"Oh, Trent." She tried to take a step away, but he held her gently. "It's so hard to talk about that time of our lives."
"Reese, we made mistakes, but I know we can learn from them so that we don't make the same ones a second time. Please talk to me."
Could they really learn from their mistakes? Because she sure felt like she was falling right back into his arms just as quickly as before, and she was just as powerless to resist.
"I went by your gallery again," he said softly when she didn't respond. "You named it after us, didn't you?"
"It's been called Dandelion since I opened the doors. You just now noticed?"
"Even thinking about you hurt, so I did everything I could to bury my head in the sand. We spent a lot of time avoiding each other, remember?"
"All too well," she admitted.
Because she'd done exactly the same thing--buried her head deep in the sand so that she wouldn't have to look around and see signs of Trent everywhere on the island. The first place they'd kissed. The first place they'd made love. The first place they'd said I love you. But now, as she gazed into his loving eyes, she was struck by the sincerity in them. Struck, too, by the realization that it was time to finally lift her head all the way out of the sand and face the man standing before her.
"You're right. We've gone way too long without talking about what happened."
All of the chairs in her studio were covered with supplies, so they sat on the floor among the paint fumes and wet brushes. Trent immediately tugged her in close, pulling her legs over his lap, the way he always used to. Despite the difficult conversation they were about to have--or maybe because of it--she needed the closeness. And she could tell that he did, too.
But even as she wiggled in closer while her heart went crazy--and the look in his eyes told her that he wanted her just as much as she wanted him just then--she knew they really did need to talk. Because sex without love had never been her thing. Not ten years ago. And not now.
"Trent..." There was so much she needed to say to him that all the words got tangled up inside her head. "I don't know where to start," she admitted in a soft voice.
"I think maybe I do," he said, his words gentle, soothing her the same way his hand stroking over her back worked to calm her jumping nerves. "Yesterday you asked me why I waited ten years to come back for you. Today I think I may have finally figured out the reason. At least part of it."
"Tell me, Trent. I need so badly to understand."
"I never really loved New York City. Not the way everyone thought I did." She was stunned by his confession, but she made herself stay quiet to let him continue speaking. "As the eldest Rockwell, I felt so much pressure to succeed, and I was afraid to let my family, and myself, down by coming back to the island. I knew my father didn't want me to end up working under Chandler's thumb the way he had his whole life. So even though New York never really fit--especially not without you--I stayed because I felt like I had something to prove to everyone." He shook his head. "And now I wish I had come back years ago. Come back to you and the life we should have had here together."
Reese was struck dumb as she tried to fit what he'd said into the reality she'd believed for ten years. She'd thought he craved the busy, corporate environment and the challenge of getting to the top of the industry ladder. But could she have been as blind to his true emotions as he'd been to hers back then?
"But after I left you that note," she said slowly, "when you did come back to talk with me that final time, you told me you had to work those crazy round-the-clock hours to gain footing. And I knew there was no point in trying to argue with you, not when you had such laser focus on success."
"I was twenty-six, Reese. Full of invincibility and driven to succeed, and too blinded by the belief that I needed to make sure the Rockwell name meant as much in New York as it did here on the island that I refused to consider any other options." He ran a hand through his hair in obvious frustration. "Ten years later I now know that while other lawyers were living and breathing the business, I wasn't working round-the-clock because I loved the law above all else. I was simply trying to prove to everyone that I was worthy of the Rockwell name. Worthy of my position in our family. I was trying to show Chandler that I didn't need his name to succeed. And I wanted my father to feel that guiding us to leave the island and get out from under his father's thumb was a good thing."
"It was a good thing. You are so well respected in your field, Trent. Regardless of your reasons for working so hard, I won't let you try to tell me otherwise. And I definitely don't want to take that away from you."
"You're beautiful when you're adamant."
"Stop... Your touch is kryptonite to my mental abilities. It's so easy for me to forget everything we went through and end up in your arms again, but..." She stopped and looked into his eyes. "I want to make sure being together is more than just physical. That it's emotional, too. And honest. As honest as we can possibly be with each other."
Which was why she suddenly knew she needed to be completely honest, and finally admit the truth to him about why she'd fallen apart in New York. "Ten years ago, New York City terrified me. Right from the start, I was all but paralyzed by the noise and the chaos and the traffic."
"Sweetheart." He brushed a lock of hair back from her face, his touch as tender and loving as it had ever been. "Why didn't you tell me how you were feeling?"
"You were so busy at work, and you were so supportive of my painting. I didn't want you to know how weak I was. Didn't want you to think I couldn't handle our new life." She nibbled on her lower lip, feeling terribly vulnerable again.
"You were nineteen, and you'd lived on the island your whole life, where practically everyone knows one another. Being overwhelmed doesn't make you weak. Hell, I was overwhelmed by New York and all the pressure that came along with the competitive law firms."
"You were?" She wondered if he was saying that to lessen her own insecurities. "You never told me."
"What kind of a husband would I have been if I'd laid my worries on you? At least that's what I thought back then, when I was young and stupid. So damn stupid not to have seen what you were going through, too."
