Page 77 of Love and Other Lost Things

“Can I get you anything?” Nik asked, dropping the wood in his arms next to the fireplace. “Tea? Wine? Something to eat?” He stuffed his hands in his pockets like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them now that they were empty.

Jane shook her head. “I just came from Hannah’s, and we ate all the cookies your mom sent home with her.”

“Yeah?” He grinned. “I’m glad you guys are hanging out.”

“Ali was there, too. It was… nice.” Jane went back to looking over the room. She wanted to see everything, know everything about him. On either side of the fireplace was a built-in shelf with rows of medical textbooks, novels, and cookbooks. Alongside them, he’d set several framed children’s drawings that had to have come from Amelia, and a handful of oddly shaped rocks and pinecones she imagined he’d found in the woods. She stepped closer, and her knee bumped against something that emitted a slightly low, off-key vibration in E minor.

Jane looked down to find a guitar resting on a stand. She blinked at it. Had Nik started playing? He hadn’t mentioned it at the café that night. Jane leaned down to get a better look.

And then she gasped.

The chip in the pickguard. The worn marks on the body where her pinkie finger had dragged against the lacquer. The pictures and song lyrics Nik had doodled across its body to hide the worst of the scuff marks. They were all there.

My guitar.

“I was sure it was gone. That it was lost forever. Where did you get it?”

The firelight flickered on his face, his eyes dark and unreadable. “I stole it.”

Her eyes widened. “From my dad?”

Nik nodded. “It was about a week after you left, and I ran into him outside of Ford’s. He told me I needed to come with him, and he dragged me to the police station.”

“Did he arrest you?” She knew Dad had made up some charges about Nik being arrested for drugs, but had he actually gone through with the whole charade?

Nik shook his head. “No, but he made it clear that I’d better go with him, so I did. He took me in his office and asked me a whole bunch of questions—had I talked to you lately? Had we been hanging out? At the time, I just thought he was being a dick, and he wanted me to stay away from you because he’d heard the rumors that I’d lost my scholarship. I figured he didn’t want you associating with me.” Nik stepped closer. “Now I can see that he was probably trying to find out if I knew where you’d gone.”

“How did you get the guitar, though?”

Nik cocked his head, remembering. “It was in his office, on a chair in the corner.”

“He took it from me,” Jane said. “He locked it in his patrol car and said he was going to take it out to the quarry and burn it.”

“I heard him tell one of the other officers to get rid of it. I didn’t know he’d taken it from you. I figured that when you left, you didn’t want it anymore.” Nik stared at the guitar. “I couldn’t let one of your dad’s minions sell it at a pawn shop or throw it in the trash. So, once your dad let me go, I hung around the front desk with Mrs. Swanson. When I saw him leave his office on a call, I snuck in and…” He shrugged. “I stole it.”

Jane slowly reached for the guitar like it might turn to dust or disappear into a cloud of smoke. “I can’t imagine how you must have felt.” She picked it up gingerly by the neck, and it was so familiar, so completely right in her hand. And then her gaze flew to his. “You asked me if I still had it. The other day at the café. But you knew I didn’t. Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to see your face. To see if you were sorry it was gone. If you were willing to tell me something that was true.”

And she’d lied to him. She’d said she still had it. When all along it was here. “I’m sorry, Nik. I just couldn’t admit to you what had really happened to it. Or at least what I thought had happened. It was too heartbreaking. And I didn’t want you to think I’d just ditched it. I never would have done that.” Jane ran her hand over the well-loved wood, the scuff marks. The strings vibrated under her touch. “These strings look new. Do you play now?”

“No.” Nik shook his head. “But I took it to the music shop the other day. They tuned it up and put on new strings.”

“Why?” Jane’s left hand automatically formed a chord, her right hand gently strumming the strings. “Why did you keep it for all these years?”

Nik raked a hand through his hair. “You know why, Jane. Because I love you, and I’ve always loved you. Because it was my connection to you.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “Because I’ve been waiting for ten goddamn years for you to come home to me and play this guitar again.”

Jane froze, her eyes glued to Nik. The man who had filled her dreams for a decade was finally there in front of her. And he loves me. With very little grace, Jane set the guitar back in the stand and moved in his direction, closing the narrow space between them. He was waiting for her, dark eyes full of desire, and as Jane fisted her hands into the fabric of his shirt to pull him closer, he was already wrapping one arm around her waist to yank her against him. His other hand tangled into her hair, tilting her head, holding it steady as his mouth crashed down against hers.

She pushed up on her tiptoes, opening her mouth, sliding her tongue against his and pressing her body against the solid length of him. He was already hard for her, the evidence straining against his jeans, pressing into her abdomen, and it sent a flare of desire through her.

Their first time together had been slow, cautious, with the gentle fumbling and nerves of teenagers. But after a decade of waiting for this, their movements were impatient, purposeful, urgent. Within seconds, Jane had unbuttoned Nik’s flannel shirt and was shoving it off his shoulders to discard on the floor at the same time that he gripped the hem of her sweater and pulled it over her head.

Jane stood back for just a moment, taking him in. The hard planes of his chest. The taut muscles of his arms. Nik had changed physically since she’d last been like this with him, but the look in his eyes, the care he showed her, the assurance that she was utterly safe, and the love—they were the same as they’d always been.

Nik dipped his head, tasting the skin of her neck, her collarbone, the top of her breast. He unhooked her bra, tossing it onto the growing pile of discarded clothes on the floor while his mouth returned to its place, skimming his tongue against her nipple, tugging it into his mouth.

Her body went weak, neck unable to support her head, and she floated back against the bookshelf. Nik moved lower now, bracing his hands on her hips as he slid to his knees, pressing his mouth to her stomach, tugging at the waistband of her leggings.

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