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JOSHUA
It’d been four days since the incident in the parking lot. During that time, Harry and I had begun searching for Tyson Randall with Laura’s help, but wherever he was hiding, he’d chosen a well-hidden location because we hadn’t been able to find him yet.
Eva’s headaches were thankfully getting better, and she seemed less anxious, but she jumped every time the phone rang, or someone came to the apartment and knocked on the door. Each flinch and whimper solidified my determination to make the asshole pay.
We were currently lying in bed, Eva’s head resting on my chest and my fingers sifting through the long strands of her golden hair as we watched a movie.
“Joshua?”
She’d said it so quietly that my hand paused for a moment before going back to what it was doing. “Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
I had no idea what she was thanking me for, but I wanted to ask her something that’d been bugging me. Turning onto my side and pulling her higher up the bed, so her head was now on the pillows, I got us settled for what might be either a good or a bad conversation, but it had to be done.
“Baby, I need to know something. Things seem to have settled.” I motioned between us to indicate what I meant. “It’s not that I’m not relieved as hell about it, but I just wanted to see if you had any questions or anything you wanted to say about it, so it doesn’t fester.”
“You know I was pissed.” I nodded, even though it was a wasted movement. Of course I knew she’d been pissed. “That night at my place when Laura moved the money, you showed me the real you that’d been hiding under the lie, and I got to do the same. In doing that, I realized I liked the real you, and I loved that, even though he had a good reason not to trust us, Harry was willing to help us out, too.”
Wiggling around slightly to get more comfortable, Eva continued, “I guess it just clicked inside me. Without the lies creating a wall, I like the person you are, and at the very least, your best friend and my sister can get along, meaning it won’t be awkward when they’re around each other in the future with the issue of Mom and Tyson standing between us.”
“I kind of hope they can get along, seeing as how they’re working together now. That might be uncomfortable for the other people in Harry’s company,” I joked. “I’m glad that you can see it that way because that’s how I felt, too. We had a lot stopping us from having a deeper connection, and without it standing in the way, I feel more…” I paused, trying to think of how to describe it.
“In tune? Connected? Comfortable? Secure? Settled?” Eva suggested, listing the words quickly.
“All of those,” I agreed, pulling us closer to each other until our fronts were pressed together. “I’ve missed you so much, baby.”
Moving so that her forehead was pressed against my neck, she nuzzled at the flesh there. “I’ve missed you, too. Is there anything else we need to admit to each other?”
I snorted. “I’d imagine there’s a lot we need to get out into the open from our pasts—some of it good, some of it bad. But if you’re asking if there’s anything else standing in the way on my side, no. I want to be with you. It was never a lie for me from the first time I met you, but now I want it all. No holding back.”
She was silent for a moment, and as it dragged on, I began to panic.
“There’s a lot of stories and confessions I can tell you, but like you, none of them stop us from being together. They’re just those normal childhood tales of misadventures and bad choices." I chuckled as I buried my nose in the hair on the top of her head, the scent of her shampoo settling me. “I want it all with you, too, and I promise I won’t hold anything back.”
Shifting us so that I was lying on top of her, her face held between my hands as I stared down at her, I had a moment’s gratitude toward Tyson fucking Randall. Go figure. Without his illegal activities, I might not have ever met Eva, and it just didn’t bear thinking about.
Tilting her head to the side on the pillow, Eva asked, “What’s going through your brain right now?”
“I was just thinking that I had a reason to be grateful to Tyson Randall for being a thieving son of a bitch. If it hadn’t been for him, I might not have ever met you.”
Grinning up at me, she rolled her eyes. “Every cloud has a silver lining and all that, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to feel gratitude or any positive emotion toward that man. I like to think it’s a matter of fate and that we’d have bumped into each other at some point.”
Breezing my thumb over her cheekbone, I thought about what she’d said for a moment. “But that might have been farther in the future. I have you in my life now because of him.” Something else occurred to me. “I might have to kick Harry’s ass for not coming up with this plan at the beginning, though. I missed out on over twelve years of Eva Dawson.”
“Just set Laura on him, and he’ll learn the error of his ways,” she snickered, not entirely joking.
“Those two are either going to fall in love, or they’ll end up killing each other.”
Eva skimmed the pads of her fingers up my side, making goosebumps pop up in their trail. “So, are we okay?”
Dropping my head to kiss her softly, I murmured against her lips, “We’re more than okay, baby.”
I was just about to lift my head when her hand moved to the back of it and pulled me down as she deepened the kiss. It felt like it’d been months instead of just over a week since I’d last kissed her like this, and for a moment, it took me under until I remembered she was still recovering from her attack.
Pushing against her hand, I managed to lift my mouth a scant inch away from hers. “We need to stop, Eva. You’re still banged up and need to rest.”
Wrapping her legs around my waist determinedly, she pulled my lower half tighter against her own, leading me deeper into a place I had no business being right now.
