Page 129 of This Life and All the Rest
“Just good?”
I laugh louder and roll my eyes.
“Maybe more than good.”
“More than good?” He grabs my hips and pulls me back against his chest, pressing a kiss to my lips before whispering against them. “Let’s go home and I’ll show youmore than good. Maybe even great.”
“Oh, great, huh?”
“Maybe even fucking phenomenal.”
“Hmmm.” I take a step back, then turn and head to the door. “Let’s not waste any more time, then,” I call over my shoulder. “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”
THIRTY-THREE
3 Weeks Later
“Wake up, Ms. Jet Lag,”I whisper into Lennon’s ear. “We’ve got to be at Mom and Trent’s in an hour.”
“Fifteen more minutes,” she mumbles, and I laugh into her neck.
“You said that fifteen minutes ago.”
She whines and rolls over, so she’s on her back underneath me, which is one of my favorite places to have her.
“I’m so tired.” She covers her mouth with her hand and yawns. “Why did I agree to this?”
“I told you to say no.” I lean down and kiss her forehead. “We could have done this next weekend.”
I knew she’d be too jetlagged for her belated birthday dinner. She only just got back from her seven-day goodbye tour of Paris, which consisted mostly of cleaning out her apartment, sayingau revoirto friends, and sending a ton of boxes of clothes back to my place. Lennon could easily sleep for three straight days.
“Ugh, I know.” She gives my chest a light shove so I’ll roll off her, then she sits up. “I just...”
She shrugs.
She doesn’t have to explain any further. It’s her first birthday celebration at home, with all of us, since she turned seventeen. She spent her eighteenth birthday in England with Sam and her Aunt Becca in a hospital, and she’s spent every birthday since trying to run from that memory.
I can only hope this one will be different. Maybe this birthday can be the first good one. The healing birthday.
Slowly, she pushes herself up from the bed and moves to the closet. I lie back on the pillows and watch as she pulls off my t-shirt, showing me her naked back, and my dick hardens.
She doesn’t even have to turn around to turn me on. Just knowing she’s naked does it for me. Fuck, just knowing she exists is enough.
She pulls a dress off a hanger and slips it over her head, hiding her body from me. My dick stays hard, though.
She turns around to face me and flashes me a smile.
“How do I look?”
“Gorgeous.”
“Thank you,” she says softly, and I push off the bed and close the distance between us.
“You’re welcome.” I kiss her, then tug on her hand. “Now, let’s go.”
Lennon drives my car to the house. She’s missed driving since living in Paris, so I told her she could have free rein of my car until she gets one of her own. You’d think I’d told her she was being featured in the MoMA for how excited she got.
As she drives, we listen to Fleetwood Mac, and I draw stupid, little hearts on her thigh with my index finger. I know the moment she realizes what I’m drawing, because her lips turn up softly at the corners, and when she flicks her eyes to mine briefly, they’re full of everything I’ve been hoping for years.
