drift over me. “I look forward to spending my days learning what you love, what you don’t, and all the little details in between.”
I blushed as I tried not to smile.
“I want our relationship to be completely and totally open,” he continued. “Honesty, and the irony of this is not lost on me, but it’s the most important thing to me when it comes to you. No lies. No fibs. No telling me you’re goddamn fine when you’re not. Nothing.”
I took a deep breath. It would be hard. I’d spent my life beating back the things that I didn’t want to feel. Telling Bill I was fine and having him accept that made things easy. Telling David how I really felt, whether it was mad, sad, happy, jealous – that wouldn’t always be easy.
“Hey,” he called, and I realized I’d been staring off into space. “You hear me? No ‘fine’ bullshit.”
“I’ll try,” I promised.
He eyed me another moment and continued. “If Bill calls and tries to get you back, I want to know. I’ll be fucking pissed, but I’ll do my best to control it. Because I need you to come to me.”
“This is a two-way street, isn’t it?”
“What does that mean?” he asked, raising his chin at me.
“You haven’t exactly been a saint through all of this. Dani, Maria – they’re gone, right?”
The angles of his face sharpened, and he looked almost angry. “Gone. I have nothing to hide from you, and I never have.”
“What about Oak Park?”
I had him there, and he knew it. Even though the Oak Park house had been my dream home, and it had symbolized the beginning of a new future with Bill, David hadn’t hesitated to snatch it out from under us.
He looked away and didn’t speak until his gaze found me again. “I’m sorry about Oak Park. The thing is, when I had you there in front of me and we were in that house, rundown as it was, I saw us there, together, as a couple.”
I sucked in a breath. He’d seen it too. We belonged in that house; everything about it felt right. I remembered how deplorable I’d felt having that thought when I was supposed to be building a life with someone else.
“I knew one day it would be real,” he continued. “By the time we were leaving, I’d already done some initial sketches in my head. We’d work on it together, move in, raise a family, be fucking happy. When you told me Bill had made an offer, well . . . it hit me like a ton of bricks, baby. I was shocked. I wasn’t going to give that dream up.” He was so beautiful when he was passionate, and I loved listening to him as much as I loved watching him. “I guess I had this idea that you and I would eventually end up together, and that sort of shattered it.”
“You thought that?”
“That was one time where I worried I was living in a fantasy. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I’m sure as hell not sorry that I did it.”
“I saw it too,” I blurted.
“Saw what?”
“Us. There. Together. It scared me. I realized my problems with Bill ran deeper than I thought, and that . . . my feelings for you did, too.”
