That’s just the way it’s gotta be.
* * *
Afterward, I lie sated in bed with Moses’s big body wound around me.
God, I missed this.
Given my former line of work, moments like these were a rarity. I didn’t have sex for fun because it had always been a business transaction.
But with Moses ... sex had been different from the beginning. There was nothing businesslike about it. Those two weeks I spent with him taught me I could have sex for the sole pleasure of it. I’d never known before then.
With that melancholy thought dragging down my postcoital bliss, I roll closer, soaking up the heat radiating off him like a furnace.
I survey his face, the deep golden tan of his skin, and see lines around his eyes he didn’t have back then. He wasn’t a boy all those years ago—no, he was a man already—but now, the miles and wisdom he’s accumulated in the last decade and a half are etched on him.
Similar to the way his initials have always been carved in the stone wall around my heart.M.B.G.
Nevertheless, I’m sure he notices the signs of aging on my face too, despite how much time and money I spend trying to beat them back. I should probably welcome them with open arms, considering there were plenty of days when I wasn’t sure I’d make it to thirty-five.
I wonder what would have happened if things had worked out differently between us. If we’d stayed together instead of life pulling us in different directions. Would we have made it this long?
Who knows?
Then again, I believe enough in fate that it doesn’t matter. Things work out the way they’re meant to be. There’s no point in second-guessing God’s plan, and all that.
But I do know one thing. I’m not letting him go again. Because I’ve fucking missed him.
“This mean I’m forgiven?” Moses asks, smoothing a wild lock of hair away from my face.
“You don’t even need to ask, Moby.”
He raises an eyebrow like he doesn’t believe me.
“As soon as I found out you weren’t hiding a wife and kids—which, by the way, I would’ve killed you for and let Mount dispose of your body—I honestly didn’t care what you’d lied about.”
The corners of his mouth curve up at my statement. “You’re a fierce woman, you know that?”
“Never had much of a choice. I became the woman I had to be in order to survive, and then ... thrive. At least, as much as I could.”
“You’ve done a hell of a job,” he says softly, tightening his arm to pull me in closer to his body. “And thank you for your grace. I should’ve told you everything sooner, but I was too caught up in making you mine first.”
“Well, you’ve got me now. Don’t you dare fuck it up.”
At this, his face lights up with a wide smile. “You’re fucking perfect for me, Magnolia Marie Maison. I spent years wondering if I’d made it all up. How it was between us. How you were.”
“And?” I ask, liking the warmth blooming in my chest at the idea of him spending years thinking about me. Because I did the same, despite my every attempt to block out his memory.
He covers my mouth with his, pressing kisses to my lips as he murmurs, “It’s even better. Because we’re both older, wiser, and more comfortable with ourselves. There’s something about it I didn’t expect. It makes it all feel even more ... real, I guess.”
I know exactly what he’s saying. “I get you.” His stomach growls, and this time, I laugh. “Someone worked up an appetite.”
“Keeping you satisfied is gonna cut down on the cardio I need, that’s for damn sure.”
He drops his head back on the pillow, and I take a moment to appreciate the sculpted muscles of his body.
“Whatever you gotta do to keep all this up, I’m fully in support of it.”
“Same, mama. Same.” He grins and winks at me. “I guess I’d better see what’s happening for lunch.”