Her hands flew to her hips. “You have some balls, you know that? You dump me, write me off as if I never existed, then show up here while I’m waiting to have dinner and expect me to drop everything and talk to you?”
“Don’t talk. Just listen.”
The fire in her eyes flared. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it and lifted her arm to look at her watch. “You’ve got one minute.”
I couldn’t resist the urge to touch her any longer. Reaching out, I cupped her face in my hands. She didn’t smack them away, which I thought was a good sign.
“I fucked up. I know. I ended things because I thought it was best for you. Today I realized I didn’t even know what was best for me, so how the hell could I have known what was best for you?”
Her face softened.
“I know you don’t want children. A month ago I might’ve said the same thing. We both come from screwed-up families. But sometimes the unexpected comes along and makes us realize we never really knew what we wanted.”
“You never even asked me if I wanted children.”
I’d forgotten she didn’t know I’d read her list. I looked down at my feet. “When I was looking for takeout menus, you were in the shower. I saw what you wrote.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What I wrote? What are you talking about?”
I had the fucking thing memorized after so many times of playing it back in my mind. “I’ll never be his priority… I’ll get hurt again.… Never really wanted kids.… I deserve more.”
I looked at her and nodded. “I know you deserve more. You deserve exactly what you want. But maybe there’s a chance that what you want could change.”
Layla’s eyes seemed to go unfocused for a minute, as if she was searching for something. Then a look of recognition formed.
“You read one of my notebooks?”
“It wasn’t intentional. But yeah, I did.”
“And that’s why you broke up with me? Because of the list?”
I shook my head. “I should’ve spoken to you about it.”
“Yeah. You should’ve. You know why?”
I nodded. “Because I didn’t have the right to make a choice for you.”
“That’s true. But it also would have given me a chance to tell you what you read wasn’t about you.”
“What?”
“That’s right. I’d like to have kids someday. If you had asked me, I would have told you that. What you read was a list I made probably fifteen years ago—about whether I should forgive my father.”
I stared at her in disbelief.
She ticked off the list on her fingers. “I’ll never be his priority. I’ll get hurt again. Never really wanted kids. I deserve more. I believe that was written when he didn’t show up for my middle school graduation ceremony after he’d promised he’d be there. If I remember correctly, there was also he’s not dependable. Because he wasn’t. Ever.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Jesus Christ. Are you serious?”
“Based on that alone, you walked away from me. Without a fight?”
“Max said when you spoke to her—”
Layla held up a hand. “Don’t even finish that sentence.”
Shit.
She lifted her wrist and glanced at her watch. “Five seconds. Anything else?”
Shit.
It was now or never. I missed everything about this woman. From the way she smelled to the attitude she gave me to the warm feeling I had in my chest being near her again. My eyes dropped to her nose, and I realized she hadn’t covered her freckles. It gave me the courage I needed to lay my heart on the line.
“I love you. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life. I fucking love you, Layla. We were meant to be together. We both knew it from that very first day. Loving you is like breathing; I can’t stop.”
Her pursed lips tilted upward, but then fell again. “You hurt me, Gray. Twice. I can’t go through that again.”
“I know. And if you let me have another chance, I promise I’ll make it up to you. I won’t doubt things between us again. I can’t. Because I want to grow old with you, Freckles. We both grew up looking at our parents’ relationships and not wanting to repeat what we saw. Ella will grow up wanting what she sees we have. We can break the cycle and do it right.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I’m scared, Gray.”
“Do you love me?”
She nodded. “I couldn’t move on after we split the first time because I didn’t know how to let go. I still don’t.”
“So don’t, babe. Just hold on. And I’ll do the same.” My thumb caught a tear that spilled over.
“I miss Ella,” she said.
It was my turn to get choked up. The only thing that made me happier than hearing she loved me was hearing she loved my daughter, too.
“She wants to paint her room in my house rainbow.”
Layla smiled. “We can do that. When I was a kid, I always wanted white walls with a big rainbow painted on it.”
She said we. I brushed my lips against hers. When she didn’t stop me, I kept going. I licked her lips, urging her to open for me, and she moaned into my mouth. The kiss was more passionate than anything we’d ever shared. So much pent-up emotion zapped between us that it was impossible not to feel the burn. I wrapped her in my arms, holding her flush against me. The smell of her perfume and taste of her sweet kiss had me lost to where I even was. When I lifted her in the air, wanting to wrap her legs around me and back her against the nearest wall, Layla came to her senses.
“Gray…”
“Mmmm?” I tugged her hair, and my mouth began to explore her neck.
“We’re in a public place.”
I nibbled her ear. “Bathroom. Where’s the nearest bathroom?”
She giggled. The sound was better than any melody to my ears. “I don’t think we should go into a bathroom. But…we are in a hotel.”
“Fuck, yeah.” Reluctantly, I let her go, but only to race her out of the bar and toward the front desk. She had to practically run in her heels to keep up with me. Those things were definitely staying on.
