Page 136 of Pucked Up Plans
Not thinking too much into it—I don’t know her, she doesn’t know me—I attempt to get back to work. It lasts all of ten minutes when my doorbell rings. I need some serious excuses for my bosses for all the distractions lately.
I reach the front door at a snail’s pace, issuing a, “Jeez, I’m coming,” when the doorbell rings again.
Throwing open the door, I’m greeted with flowers. An enormous bouquet. Pink and white, almost a replica of the one I noticed yesterday. The one I ordered in a smaller version for pickup on Friday. The one postponed to next week.
“How?” That’s the word I manage over my shock.
Walsh’s face peeks through the spaces in between the stems. “Let me inside and I’ll explain.” He holds up a paper bag. “Hungry? I brought lunch.”
How the hell do I say no? He’s got a floral arrangement he undoubtedly had help picking out and lunch. My stomach rumbles at the mere thought of whatever’s in the bag. Walsh only brings things I like, so whatever’s in there has to be good.
My good-natured conscious alerts me to the fact I don’t know where we stand. Too many balls—or for Walsh, pucks—in the air.
“Walsh, I,” I start, only to be stopped by his megawatt smile.
“It’s not mine.”
Three tiny words. The way my brain processes them, you’d think he just asked how I would cure cancer.
It’s.
Not.
Mine.
“Not. Mine.” He repeats the last two words. For my benefit. He’s had time to process this.
“For real? No chance? Like you’re absolutely sure?”
He doesn’t answer. Rather, without an invitation, he barges into my condo, depositing the flowers and the lunch on the table before he lifts me in his arms. One hand on the back of my head, the other around my waist, his gaze finds mine. In his pools of blue, fondness reflects, relief swimming in the light color.
“No chance. It’s over. Done. Finito.”
His use of “finito” breaks me, and tears begin immediately. Tears of joy and contentment. Tears of having answers. Tears ofnot his.
Walsh cradles me to his chest, holding me while my emotions surge freely. All the pent-up ones I’ve held onto these last, long ten days liberated with just three words. Three words signifying the end of the torture. The end of missing his touch. The beginning of us.
I’m not sure how long I cry, how long it takes to get a handle over my emotions, but when I finally tug free, his coat’s stained with the evidence. He shrugs out of it.
All I can do is stare. The way he shakes his arms out of the coat before it falls to the floor. Short stubble covers his chin, and since I can, my fingers reach out and touch it, tracing lines along his jaw. It’s coarse to my fingers, and suddenly I can’t wait to feel it on other parts of my body.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
I’ve been starved the last few weeks, and now I’m going to indulge and engorge myself until satiation.
“Not for food.”
His eyes widen. “Should I put the flowers on the kitchen table?”
“After.”
“After what?”
I don’t answer. Grabbing his hand—I don’t care he still wears his boots—I lead him to my bedroom.
Four orgasms later—two for each of us, including the one from my first ever completed blow job—we sit around the kitchen table eating lunch. He had the good sense to bring sandwiches, so they didn’t get cold while we had sex. Damn good sex, I might add. Kinda mind-blowing. The sex I’ve only read about in romance novels but never experienced for myself. Now, there’s no going back to crappy sex. Walsh has both ruined and made sex great, the most interesting conundrum if there ever was one.
“Thanks for lunch. And the sex. Oh, and the flowers. I got a call earlier from Jenny saying the ones I wanted were delayed until next week.”