"If I hadn't hidden my true feelings from you..." She inhaled a shaky breath, wondering if they would have been able to save their marriage if they had been honest and open with each other back then.
"You're not hiding them now," he said. "And neither am I. I'd say that's a good first step for a future together, wouldn't you?"
"It is," she agreed, but she knew they weren't quite done revisiting the past yet. "The day before I left New York, I got sick of feeling so overwhelmed, not just by the city, but by the thought of talking with gallery owners, too. So I bit the bullet and went to an important gallery I'd just read about, intent on seeking out the owner."
"You obviously made a great impression on him or her."
"I wish I could say that I did. But it was all accidental. When I got there, there were so many ritzy, important-looking people, that I chickened out. I didn't talk to anyone, barely had the guts to leave my card at the front desk. By the time I ran out of there, I knew I didn't belong in New York. I got lucky that the receptionist was trying to make a name for herself in the art world and liked the painting I put on my card enough to reach out."
"You keep telling me how scared you were, but you made it happen anyway, Reese. And I'm proud of you. So damn proud."
His continued--and boundless--faith in her touched her so deeply that her next words spilled from her lips, coming straight from her heart. "I'm sorry I left the very next day. I'm sorry I left you with nothing but that note when I should have been brave enough to say goodbye face-to-face. It must have been horrible to come home and find my letter."
Trent pulled her in closer and slid his hand to the nape of her neck before saying, "Do you know that feeling when you're watching a horror movie and your skin feels like it's on fire, and you're holding your breath, waiting for the ax to fall?"
/> She nodded.
"I felt like the person that ax falls onto."
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so tremendously sorry. All these years, I had somehow convinced myself that you came home and found the note, then sort of shrugged it off and buried yourself in more work."
"Shrugged it off? Did I make you feel like you meant that little to me?" Hearing that made him feel like his heart was being hollowed out.
"I don't know that I thought that, but I always wondered what you felt when you found the note. Thank you for being so honest with me."
"I will always be honest with you. Even if the truth is hard for both of us to hear. Which is why I need to know, what did it feel like to write the note?"
"It felt like I was holding the ax and I was beneath it at the same time. I remember shaking like a leaf. I think I wrote it five times before finally deciding I was really leaving."
He tugged her in close again. "I'm sorry I put you--us--in that situation, Reese. I adore you, and I'll never do it again."
"And I'm so sorry that I couldn't figure out how to make our marriage work," she said softly.
He didn't argue with her, but simply said, "I forgive you, Reese." He took her hand in his before asking, "Do you think you can forgive me?"
"Yes."
And with that one word, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She gazed into his eyes, feeling infinitely better than she had in years. "Do you know how many times I imagined having this talk with you?"
"I know I've imagined it at least a million times." He turned her palm over in his hand and stroked over it with his fingertips, making thrill bumps rise all across her skin. "Maybe we needed that time apart to grow and mature and to really figure out what we wanted in a relationship and in our careers and our lives."
She nodded, thinking that maybe he was right about that. "Lately I've been wondering if I put too much pressure on us to fit into the perfect marriage mold--home by six, dinner on the table. I realize now that's not how things work for everyone."
"Sort of like the way you keep trying to get us to slow down now?"
"Slow has never been our forte, has it?" she admitted, before adding, "Unfortunately, I'm not sure we're very good at marriage either."
"Maybe we weren't very good at marriage because we weren't ready for it." She appreciated that he hadn't pulled away at her painful statement, but gathered her closer, instead. "People grow, and they change. I've changed, Reese, and I'll do whatever it takes to prove to you that I know how to love you the way you deserve to be loved."
Her pulse quickened and she was filled with hope. She pressed a finger over his lips. "I don't want any more promises tonight. And even though I know I'm going to need us to slow down again in the morning, right now I don't want to have to worry about putting on the brakes. Tonight I just want to let the wind carry us both, wherever we need to go."
He sealed his lips over hers, and when he rolled her onto her back, right onto the palette of paint, she didn't care about getting paint on either of their clothes...Nor was she going to worry about taking it slow when, in the wake of their totally honest talk, fast felt exactly right.
"God, you feel good, Reese. Like I've finally found the missing piece of me."
Paint smeared all over them as they kissed, desperate for more. She tugged at his shirt, fumbling to undo the buttons, but when paint made it slippery, she couldn't wait and gripped both sides of his collar to tear it open, sending the buttons flying across the room.
He lifted her up and unhooked her overalls, then pulled her shirt over her head. They tumbled into the paint again as they kissed and groped and slid around in it. She wiggled out of her overalls while Trent stripped bare. When he came down over her again, all of his glorious muscles were perched above her.
And then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her dizzy. Her head and body were both reeling as he kissed his way down her body, slowing to kiss the swell of her breasts, teasing each taut peak until she was on the verge of release. She pushed at his shoulders, needing his mouth on her, wanting him to love her in all the ways he always had.
