“If you get your own apartment like you originally planned when you came back from Rome, will we trade him back and forth every week like divorced parents sharing custody of a kid?”
“Or by our sports season?” she says, thinking out loud. “I’d have him August to December, and then you’d have him January to May? Eventually we’ll be together at the cabin for June and July.”
My chest aches at the idea of watching Nash pack her stuff up and leave me. Even if she’s not leaving the relationship, it still feels like that would be a step back. My voice is tight in my throat when I say, “Is that what you want?” I lean against the countertop, my hands on either side of my back, gripping the granite with all my strength.
For a second, she’s quiet while she pets the dog, running her fingers gently over his soft ears. Her answer comes out in a voice so soft I almost don’t hear it. “No.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier on the dog if we were together?”
When she looks back up at me, her eyes are filled with an emotion I can’t identify. “Is that the only reason?” She holds my gaze, and I watch her take a deep breath and gather her courage. “Ask us to stay, Wyatt.”
I cross the room to where she sits on the couch and drop to my knees in front of her. I’m willing to beg. “Nash,” I look at the dog, addressing him, too, “Arthur. Please stay here with me. Please don’t move out. Don’t leave. I don’t want to just have a drawer in your dresser at whatever new apartment you get. Idon’t want to spend a single night without you next to me in bed and Arthur curled up between us. I know this might seem fast, but we’ve known each other a long time. Hell, we already have the architectural planning meeting scheduled. We’ve been moving toward this life at a snail’s pace for nine years, and I’m ready to grab on with both hands and hold on tight to us. People might say we’re crazy, but they don’t know us, Nash. They don’t love like we do. It’s different with us, isn’t it, sugar?”
She sits up to wrap her arms around my shoulders, startling Arthur out of her lap with the movement. “Yes, it’s different. Better than anything else I’ve ever known. Easier than breathing and just as natural.”
“So you’ll stay.” It’s not a question because it doesn’t need to be one. The way her breath is coming faster, and her eyes are taking in every inch of me kneeling before her tells me everything I need to know.
“Yes,” is barely out of her mouth before I’m wrapping my arms around her legs, under her thighs where she sits on the couch and hauling her easily into my arms. She wraps her legs around me as I rise and head toward the stairs. “Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you to your room to get the clothes out of your dresser. You’re moving all your things into my room. Right now.” The last word comes out as an unintentional growl. “Then I’m going to take you to bed, and make you come until you’re begging me to stop. After that I’ll wash your tight body with a soft cloth until you’re melting in my hands.” Her hips start moving against me, desperate for friction. I’m climbing the stairs as fast as I can while still being careful not to hit her extremities on anything. Arthur weaves around us, rushing up the stairs to be first so I have to dodge his little body, too.
I put her on her feet in the room that for the last six months has been hers so I can look in her eyes when I say, “I’ve been waiting eight years for this. I physically cannot wait another day. Not another day for you to call my house your home. Not another day to wake up and have breakfast with you. Not another night where you don’t fall asleep in my arms after getting absolutely and thoroughly fucked. So yes, it has to be done today.”
I turn her by her shoulders and smack her on the ass. “Now get to packing. I’ll start in your bathroom; you start with your clothes.”
She turns back to me, putting her hands on my chest. “I think we should start with sex first.” She pushes on me, and I let her guide me backward though the door and across the short hallway that separates our bedrooms.
My door is closed, and she pushes me up against it. “Fuck, I love when you push me around.”
She leans against me, running her hands over my chest, over my stomach. “You don’t wish I was small and meek? That you could put me in your pocket?”
I start pulling her Nike shorts down her hips and off. I toss them behind me into the hallway. “I like knowing I can throw you around and not hurt you. I like that you like it a little rough. I like knowing you can take a pounding.”
I hook my hands under her thighs and lift. She squeaks as her feet leave the ground, but keeps going. “I like that I can wear my heels when we go out. I like that I never feel like I’m too much for you, too much athlete, too competitive, too big, too much woman.”
She puts her hands on either side of my face and pulls me to her, meeting me with a searing, open-mouth kiss. She’sravenous in her affection, lips clashing against mine. When she reaches for the waistband of my shorts, I pant, “Wait.”
She stops short. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t want to just fuck you.”
“You don’t?”
“No, I want to make this last.” I bring us away from the wall and through my bedroom door which she helps me open. I lie her down on my bed, taking in the sight of her pretty pink pussy. I plant a kiss on her forehead before making my way down her neck to her chest, still clothed. I don’t even care. I’m going to deliver on the promise I made downstairs, and every promise I ever make to her for the rest of our lives.
Chapter Sixty-Six
NASH
After he makes it to my belly, Wyatt crawls into the bed next to me and we lie like we have been every night when he cuddles me before we fall asleep. “I want to hold you this time.”
Two fingers, then three rock hard into me and I involuntarily move my hips with his push and pull. “That’s it, sugar. Are you ready for me?”
I can feel his hardness pressed up against my back, needing my attention. He palms it and brings it between my legs, sliding it through my slickness.
I feel my hunger for him and him alone. “I was ready on the couch downstairs.”
He laughs, and it’s loud and full of something like disbelief that this is us. This is how it feels to beus.