“I don’t care.”
“See.” He bites my earlobe and makes me shiver. “I got an answer. If it was up to me and you gave me no clues—which, I might point out, you haven’t—I’d buy you a vintage ring. Something with some history to it. Not too big, because you have small hands. A diamond with maybe some smaller ones on the sides. A flat setting so it didn’t stick up and get stuck on everything. White gold, because no one can tell the difference between it and platinum. You’d complain I spent too much unnecessarily if I got you platinum. Something simple yet elegant. Maybe with some swirls to it, like your handwriting. Am I close?”
It’s exactly perfect, what he’s described. This time I’m the one who doesn’t know what to say.
“Aha!” he crows. “Do I know you or what?”
“You might know me.”
“Let me try the dress. Although this one’s harder, because you don’t dress like you.” He goes silent for a moment and I find myself hanging on to what he could possibly say next. “Not white. Not beige. That in-between color. No lace. It makes you itch.”
I look up at him, startled.
“You dig at your neck every time you wear one of those flimsy blouses with a lace collar,” he explains. “No satin. Too shiny. Silk, like pale butter. Loose, not too tight-fitting, but with lots of cleavage, because I can’t get enough of your tits.”
To prove it, he palms one. I laugh.
“Just below your knees, for modesty. With sleeves,” he continues. “But it’s a trick, because you don’t wear a damn thing under it to drive me crazy and because you like the way the fabric feels against your bare skin.”
He steals my breath. I can picture it and the way it looks and feels and the way he stares at me in it, like he can’t wait to rip it off me.
“Roses,” he whispers against my skin as he crawls on top of me, dropping kisses down my body between words. “You’ll carry roses…because they’re old-fashioned…and simple. We’ll get married outside…in a garden…at sunset. We won’t need anybody there…We have all we need right…here.” He licks my navel and my legs fall open wider to him.
I reach down, sifting my fingers in his hair the way he likes. He licks my clit with the flat of his tongue and has to grip my thighs to keep me on the bed. He’s aces at oral. I didn’t think I’d like it. He’s my first. I’d done just about everything sexually before him, except this. Fuck me, he’s good. The U.S. Marshal in the next room must think he’s killing me in here. He does this thing where he hooks two fingers up inside me and thrusts. My hips come off the bed. I howl his name.
He chuckles, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth. “Bet you can’t wait to marry me now.”
Chapter 35
Beau
Later, when it’s quiet and she’s tucked up against me the way she likes, it hits me what all that shit was about the wedding. I haven’t done my job. I haven’t told her how I feel about her. I’m shit at the touchy-feely stuff. That was always a complaint of Cassandra’s. I clearly haven’t learned anything since then. Vera deserves to know that my world hasn’t been the same since she walked into it. That I spend almost every waking second thinking about her and reliving moments with her. That when she’s not with me I feel it, absently looking around like I misplaced something and can’t remember what the hell it was.
I’ve heard lots of talk about soulmates and the one, but I never really knew what that shit meant. I’m still not sure I do. Those terms are inadequate for what I feel for Vera. I suppose they’re close. And if I had to choose a label, the one would be closest, because I can’t imagine ever feeling like this again. I’ve never felt it before. Not in the same way, that’s for sure. I try not to make comparisons, but it’s like driving a car. If you’ve only ever driven a Mercedes and then you suddenly get handed the keys to a Porsche, you’re going to automatically compare the similarities and the differences. And it will be the differences that stand out the most.
So it is with the only two women I’ve ever slept with and loved.