After Ever Happy (After #4) (49 page)

“Take yours off,” she orders. Her cheeks are flushed; her hands are shaking, resting on the bottom of my back. I love her, I fucking love her and the way she still loves me after all this time.

We are truly fucking inevitable; even time cannot come between us.

I do as I’m told and climb back on top of her, taking her panties off while she arches her back.

“Fuck.” I admire the way her hips curve and her thighs just fucking scream to be grasped by my hands. I do just that, and she stares at me with those fucking blue-gray eyes that got me through hours of bullshit with Dr. Tran. Those eyes even brought me to call Vance a few times in the last few months.

“Please, Hardin,” Tessa whines, lifting her ass off the mattress.

“I know, baby.” I bring my fingers to the apex of her thighs and rub my index finger over her pussy, collecting the wetness there. My cock twitches, and she sighs, wanting more relief. I push a finger inside her and use my thumb to brush across her clit, making her writhe underneath me and causing the sexiest fucking noise I’ve ever heard when I add another finger inside her.

Fuck.

Fuck.

“So good,” she gasps, her fingers gripping at the hideous flower-printed sheets on her tiny bed.

“Yeah?” I urge her, moving my thumb faster over the spot that drives her fucking crazy. She nods frantically, and her hand moves to my cock, sliding up and down in a slow but tight motion.

“I wanted to taste you, it’s been so long, but if I don’t get my cock in you right now, I’ll come all over your sheets.”

Her eyes widen farther, and I give a few more pumps of my fingers inside her before aligning my body with hers. She is still gripping me, guiding my cock into her, and her eyes close as I fill her.

“I love you, I fucking love you so damn much,” I tell her and lean down on my elbows, pressing in and pulling out, pressing in and pulling out. She claws at my back with one hand and wraps the fingers of the other into my hair. She pulls at it when I shift my hips, spreading her thighs farther apart.

After months of improving myself, seeing the brighter side to life and shit, it feels so fucking good to be with her. Everything in my life revolves around this woman, and some people may say it’s unhealthy or obsessive, crazy even, but you know what?

I don’t give a flying fuck, not a single fucking one. I love her, and she is everything to me. If people have shit to say, they can take their judgmental bullshit elsewhere, because no one is fucking perfect, and Tessa brings me as close to perfect as I will ever be.

“I love you, Hardin, I always have.” Her words make me pause, and another piece of me is glued back in place. Tessa is everything to me, and hearing her say this shit, and the way her face looks when I look down at her, is everything to me.

“You had to know that I would always love you. You made me . . .
me
, Tessa, and I will never forget that.” I enter her again, hoping that I don’t end up crying like a bitch while getting her off.

“You made me
me
, too,” she concurs, smiling up at me like we’re in some romance novel. Two lovers, kept apart for months, only to be wonderfully reunited in the big city. Smiles and laughs and plenty of fucking. We’ve all read it before.

“Leave it to us to have a sentimental conversation at times like this,” I tease, planting a kiss on her forehead. “Then again, what better time is there for our feelings to come out?” I kiss her smiling lips, and she wraps her thighs around my waist.

I’m getting close now. My spine is tingling, and I can feel myself getting closer and closer to coming as her breaths get deeper, quicker, and she tightens her thighs.

“You’re going to come,” I pant in her ear. Her fingers tug at my hair, sending me to the edge. “You’re going to come now, with me, and I’m going to fill you,” I promise, knowing how much she loves my fucking dirty-ass mouth. I may be less of an asshole, but I won’t ever lose my edge.

With Tessa calling my name, she comes around me. I join her, and it’s the most relieving, fucking borderline-magical feeling in the entire fucking world. This is the longest I’ve gone without fucking someone, and I would gladly have gone another year waiting for her.

“You know,” I begin, as I roll off her and lie next to her, “by making love to me, you just agreed to marry me.”

“Hush.” She scrunches her nose. “You’re ruining the moment.”

I laugh. “As hard as you just came, I doubt that there is anything that could ruin your moment.”

