“You have my painting?”
He nodded. “Um…yeah, my dad might have thrown it at me after yelling at me to fix things with you.” He shuffled his feet and looked towards his kitchen. “You want a beer?”
I nodded but couldn’t speak. I wasn’t sure what I should even say to this man. He walked into his kitchen, and I heard him grabbing beers. He came back into the living room and handed me a 611 Ale.
I took the beer. “Oh. This is what we drank at the brewery the last time we went.”
He took a swig of his beer. “Yup.”
“Blaise.”
“Yeah, sweets?” he asked, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking down at his beer and picking at the label.
“Do you know what I did the day after the wedding?”
He shook his head but still wasn’t looking at me.
“Liv picked me up, and I cried the entire way home. Then I sat on my futon, ate a bunch of carbs, and cried the rest of the day.”
His head snapped up, and my heart wrenched when I saw his eyes were shiny. “Why?”
I wiped at my face, now realizing the tears were welling up in my eyes and a few had fallen. “Because I fell in love with you, and I wasn’t supposed to.”
He sat on his couch and put his beer on the coffee table. Then he patted the space next to him. “C’mere. Sit with me.”
I went to him, putting my beer next to his and gingerly sitting beside him. He put an arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” I asked.
He caressed my cheek, and his thumbs wiped away my tears. “I never wanted to make you cry.”
“It’s my own fault. I fought so hard to guard my heart that when you did as I asked, it broke me.”
His hand didn’t move, but his eyes searched mine. “So when you woke up, and I was gone, you thought I was gonna let you go?”
I nodded.
“Veronica, I didn’t want to. I wanted to keep you forever. I wanted our relationship to be real because I fell in love with you, too.”
“So when I texted you, that hurt?” I asked.
He nodded. “I wanted to respect your wishes.” He took my hand and placed it above his heart, right where I covered up the tattoo of his ex-girlfriend’s name. “When I told you that you fixed my heart, I didn’t mean my tattoo.”
“Oh,” I breathed out. “Blaise?”
“Yeah, sweets?”
I smiled through the tears. “I love when you call me ‘sweets.’ I may have rolled my eyes the first time, but I love it.”
His thumb continued to caress my cheek. “What else do you love?”
“I love how your whole face lights up when you see me on the other side of the glass. And that we have that ritual that’s just ours. And how you don’t laugh when I ask you a dumb question about hockey because I’m not into sportsball.”
He chuckled. “Sweets, it doesn’t matter to me that you don’t know hockey like the back of your hand. I love that you try to be supportive. That you’re there and you listen to me rant when something’s off with my game. I love seeing you in my jersey.”
“I want to be your girlfriend,” I blurted.
“Yeah?” he asked, his voice dropping to a low whisper. “Not a fake girlfriend?”
I shook my head. “No, baby. I want it to be real. I want you.”
A smile broke out across his face, and then he kissed me, pressing me into his couch. I didn’t mind because my body needed him close. I needed the feel of him again. Then the jerk pulled back.
“Kiss me,” I demanded.
He put a finger on my lips. “Shush, let me say what I gotta say.”
“If it’s not about how much you want to fuck me right now, I don’t want to know.”
He gave me an amused look. “No, sweets. I really want to be your boyfriend, and it was hard letting you go.”
“I’m here, and I don’t want you to let me go now.”
He smiled at me and ran a hand through my hair. “I hate this hair.”
I frowned.
“It’s not you. I never want to be the reason you dimmed your light. I love you, Veronica O’Malley. I didn’t expect it, and I wasn’t looking for a relationship when I met you, but the past months without you… I’ve felt hollow.”
“Worse than when Astrid broke up with you?” I asked.
He nodded. “She was my first love, but you might be my only.”
I slanted my mouth on his again, pretty sure he might be the only man I ever wanted to kiss again. When I pulled away, he looked at me like I hung the moon. I don’t think a man had ever looked at me that way. I thought Seth took my heart when he left, but I think this blue-eyed blonde giant had put it back together.
“You gonna give me a tour of your house?” I teased.
He shook his head. “Later. Tonight, I want to show you how much I love you.”
I laughed when he lifted me up into his arms and carried me upstairs.
Chapter Thirty-One
BLAISE
There was a weight on my chest when I woke up the next morning. The weight was a naked woman, and my cock was already hard against my leg at the feel of Veronica, my girlfriend, wrapped around me. Her hand was swirling across the red flowers on my chest.
I kissed the top of her head. “Morning, sweets,” I whispered.
She tilted her head up to look at me. “Hi.”
“Hi? That’s all I get?”
She nodded into my chest. “Somebody wore me out last night, and I’m exhausted.”
I grinned.
Last night after we talked and told each other how we felt, I spent a long time making slow love to her. It differed from our usual affair, but it was nice. Then I let her tie my hands to the headboard, and she rode me. We ended up in the shower for round three before collapsing onto the bed naked with damp hair late in the wee hours of the morning.
A memory surfaced suddenly. “We didn’t use a condom in the shower.”
She kissed the tattoo on my chest as she worked her way up to my neck and then to my lips.
“S’okay. I’m on the pill,” she said, and she climbed on top of me. Now my cock was getting even more interested in her body grinding against mine. This woman was just as horny as me, and it was one of the reasons I loved her.
I frowned and raked a hand through my hair. “You sure that was okay? That wasn’t very smart.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” she reassured me. “You seemed to enjoy it.”
That was true, but I always wrapped it up. I had no intention of doing her in the shower last night, but she was too much of a temptation. I kinda wanted to go without again, but my family was very fertile.
VERY fertile.
“I’m usually more careful than that,” I explained. I never went bare with Astrid, ever, but if things went my way, Veronica would be the only person I ever did that with for the rest of my life.
“Baby, it’s fine,” she told me and nosed across my neck, giving me light kisses. “If you’re so worried about it, pull out next time.”
I grinned at that. I loved her calling me a pet name, especially now that everything between us was real. I opened my mouth to say something, and then my doorbell rang. I groaned because I had a feeling who was bothering me today.