“Sleep with me,” I whisper into her hair.
“Mmm,” she murmurs. “I think I’m nearly there.”
I kiss her shoulder lightly, dusting my lips across her flowers, and she runs her fingertips over the map on my arm as we drift off.
Before sleep covers us, though, I press one more kiss to her forehead. “Have I told you how happy I am that my restaurant was on your list for your event? If it wasn’t, I don’t know how we’d be here like this.”
“Me, too.”
“Do you know what I regret most about losing your email back then?”
She raises her face, her eyes less sleepy now. “No. Tell me.”
“That I didn’t get to tell you I was falling in love with you. So you’ll have to forgive me if I can’t stop saying it now.”
The way she looks at me, her smile, her eyes, it’s as if every moment in my life has led to this. “Say it.”
I cup her cheeks in my hands. “I love you.”
“Again,” she demands playfully.
“I’m madly in love with you.”
“Once more.”
“I love you more than I knew was possible,” I say, then I spoon against her and brush kisses along the back of her neck. “Sometimes it feels like the last ten years happened, but didn’t happen. Like we went from then to now.”
She laughs. “I wish.”
“Or maybe it just feels like you’ve always been mine. That even though I didn’t see you for a decade, you were mine.” It’s the caveman in me talking. But it’s the man, too.
“I was yours,” she says. “I am yours. And you’re mine.”
The past doesn’t matter anymore.
Chapter Fourteen
Gabriel
Some kind of wiry terrier dog laps up water greedily from a bowl, while a rust-colored canine sniffs the grass. When the red dog finds something that, presumably, is tasty to her doggy senses, she opens her mouth to lunge for it.
“Ruby, no!”
From my spot by the tables, where my cooks and servers are ably handling the catering, I wave to Penny’s friend Nicole.
Penny introduced me to Delaney and Nicole earlier this week. She wanted me to meet her friends, and we went out for drinks at Speakeasy in Midtown, savoring Purple Snow Globe cocktails. That turned into dinner, which unspooled into the women insisting I find the best ice cream in all of Manhattan for them.
I didn’t mind. Penny’s friends are wonderful, and they clearly love her fiercely. I took them to a small-batch shop in Murray Hill with bizarre flavor combinations like blueberry goat cheese, avocado graham cracker, and fire-roasted strawberry. The latter was Penny’s favorite.
She liked it, too, when we said good-bye to her friends and returned to her home, where we discovered how very much she likes having her wrists tied to the headboard with a silk scarf.
Shortcake didn’t, though.
Her little dog barked when she found her mistress trussed up. Good little dog, however, as soon as Penny told her to lie down in her dog bed, the tiny creature listened and I had my wicked way with Penny.
Over and over and over.
Every night with her has been both a discovery and a rediscovery. When we collided in Spain, we were a meteor shower. The clock had ticked relentlessly then, and we were urgent, first-time lovers. Now, we’re the night sky, together at the end of each day, and there’s just as much urgency but also a deeper curiosity to try and test. The first time around, she was young and innocent but she was ready.
And last night, she said to me, “I want you to take my body. I want to explore everything with you.”
Yeah.
I didn’t need to be asked twice. It’s like winning the lottery—finding this wonderful woman who wants me the same way I do her, then finding her again. Being her first. Being the one she wants now.
And now, as I stand under the warm afternoon sun in Central Park, I’m uncomfortably aroused in the presence of all these dogs, volunteers, shelter donors, and men and women who’ve just finished running the 5K.
Including Penny, who’s here with Shortcake. Penny chats with a blond guy in glasses, who has a huge mastiff by his side. When she spots me, her eyes light up and she waves. I make my way to her to say hello, and I extend a hand to the guy.
“Mitch, this is Gabriel Mathias,” she says. “He owns Gabriel’s on Christopher and has been gracious enough to cater the event. You have to try one of the mini sandwiches. You’ll love it.”
Mitch rubs his belly. “Can’t wait.”
Penny turns to me. “And Gabriel, this is Mitch and his dog, Charlie. Mitch is one of my dog park friends.”
We chat about the weather and the city for a minute, until Mitch and the big beast head to the food.
Penny leans in closer and whispers, “We went out twice.”
I straighten as an unexpected dose of jealousy rushes through me. “You did?”
She smiles softly. “Yes, but it was nothing. He’s very sweet, but we had no spark.” She stands on tiptoe and brushes her lips across my neck. “Not like with you. It’s all spark.”
A low rumble works its way up my chest, but the jealousy isn’t replaced by the lust. Not yet. “Two dates, you say? You must have liked him enough to go on two dates.”
She rolls her eyes. “Settle down. Like I said, we didn’t connect.” She places her palm on my chest. “I just wanted to tell you. To be open. Okay?”