Mine to Take (Southern Weddings #5)

“I love when you say my name.” His voice is a whisper also, right before he comes back to kiss me. I close my eyes for a second and tell myself I never had a last kiss with him, so this is going to be the last one, but even my head laughs at me. My tongue fights with his as they go around and around and around.

My hands fall from his chest and I take a step back from him. His hands fall from inside my hair as my head tingles from his touch. My lips are still wet from his kiss as both of us just stare at each other. My eyes move over his and then down to his chest to where my hands just were. “You kissed me.”

“You kissed me back,” he counters, not even caring that he kissed me outside in the middle of a parking lot where anyone could have seen us.

“You kissed me,” I repeat as my lips tingle from the kiss and I want to wipe his taste off my lips, but my hands stay glued to my side, “in the middle of a parking lot.”

He looks around. “I guess this is where it happened.” He bends to pick up the jacket he tossed on the ground.

“I told you I was dating someone.” I put my hands on my hips. “And you didn’t even care.”

He holds up his hands to make me stop talking. “You were lying.” I glare at him. “Every single time you lie, you blink faster than you normally do.” He points out something that I was working on not doing.

“I’m not dating anyone in particular,” I say a half truth, and he just looks at me with that dumb smirk I hate.

“Yes, you are,” he declares. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Princess Sofia.” He stuns me by turning around and walking over to his car, getting in, and driving away.

“Motherfucker!” I shout to the back of his car as I get into my own car and drive away. I get home and storm into the house, slamming the door behind me. “That fucking jackass.” I toss my purse on the table before walking upstairs and getting undressed. “I would have had to tell her I still had feelings for you,” I mock his words, putting on a pair of shorts and a tank top. Pinning the hair on top of my head, I walk into the bathroom to take off my makeup. “I should have not gone to the game.” I am going insane, I think to myself. I’m having a full-blown conversation with myself. “I should have gone with my gut and ignored it.” I brush my teeth after tossing the wet cloth in the wash pile. “Go and show him you aren’t affected by him.” I shake my head at the words. “Yeah, that worked out great for me.” I walk out and turn off all the lights before sliding into bed. “He kissed me without a second thought.” I sink into the pillow. “Was it good?” I say to absolutely no one. “Yes, it was, but it’s probably because I haven’t kissed anyone in a long time.” I laugh at myself. “Yeah, let’s go with that. I was desperate for someone to kiss me.”

I toss and turn most of the night, only falling asleep for a couple of hours. Finally, I give up at six in the morning and grab my phone. Opening Instagram, I see that Matthew Petrov has requested to follow me. Again, I do what I did the day before, I press the delete button. As soon as I press the delete button, I go onto his Instagram. Because he plays hockey, he’s not on private, so I can lurk on his page and no one knows but me. I scroll down to the six pictures he has, seeing the last picture he posted was this summer. It’s him with his cousin, Christopher, and I zoom the picture a bit more to see that he’s with the actor Romeo Beckett. All three in a tux with the caption: He won the trophy and took home the girl. Congrats on the wedding, Gabriella and Romeo. I slide right and see a picture of Gabriella and Romeo at the altar, their hands holding each other’s, her hand in the air with her bouquet, his hand in the air with the Oscar. I scroll down to see that not one post has Helena in it. Not one post about them getting married. Not one post about anything to even say he had a girlfriend.

I’m about to go down the rabbit hole and type in Helena’s name when I hear a soft knock. I stop mid type to make sure I didn’t just hear it in my head. The sound comes again except just a touch louder. I sit up in my bed, tossing the covers off me before walking to the door and sticking my head out to make sure I heard it from downstairs. The knock comes again. “What in the hell?” I mutter, walking down the steps and looking out the peephole. “Oh my God,” I mumble as he looks straight into the peephole.

I don’t even know how he knows I’m here, but he says, “I brought you coffee.” He’s holding up the tray of coffee in one hand. “And breakfast.”

I unlock the door and open it just a bit, my eyes meeting his. His face goes into a big smile as I take him in. He’s wearing shorts and a blue T-shirt with his baseball hat on his head backward. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to have breakfast with you,” he says, my feet moving backward to open the door for him. He takes a step in and stares at my outfit. My nipples are hard and poking through the tank top I’m wearing. “Good morning,” he greets me before bending his head and pecking my lips. He walks into the house as I close the door softly.

Looking down at my tingly nipples, I scold them softly, “Traitors,” before following him down the hallway.

“Seriously,” I say to his back, “you can’t just show up here.”

He grabs one of the white cups of coffee, turning and handing it to me. “If I would have called you and asked you to have breakfast, would you have said yes?”

“No,” I reply, crossing my arms over my chest in protest.

“Exactly, so I improvised.” He holds the cup up even higher so I can take it from him.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t,” I retort between clenched teeth as I grab the white cup from him.

“I got an everything bagel with egg and sausage or sesame seed with egg and bacon,” he states, opening the bag.

“You can take both those and eat them in your car.” I point over at the door, but he just laughs as he takes both sandwiches out of the bag and opens them on the counter.

“We can each have both.”

“I don’t want to have breakfast with you, Matthew,” I tell him point-blank. Yeah, she doesn’t want to have breakfast with you because she wants you to eat her vagina for breakfast, my head screams. I’m so afraid I’ve said those words out loud, I hold my lips together tightly.

“It’s just breakfast.” Matthew pulls out a stool for me and then another one for himself as he sits on it.

“You aren’t going to leave, are you?” I ask the question as my feet move toward the stool, and I get on it.

“Not until you eat, and we have a talk,” he says, pushing the food toward me.

“I don’t think there is anything left to talk about,” I say, picking up one half of a bagel and taking a bite.

“We need to talk about last night,” he counters, taking a bite of his own sandwich.

“Which part should we discuss?” I ask. “Should we discuss that you never told your fiancée about me, or maybe we should discuss the fact you kissed me without even thinking twice.”

“If you want me to tell Helena about you, I will, and that kiss was good.” He takes a bite. “Great even.” He chews. “It’s the best kiss we’ve ever had.”

I shake my head. “Unbelievable,” I mumble before my mouth agrees that the kiss was the best we’ve ever had.

“When I saw you for the first time again,” he starts, “it felt like a box I locked two years ago was suddenly opened, and I saw the light again.”

“Hold on while I go get the violin and you sing me a sad song,” I mock him. “You were fucking engaged to another woman.” My anger now comes out. “You literally asked another woman to spend the rest of her life with you.”

“No, I didn’t.” He shakes his head and all I can do is gasp at him.

“I met your fiancée!” I shout, pushing away from the island. “Literally, I was planning your wedding.”

“But I never asked her to marry me.” I stare at him, not sure what the hell he is saying to me. “It was just like she said we should get married, and I was like, yeah okay. Then we were engaged.” My mouth hangs open. “It was just sort of the next step.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Truth be told, we should have moved in with each other first.”