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A couple of months ago, shortly after we put in an offer on the house, Lennon had found a grandfather clock in an antique shop not far from Reade’s. She’d insisted she needed it, and I’d bought it without question.
Now, that clock chimed from beside the living room doorway as Lennon unloaded a box of books onto the built-in shelves surrounding the fireplace. I watched her from the couch, wearing my sweatshirt and singing along to some teenybopper music from the ‘90s. She positioned the books just so, only to reconsider with pursed lips and a hand against a popped hip. Then, they each were moved to a better shelf, a more suitable position, and she nodded, finally satisfied.
Rinse and repeat.
I didn’t know how long I’d observed her patterns before she finally took notice, turning withOdd Thomasby Dean Koontz clutched between her hands.
“You know, youcouldhelp,” she teased.
“Nah, I’m good,” I replied with a smirk. “I’d rather watch you.”
“You have your entire life to watch me,” she said, sliding the book beside another book by Koontz. “Right now, you should be giving me a hand, especially considering some of these are yours too.”
“Yes, but …” I stood from the couch and walked toward her, taking my time with every step and watching her with a close, studious eye. Like a hunter pursuing his prey. “We did agree that we’d donate the duplicates.”
“O-kay,” she drawled, faking a certain disinterest in my slow pursuit. “And what’s your point?”
“My point, baby, is that we agreed to handle our own shit. I just loaded up the garage with all of mine, and this”—I swept my arm out in a gesture toward the boxes of books—”isallyours.”
Lennon’s eyes narrowed with stony determination, and I knew that whatever was about to come from her mouth would be the delicious prelude to a night of neglecting books and boxes. I quirked my lips in anticipation, already envisioning her body exposed and my face between her open thighs, and I waited as she huffed.
“So, by that logic, at this point, this entire house is either yours or mine. Nothing isours,” she said, all at once annoyed and insulted.
“Hmm,” I grunted in reply, pursing my lips and nodding slowly with consideration. I took another step forward, to where the toes of my boots touched the toes of her fuzzy black slippers. My hands reached for hers, interlocking our fingers to lift one lithe wrist to my mouth, allowing my lips to linger there as I said, “Well, bymylogic,youare mine, andIam yours. So, everything that we separately contribute to this house is therefore ours.”
I laid a barely-there kiss on the inside of her wrist as Lennon stared at me, feigning indifference. But I couldn’t miss the sharp inhale through her nose or the contracting of her throat as she swallowed.
“Your poetic bullshit isn’t going to get you out of helping me unpack,” she said, never allowing the challenge to leave her eyes.
“Oh, it’s bullshit now?” I chuckled, laying her hands on my shoulders. “I’m pretty sure that poetic bullshit is what brought you to me in the first place … or am I wrong?”
Her hands moved from my shoulders to the back of my neck as she rolled her eyes. “One of these days, you’re gonna stop bringing that up.”
“No way, baby,” I replied, wrapping my arms around her with every intention to pull her closer and make her forget all about those books … if only for the night. “I fully intend to find every reason to bring it up.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes while her fingers danced lightly through my hair. “Talk about beating a dead horse,” she grumbled through a slow-moving grin.
“The second I stop mentioning it is the same second I forget to be grateful for everything that put you in my life,” I replied. “At that point, the only thing dead will be my feelings for you, and like I said, there’s no way that’s ever happening. I won’t let it.”
The smile wilted from her lips, and her eyes were quick to water as they searched mine. Making her cry hadn’t been my intention; I wanted her in bed, not in tears.
“You know, I really used to think it was bullshit when you said stuff like that to me,” she said in a way that sounded like a confession. “I thought … beautiful men only said shit like that to get women in bed. Like, there was no possible way someone like you could say something like that to me and mean it.”
It was my turn to wilt and wither as I sniffed a soft, humorless laugh. She wasn’t wrong; I had used my fair share of lines on women with the purpose of getting them naked—and most of themwerebullshit. Hell, there was a time when that much effort wasn’t even necessary. Sex had been a guarantee—with or without the sweet talk.
I couldn’t say it had never been my plan to get Lennon in bed. From the very first moment I’d seen her at that concert six years ago, I had wanted her in more ways than even I was aware of.
But nothing I had ever said to her was a lie.
“I have never told you anything but the truth,” I said with utmost sincerity. “I just can’t help it if the truth also makes you want to fuck me.”
She snickered and stood on her toes, grazing the tip of her nose along mine. “Smooth,” she muttered against my lips.
I captured her open mouth with the heat of mine, pulling the breath from her lungs and claiming it as my own. She pressed her body against me, our forms conjoining until the silhouettes we cast on the bookshelves became one. Sliding and writhing over the book spines, shadowing the titles and names—including that of the one in my arms.
Then, as we kissed in a living room only half-unpacked, thoughts of sex were replaced with the journeys we’d been on—together and apart. The obstacles we’d overcome and the victories that had come after. I knew I had said I didn’t want to be an inspiration, and I knew she had said the same. But with everything that lay in the past and everything we’d accomplished since, I wouldn’t mind if someone looked in on what we’d built together and aspired to achieve something equally as spectacular.
I knew I would’ve.
