Velvet Kisses(74)

“Hey, it’s okay.” His arm finds it’s way around my waist. “I want you to be yourself around me. I like that.” He squints with a pained expression. “I like the playful version of you, Marley. You bring out the best in me,” he says it sober with a touch of sadness, and I want to thank him for not phrasing that last sentence in the past tense. “Let’s head on up.”

Wyatt and I walk hand in hand up the dusty trail, outlined with wild lavender laden with bees. We hit the crest and find a bench that holds a view of all of Jepson down below. It’s stunning. Breathtaking. And it reminds me of something I can’t quite put my finger on.

Then it hits me. “I think Annie mentioned she and Blake like to come here.”

“Is this their special place?”

“I think so. It’s so beautiful. It should be someone’s special place.”

He gives my hand a gentle squeeze as if agreeing with the idea.

We find a seat on the bench, and Wyatt scoots in close, his lips pressed tight with that same pained smile. Here it is, our big moment of reconciliation—or at least that’s what I’m hoping.

“I’m sorry,” we both say at the same time.

“Why are you sorry?” I’m shocked at first, then, in an unsettling moment, I think maybe he’s officially breaking things off with me. A sincere rejection usually starts off with those exact words.

“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you out,” he continues. “That I put so much credence in what Monica had to say.” He closes his eyes as remorse saturates his features.

“Can I ask what she said? I already know she’s not my biggest fan.”

“She said…” He touches his hand to the back of his neck pausing a moment. “She said coeds—sorority girls, play a game where they bed older men. I believe the term she used was ancient. So when the article came out, and I saw the buzzword, I panicked. I thought I’d been had.”

“Oh, my, God.” I drop my head in my hands. This can get worse. “When I wrote that, my version, I listed Subject One as Ancient History. It was Will. Will is Ancient History. Anyway”—I give a hard sniff into my knuckles—“Cat Alice admitted to rewriting and uploading the article. She said she was very sorry and to extend her apologies.” Like that makes everything better.

“Really?” His head inches back as pissed as I was when I found out. “Why in the hell did she do it?”

“She’s hurt. Will hurt her. I hurt her. We had a huge blowout the prior afternoon. She said she regretted it the minute she hit publish—but apparently not enough to take it down. She changed my password, making sure I couldn’t. And—I’ve since been kicked off the paper, so I’ll have to find another way to make amends to you.”

“Please don’t.” Wyatt gently pulls me over, and I settle into his lap.

My body molds to his chest as he warms my back. My eyes close just soaking in the feeling of Wyatt’s body so intimately touching mine.

“This feels like home.” I nuzzle into his neck, so close to his lips I’m trembling for them.

“It feels better than home.” He drops a hot kiss to the top of my head. “It was wrong of me to refuse to hear you out.” He pulls back until we’re facing one another again. “Marley, please forgive me. I swear I will never let anything else, no matter how shocking”—his eyes widen a moment because we’ve sort of hit the ceiling at shocking—“come between us.”

“You mean there’s still an us?”

His eyes settle over mine focused and sharp as lasers. “There is if you want there to be.”

“I do.” Tears come too quick for me to blink them away. “But about that contract—”

“It’s history.” He touches his cheek to mine a moment, and the temptation to kiss him grows like a wild fire. “I want something deeper. Something real. I want that with you, Marley—nobody else.”

“That’s what I want—exactly that.”

“So our age difference doesn’t bother you?”

Is he kidding?

“What age difference?” I’m serious. It’s like we’re one and the same.

“Good.” His chest rumbles beneath me as he sheds a silent laugh. “I want forever with you, Marley. Will you be my forever?”

“Yes! God yes.” I smooth my thumbs over his cheeks. “Can I kiss you now?”

“There’s one more thing.” His Adam’s apple shoots up and down as he examines me pressed against the sky. “Damn, you’re beautiful. I want to say something that I haven’t told another woman since my mother died.”