Thank God, the hotel had a room.
Once we were in the elevator, I finally got to press her against the wall. I grabbed her ass and guided her legs around my waist, neither of us giving a shit that she was wearing a dress. Then I sucked on her collarbone and told her all of the things I couldn’t wait to do to her.
“I can’t wait to come inside of you. I don’t even give a fuck that it’s primal and chauvinistic. I want to mark every part of your body as mine. I’m going to leave bite marks on your thighs before I suck your pussy and you come in my mouth. I’m going to come in your sweet cunt and then your mouth. When I’m done, I’m going to bend you over the bed and fuck your ass with my fingers until you beg for my cock there, too.”
“God, Gray.”
The doors slid open, and a startled-looking couple forced us to separate. Luckily, it was our floor.
Our only pause was stumbling into our hotel room like horny teenagers. And that was just because I couldn’t decide where I wanted to fuck her first—up against the door, on the expensive desk in the corner of the room, or on the plush, king-size bed. Then again, the arm of the couch looked the perfect height for bending her over.... Bed. The bed has to be first.
Somehow I managed to strip us both out of our clothes while keeping our tongues entwined. I pulled back to look at her when she was naked. Her raven hair spread out over the white bedding, and her naturally tan body had a sheen of sweat I wanted to lick off from head to toe. But her beauty kept me standing there, staring.
“You are…” I was truly at a loss for words. “I want to say beautiful, but it doesn’t seem like enough. You are…the love of my life.”
She reached up, extending her hand to me. I kissed the top and the palm before threading our fingers together and climbing on top of her. Pulling our joined hands over her head, I lined up my cock with her slick entrance. Rubbing up and dow
n, the feel of her wet heat was almost enough to make me come.
I took her mouth in a kiss as I pushed inside. My arms trembled as I steadied myself. “I love you, Layla.”
“I love you, too, Gray.” She smiled and wrapped her legs around my hips.
I’d wanted to stay put, tell her more about how I felt about her, but the urge to move was too great. I glided in and out, sucking on every part of her body as I went—her tits, her throat, her luscious lips. But when our eyes locked, we began to make love. Real, true, raw, painfully beautiful love. Like nothing I’d ever experienced.
I wanted to keep going slow, cherish this moment in time and never leave it, but when your woman utters the words, “Come inside of me. Please come inside of me,” any chance of slow and steady gets tossed out the window.
My pace ratcheted up, and when she tightened her legs around my waist, I sank deep, rubbing against the spot she loved so much. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she moaned.
“That’s it. Come for me, babe. I’m going to fill your pussy…. I’m going to come so hard…”
Her body clenched down, and she began to spasm all around me. She called my name in a mix of a moan and scream as together we rode out her wave. When she started to come down, I sped up and fucked her even harder. Our bodies slapping against each other was the most erotic sound I’d ever heard. I was buried so deep, and she was so open for me, that my balls started to smack between her ass cheeks. Unable to hold back any more, I let go, coming long and hard inside of her.
It took a long time for us to catch our breath. Rolling off, I took her with me, settling on my back with her on top. Her head rested above my heart.
“Your heart is beating so fast.”
“That’s what you do to me.”
I felt her smile against my chest while I stroked her damp hair.
A few minutes later, she turned her head and rested her chin on her hand to look up at me. “Shoot. I need to make a call.”
My body stiffened. The only person she could possibly have to call at this moment would be her date. My arms locked around her, and I firmed up my grip. Logical or not, I was jealous of the man she’d stood up tonight for the mere fact that she’d almost gone out with him.
“Could we at least wait until my cock deflates before you get up to call another man?”
Her brows furrowed. “Another man? What are you talking about?”
“Weren’t you going to call your date and apologize for standing him up?”
She lifted her head. “Wait. How did you know I was even here tonight?”
“Etta told me.”
Layla started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Etta. She played both of us. I’m supposed to be meeting her for dinner here tonight. She told me a story about how she ran into her husband here and said they came back every year on their anniversary—how when she was a little girl she always thought the place was magical, and then when she ran into the man she eventually married here, it confirmed it.”
“I vaguely remember that from years ago. They’d both get all dressed up and come here every year.”
“So it wasn’t that you suddenly figured out you loved me and couldn’t live without me, it was more like jealousy that got you off your ass to try to win me back.”
“Does it matter what it took?”
“You’re a jealous person normally, aren’t you?”
“I’m only jealous when people touch what’s mine, sweetheart.”
“But I wasn’t yours when you thought I had made plans for a date with a man tonight.”
I reached down and pulled Layla up from my chest so we were eye to eye. “You’ve been mine since the day we met. We may not have always been together, but that didn’t make you any less mine.”
Epilogue
* * *
Layla
2 years later
I came home to something rare—a quiet house.
