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“Well, when we have kids, we’re giving them a damn bubble bath.”
I stiffen for a moment, and then he completely freezes. “Oh, that was stupid. I know we aren’t—”
I cut him off, swooping down to kiss that mouth that loves to ramble when he’s nervous. He sighs into the kiss, kissing me back with fervor, but we don’t let it get too out of control. We still have talking to do.
Who the hell would have thought I’d choose talking over orgasms?
Okay, not all the time. There’s no way I’ll always make that choice, but in this moment, talking wins.
“Our kids will have bubble baths,” I say easily because I can picture it all with him. I want it all with him. I’d given up on that childhood fantasy so long ago, but now, it’s all coming back into my mind.
I can and will have it all.
“Who’s Dorris?” he asks, bringing me back to the conversation.
A wave of happiness followed by sadness washes over me, and I pull him back to my body. “When I was fourteen, they sent me to this house out in the country. I think it was a last-ditch effort. They had no one else who would take my wild ass. But Dorris, she was different in every way.” I smile again. “She was a widow.”
“Please tell me this isn’t going to be a Garth Brooks’s “That Summer” situation,” he interrupts, and I laugh, pinching his side playfully.
“No. She was an eighty-year-old widow, and it wasn’t a ranch. It was a junkyard.”
“What?” he asks, looking up at me with his beautiful smile which nearly distracts me.
“Yeah. She had this salvage yard, where mostly everyone brought their old broken-down cars. She showed me the way around and put my ass to work. I tried to give her hell, but Dorris—she was patient. She was smart. She knew how to handle my stubborn ass.”
Memories of the older woman who took no shit from anyone bombard me. Her knowledge. Her laugh. Her long talks with me out on the porch as we watched the sun set over the salvage yard—which shouldn’t have been a beautiful sight, but it somehow was.
She taught me how to be a good person. She told me about how her husband and she had raised six kids in that house, all of them grown by then. How hard they loved each other and those kids and how sorry she was that my own parents let me down. I tell all of that to Soren as he listens to me, not speaking once. Just taking it all in.
“She loved races and demolition derbies. She took me to them on the weekends. We traveled a lot. She showed me how to build my own derby cars and gave me the cash to enter the races when I was old enough. She was the one who taught me how to race.”
“An eighty-year-old woman?” Soren asks, not unbelieving but obviously surprised.
“A badass eighty-year-old woman. Yes.”
“That’s incredible. I bet she’s insanely proud of you.”
“She was,” I say sadly, my heart aching.
“Was?” Soren picks up on it and lifts up to look me in the eyes.
I nod. “She died when I was nineteen. I only got five years with her, but in those five years, she showed me more care than I’d ever had in my entire life. And then she left me.” I feel my own eyes fill up with tears when I see Soren is on the verge of crying himself.
“Oh, Royal.”
“I know she didn’t want to leave me, but goddammit, she did. And it hurt. I was so mad.”
“I know.” He hugs me to him and kisses the top of my hair. “I know you were. I’m sorry you lost her, but I’m so damn glad you had her.”
He pulls back enough to kiss me on the lips, and I kiss him back softly, moving to tuck his body back under mine. “Don’t leave me.”
He shakes his head and brushes his fingers through my hair, looking up at me with those beautiful eyes. “Never. I’ll never leave you.”
I nod. “You’re mine,” I say as I bend down and kiss him, feeling his cock harden against my own eager shaft, but I need to hear this first. I need to feel it deep in my bones.
I’ve been left so many times in my life, but I always came back from it. I’d like to believe I was even stronger than before, though still slightly broken. But I wouldn’t come back from losing Soren.
This I know with total certainty.
