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We walked hand-in-hand for some time, silently, and I wondered if the physical activity helped him to process the things happening in his head. He hadn’t looked particularly happy about his partial confession, when he said he wanted to go back and do something right.
When we arrived at one of the park’s iconic sets of stairs, he made a half-turn, placed his hands around my hips and quickly, easily lifted me up to sit on the sloping ledge. He stepped forward then, right between my knees, and said, “There were things I couldn’t say to you in front of anyone else, because they were too personal.”
“Too personal for our wedding?” I teased.
“That wasn’t a real wedding and you know it.”
Ouch.
My face must have fallen, because he shook his head at me. “I’ve always wanted what I couldn’t have, Madelyn.” Then he tipped his forehead to mine, his eyes closed.
The fuck did that mean?
He was going to kill me with his riddles. The man had always been a vault, but now he wasmyvault, and it seemed I didn’t have a key or the combination or whatever it was that would swing the door open. I was going to have to work hard on this one.
His arms went around my middle to pull me closer, so that I was pressed right up against the front of his body, and with a sigh he tucked my head under his chin. I turned my face so that my ear rested right up against his chest, comforted by the strong, rhythmic beat of his heart.
That was my favorite sound in the whole world: a strong heartbeat. I’d spent too many years of my life listening to heartbeats flutter and skip and stutter, struggling to maintain the rhythm that promised life, and the steady thump-thump of Adam’s heart soothed me on some level that was cell-deep. Something primitive and wordless. Just comfort and warmth and the closeness of the man I’d loved since I was ten.
Since I was ten.
My eyes snapped open and a terrible lump started to spread up my throat, because now I had what I wanted, or so it seemed to the outside world. He had sacrificed himself for a greater good, for Daniela and the fact he knew I wanted to give her a home. He’d always been that sort of person, sacrificing himself for his country, his family, his patients, then the dogs to whom he gave so much of his spare time and care. There wasn’t room left for me. How could I expect him to give more when he’d already given everything he had?
“We’re going to be late,” I finally announced, and I hoped he didn’t hear the sadness in my voice.
He lifted his head and gave me a little squeeze before he dropped his arms, and immediately I felt like I’d lost the most precious thing in the world.
“Thanks, I…I just needed a minute away from everyone else. They can be a bit much, Hailey and Kennedy and Steve…this calms me–you. Nature.”
Didn’t I know it, though, and now the two of us had to spend the afternoon with them, putting on happy faces when the mood between us was clearly something that didn’t call for celebration. Whatever it was, it was heavy and painful, something that felt weirdly like a loss.
Yes, that’s what it was, I thought: the loss of my lifelong dream, so close and yet so far away.
Kennedy gave me a sour face when we arrived twenty minutes late to our own party, and I hugged her quickly. It took her a minute for the sisterly ESP to sink in, but when it did she cupped my cheek with one hand and took a depth reading from my eyes. “You ok?”
“I will be.” I tried to shrug a little, something that had always been my tell when I was feeling down, and her eyebrows drew together in confusion.
“This is not ‘ok,’ Madelyn. I know your moods. You’re the X in all of Steve’s chromosomes. You two are so much alike, it freaks me out sometimes.”
That wasn’t entirely true. I was much more serious than Steve, who could turn into a twelve-year-old in a heartbeat. He’d never been capable of maintaining any kind of serious behavior for more than a few minutes at a time. He was the prankster, the big goof who told jokes and teased and laughed loudly, while I worried and planned and observed.
“I’ll figure it out,” I told her quietly, and I had every intention of doing just that. Because the truth was that both Adam and I had only had a few days to get used to the idea of taking vows and maybe it was hitting both of us hard now, probably for different reasons.
There was a clinking noise coming from the dining room and Kennedy grinned wickedly at me. “I do believe you’re being summoned by your adoring public–get your enviable ass in there and lay a good one on your delicious husband.”
Now that was something I could get behind, and Lord knew when I’d get to do it again, if ever, so I hurried into the dining room and plopped down on Adam’s lap. He looked startled when I dove in and twined my arms around his neck, but this time I wasn’t letting him drive the bus. Hell, no. I swooped right in with a hard, urgent kiss, reaching one hand around the back of his head to hold him tight with splayed fingers.
I could feel his resistance to me growing weaker, his lips becoming softer and more pliant under mine and slowly, hesitantly, he opened to me.
Now was not the time to kiss him the way I wanted to, demonstrating the years of longing I’d suffered at the hands of this unobtainable man. The one sitting beneath me, fingers digging into my thigh and butt as I felt him growing hard against my other thigh.
Game on, big guy. I will Wear. You. Down.
“Yow!” Steve hollered, breaking my focus just as I touched my tongue to Adam’s for the first time, listening to his breaths turn ragged. “Nowthat’sa proper kiss. I almost feel sorry for him–Beckman, you’ve got your hands full with that one.”
There was polite laughter around the table and I allowed Adam to break the kiss, his eyes glazed when he raised his lids.
It wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough, and I leaned back in to give him one last soft, closed-mouth kiss, giving him a loaded look I hoped he could interpret.