When I’d left this morning to have breakfast with my dad and half-sister, the house was already chaotic. Gray and Ella were out in the yard by 8AM, working on the garden from hell. Freckles had rolled in the pile of manure they’d planned to spread on one side of the yard today and then dashed through the sprinkler on the other.
Nothing like having coffee with the smell of wet dog and cow shit right before going to share a meal with two people who still made me jittery.
A few months ago, I’d been out with Ella and run into my half-sister, Kristen, again. She’d invited herself to join us for lunch, and when we were done, I realized I’d actually had a good time. It had opened a door I’d thought was permanently closed, and we’d been taking things slowly ever since.
I dropped my purse on the living room coffee table and went out back. No one was in the yard either, but I couldn’t help laughing at the craziness I saw.
The house we’d bought in Brooklyn six months ago was a few blocks from where Ella had lived with her mother. I’d fallen in love with the neighborhood over the year and a half we’d frequently visited when picking up Ella. Max had surprised everyone, including the doctors, and lived for eighteen more months, rather than the three to six they’d told her was likely. Parts of that extended ride were paved with rough road—frequent hospital stays and heartache for Ella as she got older and really started to realize what was happening.
Ella had experienced so much change; it just seemed like one less thing she’d have to deal with if we stayed in the neighborhood she was already familiar with.
So, we bought a beautiful old brownstone with a small yard on a tree-lined street and decided to call Brooklyn home. Ella had shut down for a while after her mother passed, and Gray was desperate to connect with her. We both were. I’d suggested that maybe the two of them should come up with a project to work on, which would give them a reason to spend time together. Gray had broken out the blueprints for his mother’s garden, the one they’d never had the chance to plant together, and that he’d flown out to California to plant around her burial plot.
I looked around our yard. In one corner was his mother’s garden—complete to her specs with all of the trees, flowers, and plantings she’d designed twenty-five years ago. That project had drawn Ella back out, and Gray wanted to keep going. So, the two of them had decided to design their own garden—just like he’d done with his mother when he was little.
They’d spent most nights for more than a month designing it. On weekends, we’d walked around nurseries and garden shows, which frequently led to plan redesigns. Now they were on phase three of the planting. I didn’t even want to know the value of everything planted in this crazy yard. I was pretty sure we had at least a car back here. But what it had given Gray and Ella, you couldn’t put a price tag on. Her healing and their bonding was worth any amount of money.
I took one more look at the jungle and headed back inside. Where was everyone? I realized even Freckles wasn’t around. His trusty shoe sat on his doggy bed—not his original one, of course. His former owner’s worn loafer, which he’d carried around for the better part of two years, was now buried in our yard. About a week after Ella had moved in, Gray and I caught him putting his loafer to rest near the big tree in the middle of the yard. That night, he’d stolen one of Ella’s light-up sneakers, and that was that. His old master had finally been replaced. These days he seldom traveled without Ella’s little shoe.
I went upstairs to get changed and stopped at Ella’s doorway to turn the light off. The white walls with a huge rainbow never ceased to make me smile. A few months ago, I’d been reading Stuart Little to her in bed for at least the hundredth time, and she’d asked me if her mom could see the rainbow from up above. I’d told her I thought she could. God only puts rainbows in the sky after a storm, and I’d always thought it was to remind us that things will get brighter again.
I flicked off the light in Ella’s room and headed to our bedroom. The second floor of the house could get hot during the day, especially our room since m
y crazy boyfriend had double-insulated all four walls with soundproof insulation when we’d redone the upstairs. Just because we were full-time parents now didn’t mean Gray took it easy in the bedroom at night.
I went into our walk-in closet and stripped off my clothes in favor of a tank top and shorts. On my way out, I noticed something in the middle of the bed.
A red spiral notebook. On the cover, in Gray’s masculine, slashy handwriting, he’d written Gray’s Yeahway Notebook. I laughed and sat down to see what he was up to.
Just like my books, the page was divided into pros and cons with a pen line down the middle. His list didn’t have a heading at the top, so I tried to unravel the mystery.
The pros list was huge, and the first entry cracked me up.
Big dick.
I couldn’t decipher what the next few were about.
Remote control
Programmed coffee
Fresh cherry tomatoes
Rip and Etta. Really?
What the hell was this crazy man up to? I kept scanning the list.
Magic tongue
Love of my life
Rainbows
The list went on and on and took up nearly the entire front and back of a page. The last entry made my heart sigh.
Because she has the other half of my heart, and together our souls beat as one.
I’d been so engrossed in figuring out the list that I hadn’t heard anyone come in. Gray’s deep voice made me leap from the bed, and the notebook went flying into the air.
“Snooping?”
“God, Gray.” I held my hand across my heart, which felt like it might beat out of my chest. “You scared the living crap out of me.”
He stayed in the doorway, filling it with his imposing frame. His arms reached over his head, holding onto the top. All it took was one look at the sexy half-smirk on his face, and I knew he was up to no good. The throb between my legs hoped whatever it was, it happened in this room.