Page 67 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
“Can I ask you something?” he whispered before his lips teased mine with a short peck.
“Anything,” I promised.
“Promise me that you won’t leave until August first?”
“I don’t plan to leave before then, Gulliver,” I promised, smoothing my hand down his face, “but that’s over two weeks away yet.”
“I know.” His head nodded against mine, and I couldn’t help but smile at the feeling it filled my heart with. I was in love for the first time in my life, and the consistent touch of another human was starting to weaken my reserve to take that job and leave this man. “I’m working on something that might help you make a decision about what your future will look like. I might need every one of those fourteen days. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I said, “and I’ll even seal it with a kiss.”
I wrapped my hands in his shirt and pulled him down to me, watching his mouth descend to mine while I awaited the warmth and thrill touching them offered me. He moved his against mine in a dance we both knew by heart, but the music was different sitting here by the shore. It was as though the Lady of the Lake was playing a love song for only us and we dipped and swayed to the rhythm of the waves against the shore, our tongues taking their time with each spin and dip.
I wondered if I stayed here, would the music keep playing? Would it keep filling my head with the lyrics that this man was made only for me?
♥
“Charity!” Gulliveryelled from the front of Butterfly Junction. “Holy hell, Charity!” he yelled again. I was out the door of his office and halfway down the hall before I realized I was running. The franticness of his tone had my heart pounding.
As he reached me, he threw his crutches to the ground and grabbed me, swinging me back and forth with my feet off the ground. “We did it! We’ve got it! It’s done!” he yelled with his head tipped back in excitement.
“The formula?” I asked, my heart going from scared to elated. “I didn’t think it would happen this quickly.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed, setting me back on my feet. His hand dived into his hair, and he took a deep breath. “I can’t believe it. We did it.” His voice was awe-filled and quiet now. “We did it.”
I put my arm around his waist and let him lean on me until we got to his office to sit down. He lowered himself to a chair while I stood between his legs. “I had no doubt you’d do it, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you,” I whispered before I kissed him. “You deserve this and so much more.”
He held my face in his hands, and his expression showed me pure, unadulterated, blissful satisfaction. “We deserve this.”
“No,” I shook my head in disbelief. “I didn’t have any part in the research.”
“You’re wrong. If you hadn’t closed the holes in the server, we might never have seen this day. All our work would be out the window. We owe a lot of our success to your ability to close and nail those doors shut. Not to mention, if you hadn’t found the information in Honey’s desk, my business partner and his best friend might be dead. You deserve this as much as he and I do.”
I patted his face with love and happiness. “I’ll take kudos for the server work, but the rest was all you guys. Where is Mathias?”
“He’s downstairs staring at the finding like a fool. We’re planning to go to dinner at the Apple Orchard to celebrate. We want you and Honey there too.”
I tapped my fingers on his thighs. “Is being in the public eye a good idea? I mean, it could be dangerous for them.”
Gulliver kissed my forehead, his lips lingering against my skin. “Mathias’s security team will come with us. They’re not letting him or Honey out of their sight. Honey is working in the basement now until everything settles. Honestly, it settles now because we have the formula, and there’s nothing they can do about it. It’s already pending patent.”
“Okay, so what do you do now?”
He took my hands and squeezed them, kissing my knuckles over and over. “We market it like you’ve been working on, only now we have tangible proof we can change the path of agriculture and protect ourselves from starvation!”
His enthusiasm was contagious, and I grabbed his face, guiding his lips to mine. The kiss was long, hard, and had enough tongue to tell him exactly how excited I was for him. He moaned and stroked my tongue with the fever of a man who now had everything he wanted in life. Well, almost everything. If you listened to him describe it, when I leave in a few weeks, his life will never be the same, and he’d chase me to the ends of the earth to be with me. I wanted to stay, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to break his heart, but I couldn’t give up the stability the job in Indiana offered me. Not without checking it out for a few months at least. Maybe I’d keep Myrtle until late October, which would give me plenty of time to know if the job was for me and if I’d be staying in one place after all.
Coward,that voice in my head said.You already know your place, and he’s holding you in his arms.
When the kiss ended, I sighed with satisfaction. “You’re about to put Butterfly Junction on the map, sweetheart. My heart is bursting out of my chest for you. I’ve never been this proud of someone before,” I whispered. “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you, so your successes are my successes.”
Gulliver sighed, but it sounded like relief more than happiness. “I’m happy to hear you say that.”
I cocked my head to the right. “Why? If you don’t know how proud I am of you, then I’m doing a bad job of showing it.”
“I do know,” he promised, grasping my hands in front of him. “It reflects in your eyes every time you look at me. What I mean is, things are about to blow up at Butterfly Junction and spin out of control.”
“In what respect?” I asked, concerned. “You mean the lab or what?”
