“Nope.” I dot a kiss on her forehead as she bursts out laughing. “But I could learn if you thought it would help your cover.”
Her smile turns thoughtful as she traces my nipple with a fingertip. “I’ll admit I haven’t said much to my family about us. I mean, I think they might have guessed. Lauren and Lana, anyway.”
“Hey, no pressure. If you want to keep things quiet, I understand.” Lord knows I’m not ready to tell Soph I’m scheduling sleepovers with Mari any chance I get.
Mari moves to the other nipple, drawing soft concentric circles with the pad of her finger. “I think I’m just not used to them seeing me that way. As someone vulnerable. As someone who lets herself fall for the last guy in the world she meant to get involved with.”
“Harsh.” I’m not sure how to take that. “Is there a particular reason I’d be last on your list?”
There’s a flicker of worry in her eyes. She starts to move, and I release her shoulder, not wanting to hold her here if she needs space.
But she surprises me by sticking around, turning so her arm rests on my chest and her chin sits on top. “I just…your divorce. And you’ve mentioned the role your wife’s therapist played…”
“Hey.” I plant a kiss behind her ear, understanding where this is going. “I don’t hold anything against Gabby’s shrink. Not now.” Another kiss, this one dotted over her fluttering pulse. “But even if the whole thing was the shrink’s fault—if the guy flat-out told her to ditch me—that wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
Her throat moves under my lips. “A good therapist wouldn’t do that,” she murmurs. “Make decisions for a patient. Convince her to do something she wasn’t already intending to do.”
“Okay.” We’re getting off-track here. “My point is that the marriage needed to end. For a variety of reasons, but one of them is you.”
“Me?” Her voice is practically a squeak.
“If Gabby and I had stayed together,” I say. “If we’d kept limping along in that marriage, I never would have learned what it felt like to be happy. To be with someone who feels like a partner instead of an adversary.”
It’s the closest I’ve come to saying the L-word. To putting it all out there that I’m in love with her.
Because let’s face it, I am. I don’t know when it happened, but I know I can’t go blurting it out right now. That’s too scary, too out-there for Mari to handle this soon.
“I love you.”
Her voice hits like a warm splash of water. “What did you say?”
Vulnerability flashes in her eyes, but she tips up her chin. “I said I love you,” she repeats. “And I don’t care if it’s too soon to say that. I’m in love with you, Griffin Walsh, and you don’t have to say it back, but I needed to tell you. To hear myself say it out loud.”
I grin so big my jaw creaks. “I love you, Mari. So much.”
Her smile is like the sun coming out. “It’s such a small thing, but I needed to say it first,” she says. “I hope that’s okay.”
“More than okay.” Holy shit, I’m on cloud nine.
“I tried to fight it,” she says. “I tried pretending I wasn’t hot for you. That I didn’t think about you every day and every night. I thought I was pulling it off.”
I laugh and kiss the edge of her jaw. “Your hard-ass shrink shell is tough to crack, but you’re not that good an actress.” I skim my lips over her temple to feel her shiver. “I’ve wanted you, too. So much.”
“I’m so glad.”
This time when I kiss her, she twines her fingers in my hair and pulls me on top of her again. We’re evenly matched and so lost in each other that I almost don’t hear the squawk from the next room.
“I love you!” Leonard shouts. “Let go, baby.”
“Oh, Christ.” I flop back against the pillow and look at Mari. “Now what?”
She’s smiling like a sunbeam, and I don’t know if it’s Leonard or the words we just exchanged. “Maybe we could redirect him.”
“Redirect?”
“Teach him some new phrases,” she says. “Things he can safely repeat in mixed company.”
I comb my brain to think of appropriate phrases for a psychologist’s parrot. “You’re good enough,” I begin, channeling memories from Stewart Smalley’s character on Saturday Night Live. “And smart enough. And doggone it, people like you.”
Mari laughs and rests a hand on my chest. “When people tell you who they are, believe them,” she shouts.
I crane my neck to kiss the tips of her fingers. “I know that’s a common shrink saying, but I have no idea what it means.”
“It’s good advice for people who get into relationships looking to change the other person,” she says. “Like if you really want to date someone who says they’re not ready for a relationship, a healthy person takes that information and moves on. A fixer will try to persuade the person to enter a relationship anyway.”
I consider that, remembering all the rom-com movies I’ve watched with Soph where the whole plot revolves around a guy convincing a girl to give him a chance. “What made you give me a chance?”
She burrows against my chest, palm circling the space over my heart. “I was always attracted to you,” she says. “I just needed time to figure out if it was worth dealing with all the baggage.”
“My baggage?” The thought of Soph as a piece of luggage has me bristling, but Mari shakes her head.
“No, mine. It’s—complicated.” She lifts her head, and when she meets my eyes, I’m sure she’s poised to say something important.
Squawk.
“You feel so good,” Leonard shouts. “Didn’t know it could be like this.”
Mari closes her eyes and winces. “This could be a problem.”
I laugh, recognizing the awkwardness of the situation even though my ego kinda loves it. “Maybe he’d latch on to beer terminology instead.”
“It’s worth a try.”
“Hey, Leonard,” I shout. There’s no response, but I continue anyway. “Cool your wort as quickly as possible to increase the fallout of proteins and tannins that are bad for beer. Got that?”
Leonard squawks his response. “Guys poised to penetrate you.”
“Oh, God.” I look down at Mari. “He could have at least gotten the whole phrase.”
“I’ll go get him.” She leaps out of bed in all her warm, naked glory. I’m kinda hoping she’ll stay like that, but she cinches a wine-colored robe around her waist. “Maybe he’ll stop imitating if he can see us.”
Moments later, she’s dragging the wheeled perch into the bedroom. Leonard looks mighty pleased with himself. As Mari’s robe parts, I see him eyeing her nipple.
“Don’t try it, bird boy,” I warn him. “My recipe for cast iron roast chicken would work just fine for a parrot.”
He cocks his head and stares at me. “Such a small thing.”
“Oof.” I place a hand over my junk beneath the covers. “Your parrot just insulted my manhood.”