His hands traveled over her ribs, down the curve of her waist to her hips. The strength of his hands and the softness of his lips made her ache for more. He spread his big hands over her thighs, and finally--God, finally--brought his mouth to her center. His hot mouth, the scrape of his teeth, made her body shudder, her veins fill with heat. Her sighs felt heavy, growing shorter, harsher, more desirous with every slick of his tongue. Anticipation mounted, until she felt as if she might burst.
"Trent--" She rocked her hips, frantically twisting the tarp below them.
Somewhere in the distance she registered the sound of a paint can tumbling over, but she was too focused on chasing the orgasm that was just out of reach to process it. When he slid his fingers over her inner thighs, around her sex, but didn't touch her where she needed it, she nearly lost her mind until she looked down and realized his hands were covered in paint.
Seconds later, when he brought his mouth to her again, she lost all control. Her hips bucked against his mouth, and he held her down, keeping her at the peak of the most intense orgasm she'd ever experienced.
She grasped at the tarp, panting as her fingers slid in the paint. "Please, Trent. Take me now."
He moved up her body, lacing their paint-soaked fingers and pinning them beside her head as he pushed into her, filling her completely. His lips crashed over hers in a mind-numbing kiss, obliterating any chance she had at rational thought. But a moment later he slowed his efforts, torturously so.
"Faster," she pleaded against his lips.
"Yes"--he kissed her deeply--"we were always good at fast."
He released her hands, and she grasped at his back and shoulders, feeling the tight pull of his muscles slide beneath the slick paint on her hands as he clutched her hips and buried himself deeper, time and time again. He angled her hips the way they both loved, bringing them as close together as two people could possibly get.
And when he gazed deeply into her eyes and said, "I truly love you," she tucked his words away to revel in later, as he took her up, up, up, and then they both fell blissfully over the edge.
Chapter Eighteen
TRENT HADN'T COME to Reese's studio to make love to her until his heart felt so full that he thought it might explode. And after they'd washed the colorful paint from their skin and made love again beneath the warm spray, he thought for sure she'd rethink things and tell him that they were moving too fast.
He readied himself for the blow as he pulled on his slacks. Now that they'd become even closer and he'd just loved her body and soul, she'd fully reclaimed the part of his heart that he'd locked away for so many years. The part that had never stopped loving her. Not for one single second. Reese stepped gracefully into a clean pair of panties and grabbed a T-shirt from a drawer, the sweet curves of her hips disappearing beneath the hem that dipped over her thighs. When she turned to face him, he realized she was wearing his favorite old T-shirt, which she must have taken with her when she'd left New York.
His heart had already grown impossibly fuller by the time she reached for his hand and surprised him by saying, "Stay with me."
God, there was nothing he wanted more. But he didn't want to push her too fast and end up losing her again, so he made himself ask, "You're sure?" If she said she only wanted him to stay a few minutes and then she'd need her space, he'd take it. A few minutes, a few seconds. Any amount of time with Reese was more than he thought she'd ever give him again.
But instead of saying any of that, she gave him the sweetest smile he'd ever seen as she led him to her bed, then climbed beneath the covers, motioning for him to join her. When he kicked his pants back off and crawled in beside her, she snuggled against him in what was once her favorite sleeping spot and draped her arm over his chest.
He wrapped her in his arms, full of intense gratitude.
"I thought I needed to slow us do
wn," she said as she rested her chin on his chest and turned a soft, loving gaze toward him. "But I don't think that's what I really want."
"Tell me what you do want." And he would move heaven and earth to give it to her.
She ran her fingertips down over his bare chest like she used to when she wanted him to stay put and talk to her. She needn't worry. He wasn't going anywhere.
"I don't think we're capable of slowing down our need for each other, and I can live with that." She dropped her eyes for a beat, then met his gaze again. "I love that part of us, Trent. I love it so much I probably should seek treatment to stop from always wanting you. Trent-Lovers Anonymous," she teased.
"That would be Trent-Lover Anonymous, and if it's up to me, I'd rather you stay as far away from that treatment as possible." He kissed her forehead, and she smiled, but then her eyes turned serious.
"We know how to love each other. We just need to figure out the rest of us. Step by step. Piece by piece. I know that fast, crazy love is who we are, but I also know that we need to work on the things we aren't so good at. Because if we just up and move back in with each other the way I'm so tempted to do..." She paused and shook her head. "I'm afraid if we don't lay a good foundation this time everything could just blow up again the way it once did."
"Agreed." He scanned the room. "Do you have a pad of paper and a pen?"
"What? Why?"
"So we can make a list and--"
She laughed and rolled her eyes at the same time. "I know that's how you figure things out, but you and I are not one of your legal proceedings. We're people, with hearts and souls, needs and wants. We can't build a strong foundation for our relationship with a neat and tidy list. Of course I know you'll make lists in your head during your morning runs, and I'll figure some of it out through my art. But us? We need to communicate with words and actions and feelings."
He propped himself up on his elbow so they were facing each other. "Okay."
"Okay." She blew out a relieved sigh, but then she frowned.
"What's wrong?" Was he already screwing this up?
"I was just wondering, do you think we should take a break from sex until we figure everything else out?"