“Do you miss your family?” she asks softly.
I get into bed with her and I tell her the truth. “You can’t miss anything you’ve never had.” I grew up with my music, and that will always be with me. I would miss that like crazy and couldn’t live without it. Frustrated with my robe, I pull it off her and ease the satin off her shoulders. She knows I need her naked and pulls her arms loose for me, then cuddles her small, lean body against my bare chest.
She feels so good, I feel her breasts rising with her breaths, my nose in her neck, her scent calming my thoughts. I might be okay for a while, but I know it won’t last and I’ll be needing to do something in a moment.
I think she notices my feet are restless. Fucking feet fucking feet fucking fuck it fuck!
“If I told you something,” she whispers with a twinkle in her eye as she slides one leg between my thighs, our bodies tangled and close, “would you remember tomorrow?”
I pull the covers over us. “I hope I do.” Fuck me, I hate myself sometimes.
I’m trying to calm down the buzzing inside me when she strokes my head, and my leg stops. I bite back a growl and close my eyes and suck in her touch, then she reaches over me to the nightstand. I see she grabs my iPod and headphones.
“Put these on,” she says. She looks so excited, I grin. I fucking love my music, and a song becomes doubly important when she shares it with me. I straighten up against the headboard, drag her with me, put on my headphones, and drag her to my lap, where she crawls on and selects a song.
It starts, and I don’t think I’ve heard it, but I have tons of shit in there.
Then I start hearing a woman singing and she sounds upbeat and hopeful. The way Brooke looks at me, smiling, watching me with brilliant gold eyes, makes my gut clench, and I hear the words and what she’s telling me and my body tightens as I hear the chorus come: You’re so beautiful, but that’s not why I love you. . . .
I scan her face because a part of me just won’t take this as the truth. I look at her eyes, her nose, her cheekbones. She’s killing me, and I need to know she’s not messing with me, but she isn’t. She almost wears the expression of being the one who is softly singing it to me.
My body seizes and tightens in excitement. I feel made love to mentally, in my head.
“Play it again,” I tell her roughly. She bites her lower lip and clicks the button to replay it, and I can’t take listening to it one more time or my chest will explode into a million pieces—I will be all in fractions from now on.
I roll her over and set her on her back and place my headphones on her little head, brushing her hair behind her ears so it doesn’t get caught. Her eyes widen as the lyrics start playing to her, and I can see the way her irises flare and her lips part in surprise. Then she closes her eyes so tight, I see the crinkles at the corners, and I watch her listen.
I kiss her, slowly parting her lips with mine, so that it’s not the lyrics that tell her I love her, not a voice, not a word, but me.
PRESENT
SEATTLE
Will you still love me if I marry you in a dress Racer just baptized with a little bit of sweet baby vomit?
I stare down at Brooke’s text, and quickly type back, Yes.
I wait for her to reply, but getting nothing for a moment, I write, I fucking love you. Don’t let me stand here like some moron today.
Never! Not even if I had to walk naked up to you.
Don’t fucking do that.
I’d kill someone for sure.
All right. Plus you know our son pukes roses so . . . it’s okay!
Right.
I chuckle as I tuck away my phone and watch the church fill up with people. Including Melanie’s new boyfriend.
“That’s him,” Pete tells Riley. “Melanie showed me a picture on her phone the other day.”
Riley is speechless for a moment. “You’re shitting me.”
“What? Nothing else to say?” Pete baits. “He’s almost as good-looking as Remington.”
“I’ll bet he’s got a choad for a dick.”
“And . . . he’s also got manners. He’s waiting for her by the door,” Pete baits.
“Well, I could do that, but we’re kind of busy up here with Rem,” Riley grumbles.
“Will you both excuse me for a second? I believe that, over there, is mine,” Pete says, pointing at Brooke’s sister.
PAST
NEW YORK
We’re at the hotel dining room, the entire team sitting down at two separate tables, one for the ladies, one for the men, when I get an e-mail from an unknown source, with the heading Thought you might like to see this.
I open the attachment, and I see Scorpion, and a woman in familiar clothes, and familiar hair . . .