Page 67 of Binding Their Hearts

“Mmm, I can’t wait to see that show.” She followed Jay with her gaze, and flexed into Henry’s hold as he caught her waist. “Hi there.”

While Jay properly stowed his gear, Henry greeted Alice with a kiss, languid and melting. She practically purred for him, tiny moans he swallowed with each renewal.

“You are an absolute vision.” He unbuttoned her coat and spun her gently, then handed the garment off to Jay for hanging. “How wonderful to see you relaxed and vibrant once more.”

“Wonderful to feel it, too.” Shimmying her shoulders, she blew out a breath. “We finished up massive design specs yesterday. So I made an executive decision that today would be a catch-all day. I told the pod if they answered every request from another department they’d left hanging, they could leave an hour early.” Her smile held more than a hint of devilishness. “Do I have the power to do that?” She spread her hands and shrugged. “Who knows? I did it, so I guess I must.”

“Way to be the boss.” Jay, shoes off and halfway through peeling down his leggings, pumped his fist. “I think you nailed it.”

“I kinda did, didn’t I?” A touch of wonder echoed in her voice. “I wanted to clear the decks. This weekend is just about us. New house, newly official commitments…” Her tone softened, and she tucked her hands together and swayed gently. “It’s like—I don’t know. When an answer clicks, and you never saw how perfect it was until that moment. Your whole body feels…” Her fingers twitched as if conjuring the thoughts from the ether. “Righter. More right.” Hazel eyes pierced him, Alice opening her soul in that steady stare. “Like when you took control, and I knew I’d made the right choice to come to dinner. This is one of those. The decisions you don’t go back and wonder about, because making the other choice couldn’t possibly be better than the place you’ve ended up.”

He stroked her cheek, chilled from her commute, as he wrestled with his heart’s ease at her quiet exoneration of the missteps along the way. A pair of slow breaths released the tightness in his chest, leaving behind the warmth of security and comfort. Certainty. “I am thankful every day for the decisions that brought all of us here.”

“I am thankful”—Jay, down to his undershorts, draped his arms around them both—“that we don’t have anything to do tomorrow. No classes to teach, no flogging to practice, no hoops to shoot.” He sagged in jest, swinging his head back and forth as he checked their expressions. “Yeah, we have a gazillion boxes to unpack and a house to explore, but none of that is urgent. It’ll happen as it happens, at our pace. No deadlines.”

Jay’s litany of recent demands on their attention served as an excellent reminder to simplify. They deserved time to adjust to their home and to explore the neighborhood. The holiday season was arriving with all haste; he would inform Emma that his classes would pause until the new year. “That is a welcome relief, isn’t it? We have been a bit bogged down by obligations these last two months.”

“The boggiest. But tomorrow, clear sky, dry trail—” Jay’s mouth quirked slightly, his gaze going distant. “Except maybe a couple of last-minute ceremony things. That I just need to check on. But otherwise, all clear.”

Henry would be placing a discreet phone call or two of his own, also to “just check on” items for the ceremony. “Yes, the day is ours, aside from minor details.”

“Minor stuff, uh-huh.” Alice bobbed her head, then stopped mid-bob. Her eyes grew noticeably wider. “Like writing vows.”

“You haven’t…” His own had been reverently stored in a sketchbook for weeks, subject to periodic revision as he contemplated new ways of expressing Alice and Jay’s importance to him.

“Oooooh.” Jay’s voice spiraled upward before his laughter overtook his chiding tone. “Alice didn’t do her homework yet. That’s so unlike her.”

“I was working.” Alice’s frown might have been apology or pout. Eminently kissable, whichever she intended. “Like, a lot.”

“We know.” The same teasing aggrievement left his mouth and Jay’s simultaneously in tenor and baritone harmony.

Alice delivered a nose-in-the-air hmph and grabbed them each by the hand. “We should go shower before I forget why I love you both. I’m gonna need to be able to remember that to write those vows.”

He used her clasp to reel her closer and dot her knuckles with kisses. “Then we shall endeavor to remind you over the next twenty-four hours, my sweet girl. Lest you have any doubts or confusion about where you belong.”

She swooned, correctly trusting Jay to catch her. “Oh yeah. It’s starting to come back to me. More of that, please.”

“Much more.” A lifetime’s worth. “Up the stairs you go. It may not be seven yet, but it is Friday. Let’s hear what you remember about safewords.”

He sent them on ahead, listening to their overlapping voices finishing each other’s sentences as he followed. His palm glided over the handrail’s smooth warmth. The house would alter them in ways they couldn’t yet know. But as Alice had so poignantly expressed:

“This choice is not one I would question.” Not for a single moment.

Chapter thirty-two

Henry

Henry Webb was not a man given to waiting until the last moment. Planning, precision—these were hallmarks of his personality not easily discarded. And after he and Jay had teasingly scolded Alice on Friday for not having her vows written, he most certainly did not appreciate entering the club Sunday morning without a crucial element of the ceremony. Suppressing a sigh, he checked his text messages for the third time in the last hour.

Delivery incoming. Meet you before the dealio, I swear.

He slipped the phone back in his pocket. Ahead of him, Alice and Jay exchanged hugs with Emma. Jay pulled their hostess aside, glancing back at him with a stretched smile clearly hiding something while pretending to be entirely innocent.

Henry angled his steps toward Alice, hopefully pretending more successfully that he hadn’t noticed anything unusual in Jay’s behavior. A velvet rope and signboard guarded the base of the grand staircase.

Second Floor Closed

For Private Event

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