Page 65 of Coming Home Country
“It’s all yours.” With sure steps, he rounded the bottom of the bed and pulled back the covers on his side of the mattress before lying down. I still sat there frozen, watching him, so eventually, he asked, “You getting in?”
Closing my eyes, I dragged in a deepbreath.
Why did sleeping together feel more intimate than having sex? It boiled down to a combination of things—this house, this man, the initials inked on my right arm for all the world to see, even if only temporarily.
Love was so much more powerful than lust. It was also infinitely more terrifying to give yourself over to.
Releasing the air in my lungs slowly, I crawled across the mattress and into his waiting arms. Tucker’s bare chest was warm, and the sound of his heart beating beneath my ear matched the fast-tempo of horses galloping across the open range.
Though he’d been playing it cool, the nerves had gotten to him too. If anything, it was a comfort to know I wasn’t alone, that we shared a similar anxiety over whatever the hell it was we were doing here tonight.
The muscles beneath me bunched and shifted as he outstretched an arm to turn off the bedside lamp.
Shrouded in darkness, Tucker’s pulse kicked up an additional notch, and I felt him swallow against the top of my head before he spoke. “Why did you agree to come to the wedding when you knew we’d be paired together?”
A sarcastic huff escaped past my lips. “I didn’t.”
With one arm wrapped around my waist to keep me pressed to his side, Tucker ran the hand of the other down the length of my hair. “What?”
I hummed. “Aspen never mentioned it. Claimed it fell under the clause of ‘we aren’t allowed to talk about Tucker, so how was I supposed to tell you’.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Ouch.”
My palm came to rest on his abs. “I know it’s childish, but it hurt to think about you, let alone hear about you.”
His grip on me tightened. “You did what you had to do to survive.”
“Yeah,” I breathed out. That described it exactly.
“Mac withheld some pretty important information from me as well.” The growled words vibrating his chest were enough to indicate that Aaron’s arrival was a surprise he hadn’t been expecting.
“Their hearts were in the right place.”
“Can’t be too mad at them when their lies of omission led us here,” he agreed.
I wasn’t sure if he meant here physically, us lying in each other’s arms, or here metaphorically, with the two of us standing on the precipice of a new beginning. Didn’t really matter. I would take whatever I could get for however long I was able to hold onto it.
Silence stretched between us, and the slowed rhythm of Tucker’s heart nearly lulled me half to sleep when he said, “Tell me about your life in Chicago.”
Groaning, I shifted in his hold to lift my head and peek at him. My eyes had adjusted enough that I could vaguely make out the features of his face but not enough that I could read his expression.
“I didn’t realize when you asked me to sleep over that we were taking the old-school route where we stayed up all night talking. If I wanted to do that, I could have kept my original plans to crash on the trundle bed in Aspen’s room tonight.”
Tucker cupped my cheek. “I’ve missed so much.” His hand slid lower until it came to rest over my heart. “I know who you are in here, but I’m curious to learn about the path you’ve traveled down since we parted ways.”
It was a simple request, and I didn’t have much to lose by shedding light on the gap in our timeline.
Though I’d racked up a decent list of accomplishments during my time away from Rust Canyon, without my heart being in them, they didn’tquite hold the same significance as they should have. I’d been merely going through the motions in my life.
“Life in Chicago is”—I blew out a heavy breath—“busy. Most of my time is spent in the office.”
“What kind of law do you practice?”
“Corporate. It’s nothing exciting. Lots of contracts and mergers and settlements.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like a lot of paperwork.”
“It is,” I agreed. “I’ll likely never see the inside of a courtroom. But I’m okay with that. The idea of public speaking is enough to give me hives.”
