Find Me (The Found Duet #2)(48)
Author: Laurelin Paige

But he was going to help me remember how. He ran his hands up my arms, slowly, sweetly. “What’s going on in your head, Gwen?”

Shit, wasn’t that the question of the century? I leaned against the sink behind me, closed my eyes and tried to pinpoint the emotion consuming me most. When I found it, I crossed my arms, forcing him to drop his. “Our year apart…” I started tentatively. “Were you with anyone else?”

His eyes remained on mine as he shook his head. “No.” He stepped closer and cupped my cheek with his palm. “No, I haven’t been with anyone since you.”

The weight on my chest loosened, and I sighed into his hand. Immediately, I felt guilty about my relief. “I have no right to be happy about that.”

He stroked my face with his thumb. “It was different for me, Gwen. I knew I was coming back. You didn’t.”

I rolled my eyes up toward the ceiling. “I love how you’re consoling me when I’m the one who cheated.”

“Stop it. You didn’t cheat.” His other hand perched on my waist, and even with my arms crossed in front of me, I felt him moving in, felt myself letting him move in. “I told you to go on with your life. I was prepared for that.”

“And you’re okay?” My voice sounded strangled. “I mean, we’re okay even though—” I couldn’t finish the statement. He’d still wanted me, even after knowing about Chandler, and that should have been enough.

Still, I was asking for more.

“Oh, Gwen.” He brushed his hand up my face and through my hair. “I thought you weren’t available. I thought I would never have you again like this. In my arms.” He leaned his forehead against mine, his nose stroking against my own. “So, yes. We’re okay. You’re with me and we’re okay.”

I opened my arms and threw them around his neck. It was difficult for me to believe that he would be so easily forgiving of another man in my bed, but I wasn’t going to push the issue. I was with him and that meant we were okay.

Then why did I still have so much apprehension?

“Is this all that’s causing you to close off?” JC’s ability to read my trepidation was uncanny. It was probably a blessing, since I would have likely pretended everything was hunky-dory now.

I pushed away from him, crossing to get my kitchen shears as my excuse. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be touching him—I did. I always did. It was just easier to say some things without the distraction of his body against mine.

“I don’t know.” I pulled the scissors from their drawer but kept my back to him a moment longer. “It’s my defense when things don’t go the way I’ve decided they should go.”

“How have you decided they should go?”

I turned to face him. He was leaning against the sink, his arms braced on the counter on either side of him. It was somewhat surreal to see him in my kitchen, standing next to my fridge. He fit into my life so effortlessly. Why was it so hard for me to let that be okay?

That was exactly what he was trying to help me figure out.

“Well.” I ran my tongue along my bottom lip as I considered how to answer. “Like tonight. Like earlier. That’s how I think we should be doing this. We should date. We should get to know things about each other before we jump back into this other stuff.” I took the scissors and returned to the sink, reaching behind him to turn on the faucet.

“Tonight was great,” he said as I picked up the roses. “I loved every minute of it. But we can’t play at innocent forever.”

“Well, that definitely wasn’t innocent,” I said, nodding to the foyer where our sexcapade had taken place.

“That’s not what I’m talking about. Eventually we have to address that there’s a whole history between us.”

“A whole history based on sex.” I pulled off all the plastic water containers at once then stuck the ends of the flowers under the running water.

“So? Does that invalidate how I feel about you? Because I know more about how to make you come than about who you voted for in the last election? Some people, not all people, meet and establish a relationship outside the bedroom first. But when they move to the bedroom, they don’t suddenly give up on everything they have outside of it. We’re just going the other direction. We’re sexual people. It makes sense that we establish a connection there first.”

I’d trimmed the stems as he’d talked, but now I halted, mulling over what he’d said. It challenged traditional thinking, but that didn’t make it irrational.

JC reached over and turned off the faucet then took the bouquet out of my hand, dropping it into the vase and setting that on the counter before he faced me. “It doesn’t mean my feelings for you aren’t real. It doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong. It means we’re doing it the way that’s right for us.”