Page 78 of The Marriage Narrative
Jordan normally had the patience of a saint, but he’d renounced his vow. She couldfeelhow eager he was to hold her, to have her, to kiss her with a confident tenderness that ricocheted through her entire body.
Zinnia had to turn away, burying her face in the pillow to breathe, tothink. But then he coaxed her back to him with delicate kisses on her cheek.
Nothing mattered anymore. Hadanythingever?
He gently bit her now-swollen bottom lip and she exhaled around a moan. His hand was underneath her shirt, firmly pressed between her shoulder blades. Skin so sensitive, it felt like her nerve endings were trying to memorize every line of his palm.
An overpowering feeling of warmth and safety enveloped her until she was too exhausted to focus. Too breathless to see when he made a trail of kisses down her neck to the hollow of her throat. She arched her back and grabbed his face to make him stop.
Jordan pressed his forehead against hers, breathing just as hard. “Zinnia.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. He wasn’t supposed to whisper her name like that. The sound of it resonated under her skin and spread like wildfire, flourishing in places it had no business being.
“I just—” She paused, panting. “I just need a minute.”
“Okay.” He kissed her chin. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Shopping with Lulie, the incident with the stalker, feeling isolated, feeling wanted, homesickness, kissing Jordan, wanting Jordan—everything coalesced into slabs of stone being placed on her chest. One after the other. Crushing her to death.
“I’m about to start crying,” she warned him. “Not because of you. You didn’t do anything.”
That wasn’t true. He’d changed everything.
Jordan moved to a sitting position and took her with him. He sat her in his lap, tucked her head under his chin, and massaged her spine the way he knew she liked. She wound her arms around him and sobbed herself to sleep.
Chapter 20
Jordan
“Hey.” Lulie’s gazeslid right over him. “Where’s Zinnia?”
“She’s taking a sick day.”
He’d tucked her into bed last night and when he knocked on her door that morning, she was still curled up in the same position. After recovering from a slight heart attack, he’d touched her cheek—and she inhaled deeply. He left her a note before leaving.
“Is she in the bungalow? Is the door locked? I want to talk to her.”
“That’s not a good idea. Yesterday was…She needs to rest.”
“Oh. Okay. I get it. I guess.” She shrugged and Jordan sighed.
Even though he was dying to ask how his sister was doing, he knew better than to bring up the attack on camera. Official interviews weren’t for another month. Production wanted the events to marinate into “raw feelings and reflective emotions.” Talking about too much before then would “lessen the impact.”
Being her big brother, being in her lifeperiod, meant accepting that she wanted to live her life like this. She’d said she was fine. He decided to believe her until she told him otherwise. Earning her trust was more important than prying.
“So”—Lulie began looking everywhere but at him—“where areyouheaded?”
“I work out of Dad’s old office in the mornings.”
“I guess I could walk you there instead.”
He scoffed. “I guess.”
Lulie fell in step beside him as they walked down the hall. “I’m thinking about apologizing,” she said. “I’m glad you married Zinnia now, for obvious reasons, but why did you in the first place? We had everything all planned out. We don’t create twists on our own.Youbroke the rules.Idid what I was supposed to.”
