Page 67 of Wallflower
Her eyes drop like she’s embarrassed about initiating a kiss, and she settles back into her seat. I love that I make her nervous.
I smile to myself as I peek into the nearest boxes, find them empty, and start tidying up. Everything goes into a bag on the floor, except the open bottle of olive oil. I can’t find the cap, so I set it carefully on the side table just as anticipation settles over us.
Dinner is just the first step in what has become a nightly ritual. We eat together. We fool around. I make her come. She puts on my jersey, and then I hold her in my arms until morning.
And I know she feels how hard she makes me. The wait for her to touch me is torture, but the pain is worth it. Violet is worth waiting for.
I scoop up the last of the takeout boxes and set them aside, eyeing her closed sketchbook the whole time. She’s never offered to show me what’s inside, but she hasn’t gone out of her way to hide it either. So, I pick it up.
She doesn’t protest, so I turn it over in my hands and run my fingers over the worn leather binding. “Have you ever shared your work with anyone?”
Violet smooths her palms over the tops of her bare thighs. “Only the designs I did in college, and a handful of sketches on my social media pages, but in real life…” She shrugs and shakes her head. “No. Nobody’s ever seen my designs.”
“Is there a reason?”
She captures her bottom lip with her teeth, and I’m distracted by the way she nibbles it while she thinks. “I’ve never felt close enough to anyone to share them. It’s always been private. My sketchbook is my safe place.”
Something hitches in my chest when I realize the only thing to bring her joy in this world is a piece of paper and a pencil, and I can’t stop the irrational determination I feel to change that.
“I know I’m asking for a lot here, but I’d really love to see your designs. Would it be okay if I had a look?”
I wait, wanting so desperately to be welcomed into this part of her world. She hesitates, and I decide it’s not going to happen, but then she nods.
“Yes, that would be okay.”
My heart lurches because the significance of her permission is not lost on me. I settle back against the headboard, stretch out my legs, set the oversized book on my lap, and open it.
The first page shows the wedding dress I’ve already seen—the one that belonged to her mother—but I’m searching for something else. I leaf through the pages until I find something original, pause for a moment, then decide it’s not the one I’m looking for.
“These are beautiful, Wallflower. You’re talented. I hope you know that.”
She flushes as I turn the page to another incarnation of her mother’s wedding dress. This one has numbers scratched in the corner, and I brush my finger across them. “Do these mean anything?”
Violet fidgets a little. “They’re my measurements. I don’t know why I wrote them down.”
I do. She wants to wear this dress someday. And maybe the idea of getting involved with a woman who dreams about her wedding dress should freak me out, but it doesn’t.
I might have never thought about it in exactly these terms, or even consciously over the years, but I want a happily ever after too. That’s the reason I built this house in the first place. I want what my parents had. I want to build a life and provide for my family. I want to love another person more than I ever dreamed possible. One day when hockey isn’t my everything, I’ll make my wife my world.
“Do you have any favorites?” I ask.
“Um.” Violet relaxes against me, and I put my arm around her and kiss her temple. She snuggles in closer and thumbs through the book, considering one dress after another and rejecting them all. But then she hesitates and returns to a silhouette she initially dismissed. It’s a strapless gown with a bodice of intricate lace and floral detail in teal, silver and gold, threaded with beads andshimmering flowers. The long skirt is a flowing, ethereal mass of layered blue fabric that somehow has just enough transparency to show the shape of the legs underneath. It’s feminine and striking and sexy.
It’s perfect.
Violet runs her fingers over the lines of her design. “If I had to choose a favorite, it would be this one.”
“It’s beautiful,” I agree. “And you’d look beautiful in it.”
Her laugh is scandalized. “I design the dresses. I don’t wear them.”
I close the book and carefully set it aside before I turn to Violet and lift her chin. “Who says you can’t do both?”
Her plump pink lips are upturned and waiting, her lids heavy, so I kiss her before she can respond.
My hands are greedy for the soft texture of Violet’s hair as I push my fingers through her tresses. My tongue recalls the taste of her and anticipates the way she opens her mouth to welcome me. She tilts her head further, inviting more, and presses her body against mine, seeking contact and heat at her breasts, her stomach, her hips, her thighs. A week of this, and it’s hard to remember a time when I wasn’t kissing her. I never want it to stop.
I trail my fingers down her arms, lift the hem of her camisole, and brush her hip bone lightly enough to leave goosebumps. She whimpers and kisses me harder, latching onto my shoulders like she can’t get close enough. My cock thickens.
