Page 68 of Crack the Ice

“You say that like I asked you to.”

I nip at her skin, and she gasps. “You’re not asking, but I’m telling you anyway.” I pull back enough to look at her, and I mean really look at her. I want—no, I need her to see it. That this isn’t the heat of the moment. This is years of suppressed feelings. This is every night I lay awake, trying to figure out what went wrong. The days I replayed our memories over and over because I didn’t have the real thing in front of me anymore. “Every part of you I lost, I’m taking back.” I kiss her neck again. “All of it.”

Her fingers curl into the hair at the back of my neck, pulling my head back to where she wants it. “Put your money where your mouth is, Mav.”

She doesn’t need to tell me twice. “Open the door, Cess.”

She fists her hands in my shirt once again. Mine slide over the curve of her waist, then her hip, sliding to the small of her back. Every part of her I get to touch feels like home.

“Cecy,” I whisper against her lips like a prayer I’ll never tire of saying. “Let me in.”

The double meaning hangs heavy in the air. Her eyes, full of fire, search mine. But she doesn’t answer with words. She simply reaches behind her, one hand fumbling with the door while the other keeps its firm grasp on me. And then in one quick motion, the door opens, and she pulls me over the threshold like she’s been waiting for this moment for years.

Stumbling through the entryway, still tangled in each other, she kicks the door closed behind her. The hollow smack has me moving. My hands wrap around the back of her thighs as I hike her up against me, pushing us both into the wall. She arches into me, and I press into her like it’ll make up for all the time we lost.

“My room,” she manages between kisses. “Please.”

I pull us away from the wall, only to stop, almost dropping her when we hear a “yes please” from the kitchen.

Cecilia yelps against me, turning to look over her shoulder only to bury herself in my neck when she realizes that not only is Savannah in her kitchen, but so are both my sisters. “Mav, I can’t do this right now. I need time to figure out what to say,” she whispers.

“Do you trust me?” I ask, still holding her like a koala.

“I…” Her hesitancy makes me squeeze tighter.

“Do you trust me to handle this in a way that’s best for us both?”

She nods, eyes pleading with mine to do just that. I slowly lower her to the ground, positioning myself slightly in front of her so that she doesn’t have to look at them if she doesn’t want to. “Well, what a nice surprise,” I say.

“Cut the shit, Maverick,” Lana spits.

Cecilia’s hands immediately fist in the back of my shirt, and I step back into her instinctively. Her head rests in the center of my back, and I preen at the fact that she finds any part of me comforting still.

“Want to tell me why you were just making out with my best friend?”

I shrug, shoving my hands in my pockets. “Because I’ve loved her since she was nineteen, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”

“What the fuck, Maverick?” Lana yells. “All the women you were with while she was gone, and you want to tell me you loved her while you did that?”

Cecilia whines behind me, and that sound, full of pain and regret, is my undoing.

“First of all, Lana. I haven’t been with anyone since I was with Cecilia.” I square my shoulders, not ashamed to lean into the monk title her brother gave me. “Second, who the hell are all the women? The ones I was required to go to events with? Or the ones that jumped in at the last second to get a picture for their five seconds of fame?”

My sister’s mouth slackens, but her eyes stay narrowed on me like she can’t decide whether she wants to believe me or not.

“Not that it matters, because this is between Cecy and me. Your support, though it would be appreciated, isn’t necessary for me to love her the way I always should have. Now, if you’re done, I can give you the details of how we got here. But you will not speak to her or me like that. Got it?”

“God, Mav,” Cecilia whispers. “That was so hot.”

I look over my shoulder, chuckling when I see the pink tint to her cheeks. My girl likes to be defended, got it.

Turning to face the room, I cross my arms over my chest and look at all three women who arguably mean the most to Cecy and me. “Cecy and I were seeing each other for eight months by the time she left for Spain. Some things happened. Both of us made some decisions that ultimately led to the downfall of what we’d built, or at least were trying to build.”

Movement from behind me has me raising my left arm and letting her tuck herself beneath it, her arm wrapping around my waist, head coming to rest against my side as my arm drapes over her shoulder. I can’t help but look down, loving the way she looks like this. Like she’s mine, the way she always should have been.

“Over the past few months, thanks to the bakery and the kids, we’ve been in each other’s space a bit more, forcing us to have the conversations we were avoiding. But through those conversations, it came up that I was trying to adopt the kids and having a two-parent household would strengthen the case since I travel so much.”

“So what?” Lana cries, her arms flinging widely through the air. “You’re just going to get married so you can take care of these kids and decide ‘why the hell not, let’s fuck while we’re at it?’”