“
Our
moment,” she mocks me, grinning like a madwoman with her eyes firmly closed.

“Seriously, though, you agreed, so when are you going to buy your dress?” I push further.

She rolls over, her tits right in my damn face, and it takes everything in me not to lean over and lick them. She couldn’t blame me; I’ve been sexually dormant for a long-ass time.

“You are still as crazy as ever—no way am I marrying you right now.”

“Therapy only works for my anger, not my obsession with having you forever.”

Her eyes roll, and she lifts her arm to cover her face.

“It’s true.” I laugh and playfully drag her from the bed.

“What are you doing?” she screeches when I lift her over my shoulder. “You’re going to hurt yourself lifting me!” She tries to wiggle off me, but I tighten my arm around the back of her legs.

I don’t know if Landon is here or not, so I call out a warning just in case. The last thing he needs to see is me carrying a naked Tessa down the hallway of this matchbox apartment. “Landon! If you’re here, stay in your damn room!”

“Put me down!” She kicks her legs again.

“You need a shower.” I slap my palm against her ass, and she yelps, swatting mine in return.

“I can walk to the shower!” She is laughing now, giggling and screeching like a schoolgirl, and I fucking love it. I love that I can still make her laugh, that she grants me such beautiful sounds.

I finally place her, as gently as possible, on the bathroom floor and turn on the water.

“I’ve missed you.” She stares up at me from the floor.

My chest tightens; I fucking need to spend my life with this woman. I need to tell her everything that I’ve been doing since she left me, but now isn’t the time. Tomorrow, I’ll tell her tomorrow.

Tonight, I will enjoy her sassy remarks, savor her laughs, and try to earn as many forms of affection from her as possible.

W
hen I wake up on Monday morning, Hardin isn’t in my bed. I know he has some sort of interview or meeting, but he hasn’t mentioned exactly what it’s about or which part of the city it’s in. I have no clue if he will return before I have to leave for work.

I roll over, clinging to the sheets that still smell of him, and press my cheek against the mattress. Last night . . . well, last night was amazing. Hardin was amazing; we were amazing. The chemistry, explosive chemistry, between us is still as undeniable as ever, and now we are finally at a place in our lives where we can see our faults, each other’s faults, and accept them and work through them in a way we couldn’t in the past.

We needed this time apart. We needed to be able to stand alone before we could stand together, and I’m so thankful that we made it through the darkness, the fighting, the pain, and emerged hand in hand, stronger than ever.

I love him, Lord knows that I love this man; through all the separations, through all the chaos, he has crawled into my soul and marked it as his, never to be forgotten. I couldn’t have if I tried, and I did try. I tried for months to move along, day by day, keeping myself busy in an attempt to keep my mind from him.

Of course, it didn’t work, and thoughts of him never strayed too far from my mind. Now that I have agreed to work things out, in our own way, I finally feel as though everything could work out for us. We could be what I once wanted more than anything else.

“You had to know that I would always love you. You made me . . . me, Tessa, and I will never forget that,”
he’d said while pushing inside me.

He was breathless, gentle, and passionate. I was lost in his touch, in the way his fingers traveled down the length of my spine.

The sound of the front door opening finally brings me out of my daydreaming and remembering last night. I climb out of bed, reach for my shorts from the floor, and pull them up my legs. My hair is a matted mess; letting it air-dry after the shower with Hardin was a terrible idea. It’s tangled and frizzy, but I brush my fingers over it the best I can before pulling it back into a ponytail.

Hardin is standing in the living room, his phone pressed to his ear, when I reach the entrance. He’s dressed in his usual style of all black, and his long hair is a wild mess, like mine, yet it looks perfect on him.

“Yeah, I know. Ben will let you know what I decide,” he says while noticing me standing near the couch. “I’ll call you back.” His tone is short, impatient almost, and he ends the call. The annoyed expression disappears as he takes steps toward me.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He nods, looking down at his phone again. His hand runs over his hair, and I wrap my hand around his wrist.

