Page 17 of Ever After All

Chapter Nine

Wyatt

Somehow, we disentangled ourselves and tugged our clothes halfway back on. With my remaining strength, I sat down on one of the chairs beside the table and pulled Rosie into my lap. She rested against me, her fingertips idly tracing along my collarbone just inside the vee of my shirt collar.

My heart was still pounding hard enough that it felt as if I had just run a sprint. She was soft and warm and I wanted to stay here in my office forever with her relaxed against me.

She eventually lifted her head, her eyes blinking a few times before she asked, “What now?”

I studied the sweet flush on her cheeks, the spray of freckles on her nose and cheeks, her kiss-swollen lips, and her gaze, startlingly unguarded. I wanted to ask her why she kept herself so buttoned up, but I knew the second I asked, she would get prickly. In a way, her prickliness was part of the attraction for me. Not because I wanted to fight it but because she was fierce and feisty, and I loved that about her. Every so often, like now, the knowledge that we had actually gotten married in Vegas would strike me and shock me a little. It was all so perfect and a cliché.

But I loved her and felt like I had lost the thread. Her fingers stilled on my collarbone before she thumped me lightly, right over my heart. “Did you hear me? What now?” she repeated.

My thoughts were a little sluggish, caught in the haze of desire. At her words, my pulse picked up its speed again. This was the hard part. When we were tangled up together, everything felt easy.

I had a short list of reasons I’d never been sure about relationships. Maybe it was bitterness. It all circled back to my family. We were a messy bunch, and things were better now, but our childhood had been difficult and painful. I’d seen what happened to my mom after our dad passed unexpectedly. She’d kind of fallen apart in her quiet, contained way. In the midst of her grief, she’d sort of checked out. When our grandfather rode roughshod over us, if she’d noticed, she hadn’t had it in her to stop it.

And then, when Jake had lashed out at McKenna in his own wounded, broken way, it had just been one more dark lesson. It all came to a head the time I confronted him about it, and he drank himself to death the next night. Since I faced all of that, it just seemed easier to keep things at a distance when it came to emotions.

I’d always had a corner of me that wondered if I carried that capacity for my anger to drive me in the wrong direction. I liked to think that wasn’t the case, but I didn’t know.

Yet Rosie was my soft spot. I’d known years back that she was special, that she was worth the risk, and that maybe we could have it, all of it, ever after all.

Rosie brought my thoughts to this moment. “Wyatt?”

“We see how it goes. I think you’re more worried about what others might think than I am.”

She fidgeted a little on my lap and even that felt good. Vulnerability flickered in her eyes as she took a shaky breath. “It’s not that I care what people think.” Her fingers tapped lightly along my collarbone in a nervous gesture. I wanted to soothe her.

“I get it, Rosie.” I leaned forward and kissed her quickly, drawing back before I lost myself in her again. “I think you don’t want to feel pressured by what our friends might hope for. Is that it?”

She nodded, a tiny smile curling the corners of her lips and making me want to kiss her all over again.

“You know Griffin and I are living together right now.”

“I know, and I figure he knows we’re married.”

I nodded slowly. “He does. Are you mad that I said something to him? It’s hard to keep secrets from him.”

“I know.” She let out a soft sigh.

“I had to explain when he saw the wedding ring.”

I wanted to tell her I loved her, but I knew she wasn’t ready. I’d let it slip already tonight, but I hadn’t meant to. I wasn’t even sure she’d heard me. I was relieved she wasn’t pissed off at me about Griffin knowing. It wasn’t that I told him everything. But he’d guessed, and I couldn’t deny it. I knew he’d know I was lying.

Rosie cleared her throat. “I’m staying in the small cabin on my dad’s property. He’s, uh, dealing with some health stuff. I need to be close, and he can’t drive right now. But it’s just me in the house. My brother stays in the main house with him.”

“How’s that going?” I asked, idly tracing circles on her knee.

She lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “It’s okay.”

We’d both grown up in Fireweed Harbor, so I knew her family. Her dad had owned the small hardware shop in town since I was a kid. I knew her mom had died when her brother was a baby, but I didn’t know many other details.

When she didn’t offer more, I focused on her earlier comment. “Are you telling me all this because I can come to your house?” My lips tugged at the corners.

Her cheeks went a little pink. She pressed her lips together, trying not to smile, but then she gave in and giggled. I wanted to kiss her all over again.

“Yes.”

---