She slides off the bed, and I pull her onto my lap in the desk chair. She tucks her face against my neck, and I wrap my arms around her and hold her. She's shaking slightly.
“Is this what it's going to be like?” she asks against my neck. “Women approaching you in bars and events? Is this the life?”
“Sometimes. I can't control who approaches me. But I can control how I respond. And I will always respond the same way — politely, briefly, and then I walk away.”
“What about when I'm not there?”
“The same. Whether you're in the room or on the other side of the country. I'm yours, Jasmine. That doesn't change based on geography.”
She pulls back and looks at me. Her eyes are wet, and her mascara has smudged under her left eye. She's still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
“I hate this secret,” she says.
“I know.”
“I want to be able to stand next to you in public, hold your hand, and let every puck bunny in every bar in every city know that you're mine.”
“Puck bunny?” I ask with a laugh.
“That's what the girls call them,” Harper says, then grows serious. “I want to stop hiding, Logan.”
“Then let's stop.”
She searches my face. “You mean that?”
“I've meant it for weeks. I've been waiting for you to be ready.”
“I'm not ready. But I'm tired of the alternative.”
I wipe the mascara smudge from under her eye with my thumb. “We don't have to figure it all out tonight. But when we get back to New York, we start. Your mom. My parents. The whole thing.”
“That's terrifying,” she says.
“I know.”
“Our parents are going to throw a fit,” she says. “And you're okay with all of that?”
“I'm okay with anything that means I don't have to watch you leave a bar alone because you can't stand next to me in public.”
Her breathing slows. My arms tighten around her.
“I'm sorry I left without telling you,” she says.
“I'm sorry I didn't notice sooner.”
“You didn't do anything wrong.”
“Neither did you.”
She kisses me. Soft at first, then deeper, her hands on my face, her fingers sliding into my hair. I pull her closer on my lap,and her robe falls open at the collar. I move from her lips to her jaw, then her neck.
“Stay,” she says. “Harper can sleep in Avery and Natalie's room.”
“Are you sure?”
“I want to fall asleep next to you in Toronto.”
I text Blake from the chair with Jasmine still on my lap:Not coming back to the hotel tonight.