“Are you sure?” I don’t want to be pushy, but he seems off. His phone rings in his hand, and he looks down at the screen.

“I need to take this.” He sighs. “I’ll be right back.” Kissing my forehead, he steps out into the hallway and closes the front door behind him.

My eyes travel to the binder on the table. It’s open, and the edges of a stack of papers are sticking out from the sides. I recognize the binder as the one I bought for him and smile at his still having it.

Curiosity gets the best of me, and I find myself opening the binder. On the first page is printed:

AFTER: BY HARDIN SCOTT

I flip to the second page.

It was the fall when he met her. Most people were obsessing over the way the leaves were turning and the smell of burning wood that always seems to linger in the air during this time of year; not him, he was only worried about one thing. Himself.

What? I brush through page after page, looking for some sort of explanation to calm the chaotic thoughts and confusion. This couldn’t be what I think it is . . .

Her complaining felt overwhelming to him, he didn’t want to hear the worst parts of himself thrown at him. He wanted her to think he was perfect, the way she was to him.

Tears fill my eyes, and I flinch when some of the papers fall to the floor.

In a Darcy-inspired gesture, he funded her father’s funeral the way Darcy covered Lydia’s wedding. In this case, he was attempting to mask a family embarrassment caused by a drug addict, not an underage sister marrying spontaneously, but the ending was the same. If his life would become one from the novels, his kind gesture would bring his Elizabeth back to his arms.

I can feel the room spinning around me. I had no idea that Hardin had paid for my father’s funeral. The small possibility of it crossed my mind back then, but I had assumed that my mother’s church had helped with the expenses.

Even though she was unable to bear children of her own, she couldn’t let go of the dream of them. He knew that, and he loved her even so. He tried his hardest not to be selfish, but he couldn’t help thinking about the little versions of him that she couldn’t give him. He felt for her more than himself, but he couldn’t help but cry over their loss many more nights than he could remember.

Just as I decide I cannot take any more, the front door opens and Hardin walks in. His eyes go directly to mess of white paper printed with disgusting black words, and his phone falls to the floor, joining the chaos.

C
omplications.

Life is full of them; mine seems to be chocked-fucking-full of them, overflowing and spilling out of the top in a never-ending surge. Wave after wave of complications collide with the most important moments and things in my life, and this moment is one that I can’t allow to be drowned.

If I stay calm, if I stay fucking calm and try to explain myself, I can hold back the tidal wave that is bound to crash through this small living room at any moment.

I can see it brewing behind the blue-gray of her eyes. I can see the confusion swirling with anger, creating a heavy storm, just like the sea before the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls. The water is calm, resting, just barely rippling on the surface, but I can see it coming.

A sheet of white paper clenched between trembling hands and Tessa’s ominous expression warn me of the danger ahead.

I have no fucking idea what to say to her, where to start. It’s such a complicated story, and I am pure shit at problem solving. I have to get a grip, I have to make more of an effort to mold and shape my words, to form an explanation that will keep her from running, again.

“What is this?” Her eyes move across a page before she tosses it into the air with one hand and crumples the corners of the small stack left in her grasp.

“Tessa.” I take a cautious step toward her.

She stares. Her face is hard, guarded in a way that I’m not used to, as her feet shuffle backward.

“I need you to listen to me,” I beg, searching her clouded features. I feel like shit, complete and utter shit. We had just gotten back to us, and I had finally gotten back to her, and now this, after such a short time together.

“Oh, I’m listening, all right.” Her voice is loud, her tone sarcastic.

“I don’t know where to start; just give me a minute and I’ll explain.”

My fingers run over my hair, tugging at the roots, wishing I could trade her pain for mine and rip my hair straight from the scalp. Yeah, a fucked-up image.

Tessa stands, impatiently patient, her eyes moving from page to page. Her brows lift and drop, her eyes tighten and widen, as I begin.

“Stop reading it.” I take a step and grab the manuscript from her hands. The pages fall to the floor, joining the other bullshit pooling at her feet.