Page 124 of Love, Pucks, and Other Stories

Deep and long enough that she stopped trying to push me away and started kissing me back and finally—when I was just beginning to forget that my family was standing thirty feet away in my incomplete house—she relaxed against me.

I felt the press of that pearl necklace, wanted her in nothing but that.

Evenwithmy family standing thirty feet away.

Focus.

“Honey,” she whispered when I pulled back, her hands in my hair, her body plastered to mine.

“I don’t give a fuck that you’re late,” I whispered, hating that she immediately stiffened, but knowing that I had to get this out, had to make sure she knew this wasn’t important. “Theydon’t care you’re late.”

A statue had appeared in my arms, and she tried to pull away.

I held fast. “Theydon’tcare, baby,” I told her, leaning back enough to hold her gaze. “I promise. Though,” I said, running my knuckles over her cheek, “I think you can just dial back the mayor. Just be you, baby, and they’ll love you.”

Like I do.

But I managed to not say the last, even though it was blasting through my mind with the force of a rocket ship tearing through space.

“I’m late,” she whispered. “I’m late and I didn’t get to change, and a fucking cow was running through Main Street, and—”

“They won’t care.”

Her eyes were a little wild. “I’mlate.”

“Baby.” I brushed my lips over her forehead. “You let them see you, let themknowyou, and they won’tcare.”

She bit her lip. “I’m wearing dumbass heels and a pearl necklace at a job site.”

“They don’t care.”

“I had a meltdown.”

I huffed out a chuckle. “My dad and I grew up with four women—we’ve had plenty of experience with meltdowns, sweetheart. And let me tell you, that littlescenein there can hardly qualify as a meltdown.”

“Yeah,” she grumbled. “But only because you pulled me outside.”

Now my chuckle became full blown laughter.

Because this woman was fucking wonderful.

“Rosie girl,” I said, brushing back her hair, “if you think I don’t know how to contain my woman, then you’ve lost your head in your box of washi tape.”

She inhaled, exhaled. “Joel.”

“Not going to deny it?” I kissed her nose. “Or fight it? Or give me shit about it?”

“No,” she whispered. “I just…you haven’t been mine very long—”

I lifted my brows. “Haven’t I?”

Another of those sharp inhales. Another shaking exhale.

I pushed on. “Just because you’re only seeing it now, baby, doesn’t mean that’s not where I’ve been for a long time.”

Her lips parted. “I—”

My mouth on hers, stealing another kiss, taking advantage of her befuddlement.

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