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“I’m picking up my gate passes and my car. I want to show you my house.”
* * *
“You bought this house?” Confidence gasps when we step inside the two-story foyer of the red brick house nestled in between a row of other two-story red brick houses that make up this picturesque cul-de-sac on Wildetree Lake.
“Yes, I bought this house,” I respond and take her hand and start for the stairs. “When you see the view from the master bedroom upstairs, you’ll see why,” I tell her, and my excitement builds with each step up the staircase.
“This is beautiful, Hayes,” she says and glances around the house. I follow her gaze, and I have to agree. About a tenth of the size of Rivers House, this is a house that already feels like home.
“I like it,” I say, intentionally noncommittal.
“Like? How can you just like it?” she screeches and pulls her hand out of mine. She runs it up the Cherrywood stair rails and sighs. “It’s like the dream house on my Pinterest board,” she says.
“Is it?” I ask.
But I know it is. She showed me the first time I went to visit her. When I saw the pictures of this place on my realtor’s site, I knew I was going to buy it. When I came to visit for the first time, I knew right away that this would be my home. Now, I hope she’s going to feel the same way.
“I want to show you something and then I want to tell you something and then I want you to be as mad as you want about it. But when you’re done, I’m fucking you. And when we leave this house later, we’re going to be back together.”
Her eyes widen and her jaw drops before she composes herself. “Hayes …” she starts, her voice full of fight. I yank her to me and kiss her quiet. Her lips soften and her arms slip around my neck and she kisses me back like she’s been missing it as much as I have.
It feels so good, but I force myself to stop kissing her.
Her eyes are glazed with desire; her plump lips pout when I pull back. “I’ve told you about that caveman shit,” she grumbles, but nestles into me.
“Yeah, you told me.” I press a kiss to the top of her head and wrap my arms around her.
“But, that’s what I become when I think about you. You’re mine and I’m not going to act like you’re not. Not for one more day.” I breathe in a good whiff of her hair that’s tickling my nose. She smells like sunflowers and rain. So clean and bright and strong.
“Come on.” I put an arm around her waist and lead her to the bedroom.
It, along with the rest of the house, is fully furnished and decorated.
“This room is kind of …” Confidence looks around and searches for the right word to describe the explosion of white, yellow, and peach that is my bedroom. “I would say feminine, but that feels like a massive understatement.” She laughs and looks around.
“Do you really sleep in that bed?” She points at the white, four-poster bed with yellow drapes flowing from the top of it.
“Gigi took my ‘do whatever you want’ too literally,” I explain. “But don’t worry, baby, I plan on getting rid of it before you move in,” I say.
“Hayes, give you an inch …” she says.
“Oh, Tesoro, by the time we leave this house tonight …” I look at my watch and note that it says eleven a.m., “I would have taken ten miles and put in a request for another hundred. You can say no, but I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me. Because that is the only way I’ll let you go,” I tell her.
She dips her head and hides her face, but I know my girl. She always puts a lock of hair between her lips and presses them together when she’s happy but doesn’t want to show it. She’s holding the end of her ponytail between her fingers and is holding it to her mouth for a moment before she looks up.
“And you need to stop telling me what’s going to happen and how I’m going to feel and what you’re going to do with me,” she says irritably.
I’ve pushed enough for now, and in a few minutes, I’m going to have a real battle on my hands, so I change the subject and steer us to the big bay window at the back of the bedroom.
“Look.” I point over her shoulder into the distance.
“Oh wow, we can see all the way to the Habitat for Humanity project site.” She puts her hand on her throat.
“Have you been out there yet?” I ask.
“Yeah, once. Just this week. I think it’s awesome that Wilde World is giving up that parcel of land for its development,” she says, and I smile.
“That’s not Wilde World’s land,” I say as nonchalantly as I can.
