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“Words can be real, too,” Wren says, her breath hitching as she tightens her grip on my forearms. “What you just said. All of that. That felt pretty real.” She leans closer, whispering, “You really love me?”
“I adore you,” I say, my throat tight. “I admire you and lust after you and the entire time you were gone, I kept thinking of things I wanted to tell you, just you. No one else. But I…” I hesitate, my tongue slipping out to dampen my suddenly dry lips. My gut says now isn’t the time for this confession, but I can’t seem to hold it back. “But I don’t know if I can make marriage work, Wren. Even with you. I’m not good at it. I start to take things for granted. I don’t realize the connection is fading until it’s too late. I forget to soften my opinions and start fights without realizing it—or even that I’m fighting, until the other person is pissed off and halfway out the door.” I try to stop the flow of words, but I can’t. It’s like I’ve opened some secret vulnerability vault deep inside and now I can’t close it up again. “And I’m going to do dumb shit like I did in February. I’m going to leave when I shouldn’t or decide waiting to text until noon is a good idea and I won’t realize it’s wrong until it’s too late. I can try like hell to do everything right with you, but I’m not going to. I’m going to fuck it up, I can promise you that right now. The probability of that is one hundred percent.”
Her hands smooth up my chest as she moves closer…miraculously closer when I was so sure she was about to turn and run away. She cups my face in her hands and says, “So will I. And when I do, I’m going to need your forgiveness. Can you do that? Forgive me when I mess up because you know I care about you? And that I’d never hurt you on purpose? Do you think I deserve that? The chance to make mistakes and still be worthy of your affection?”
Gripping her arms, now, I nod, and force out a soft, “Yes.”
“Then why don’t you think you deserve the same?” she asks, her lips curving even as tears shine in her eyes.
“You’ve been…distant. Since you got back.”
She brushes her thumb lightly back and forth across my cheek. “I have. I wasn’t sure where things stood with us, and I didn’t want to ache for things I couldn’t have anymore. It just…hurt too much. But if we decided to make a go of it. If you feel what I feel, that’s a whole different ball game.”
“What do you feel?” I ask, a part of me knowing, but another part needing to hear it out loud.
“I love you, silly,” she says, her voice shaking a little. “I adore and lust and all that other stuff after you, too. And I want to make you feel happy and safe. You’re safe with me, Barrett. I won’t lie and I won’t leave, at least not without fighting like hell to stay first.”
I exhale, so overwhelmed the world feels like it’s spinning a little. “Safe. I didn’t realize how much I wanted to hear that.”
“You’re safe,” she says, pressing on tiptoe to kiss me with her next words. “You’re safe and you’re mine and I’m yours. I’ll text Christian first thing tomorrow and tell him he’ll have to find another date to the ball.”
“Tonight,” I grunt as I gather her closer, hugging her so tightly her feet come off the ground. “You’ll text him tonight. Right now, would be good. We still have a few minutes until our lesson is supposed to start.”
She laughs as she kisses me, making our teeth bump together. “So bossy.”
“I think there are situations where you enjoy my bossy side.”
“At work, you mean?” she teases. “You’re a pretty nice boss, I won’t lie. Respectful, appreciative, professional. I have very few complaints.”
“I was thinking more of this morning when I told you to come on my mouth,” I say, pulling back to glare into her smiling eyes. “But now that you mention complaints, I’m curious. What are your work-related complaints, Ms. Baxter?”
She bobs her brows up and down before shaking her head. “Nope. We don’t talk about work stuff on date night. That’s the rule.” She exhales a happy sigh as I set her back on her feet. “Now, let’s go make jewelry. I bet you’re going to be amazing at it. You do such a good job with the fishing lures you make and jewelry making isn’t really that much different.”
“I should have brought my glasses, shouldn’t I?” I ask as she takes my hand, leading the way to the lodge.
