Second Opinion (25 page)

I wasn’t sure how it happened or why, but all I could think about was that I wanted to take care of her.

Maybe forever.

Her entire body shook beneath me, and I thought back to Quinn and Reed’s wedding. It hadn’t been long, but that was the night everything changed for Avery and me. That was the night when I realized there was something right in front of me I’d been missing for a long time. It was the night when I realized the girl I’d known for years was so much more than my sister’s friend.

And now she was everything to me.

Everything
.

I leaned down to kiss her because I needed to feel her lips beneath mine again, but she pushed against my chest. I still didn’t let her go. “I can’t, Grant,” she managed through her tears.

A bolt of fear lanced through me at her words. They were an echo of denial that had coursed through my mind for seven long years.

And hearing the rhyming chorus out of her mouth was enough to knock the confidence clean out of my system.

“You can’t what?” I asked softly, trying to keep my voice soothing for her. I was trying to keep the fear out of my tone.

She shuddered again. “I can’t keep saying no to you.”

Thank Christ. Finally, a breakthrough. “Then stop.”

She looked up at me. Her tear-stained face was red and her eyes were puffy and she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.

I brushed a tear away with my thumb.

“Stop saying no. Say yes, Avery. Let’s make us work. Say yes to us.”

Those eyes that had said so many different things to me finally conceded as they filled with tears again. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes?” I asked. I knew my voice was a little incredulous, but frankly I was surprised she’d given in.

She nodded, and I pulled her into a close hug. I kissed the top of her head. “I promise I’m going to take care of you.”

“I know you will,” she said, her voice shaky.

“We can be scared together. We’ve got this.”

“No running out on me. Ever.”

“I promise.”

“Talk to me, yell at me. Be scared with me. But never walk out that door without telling me why.”

I nodded. “Agreed. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Okay. Let’s move past it.”

Thank Christ. Again.

I leaned my head down to hers and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

I was so fucking in love with her, and it was one of those perfect moments when I just wanted to say it. We’d just agreed to face our relationship fears together. What better moment would there be to admit to her I’d fallen in love with her?

But she’d already told me she wasn’t ready for the “L” word, and I didn’t want to push too hard too soon.

I kissed her slowly, not because I wasn’t ready to slam her body against the counter and fuck her for the rest of the night, but because I didn’t want to push too hard when she’d barely forgiven me.

She went to her refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of water, and then we settled onto her couch. She leaned against the armrest and threw her legs across my lap. I rested with one arm draped across the back of the couch, my other hand stroking her long and smooth legs.

She’d managed to compose herself, and I was the one drawing in shaky breaths as I realized it was time to tell her about Rachelle.

“I’m going to attempt to stay calm when I ask this question, but can you explain why you walked out on me to go see your ex?” she asked, taking a sip of her water.

“That’s not what happened.”

“Then what happened?”

I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. It was nearly midnight.

My eyes met the floor. This was harder than I thought it would be.

It was a story I’d never told, a story of heartbreak and depression and pain and anger. But sharing it with the woman who had somehow cured all of the hurt from my past could only draw us closer together and make us stronger.

“Do you remember how I told you one woman had broken my heart twice?”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured.

“She texted me.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“I’ve known her since I was in college. I thought she was the one for me. The short version of our story is that we were friends first, then we dated, I proposed, she said no, and then a few years later she came back into my life and totally fucked me over.”

“Oh God.”

I chuckled. “It gets worse. I hadn’t seen her in four years. She lives in California now, but she texted me to let me know she’s in town this weekend.”

“Is? As in, she’s here right now?”

I finally tore my eyes from the floor and looked over at her. I nodded. “Yes.”

“And you’re here with me,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means I would rather be here with you than anywhere with her.”

I saw tears fill her eyes. “With me?”

I nodded.

“But I’m a horrible bitch,” she said, her voice shaking as she tried holding back her emotions.

My lips turned up in a small smile. “You’re not a horrible bitch. You’re dealing with your own shit, and I needed to deal with mine. I just went about it the wrong way.”

“No, you didn’t. You have a history and if I’m going to expect you to understand mine, I need to understand yours, too. It’s what makes us who we are.”

“Ready to hear the rest?”

She nodded, and I launched into the entire sordid history between Rachelle and me. I started with the day I’d met her and fell in love with her. I told Avery about the first time Rachelle had broken my heart and the week we spent together where I thought we would end up together. I told her about the path I’d taken that had allowed me to remain single and detached from a serious relationship. And I ended with earlier that morning when Rachelle had told me she wanted to try again and I told her I didn’t. 

Midway through my narrative, Avery had moved across the couch so my arm was draped around her shoulders as she snuggled into my side. By the time I’d gotten to my habit of detachment, she’d thrown her arm across my torso. And by the time I was done, she was sitting across my lap and I was clasping her to my chest.

“So you just told her no?” she asked, craning her neck to look up at me from her position in my arms.

“Essentially. She knew there was someone else.”

“How?”

“She could just tell. She knows me well, even after all the time that’s passed.” I pressed my lips to her forehead.

She pulled back to look at me. Our faces were inches apart, our eyes locked together. “Why me? Why not her?”

“I don’t know. All I know is before I even saw her today, I knew it was you. Her text just threw me off. I needed a minute to think because what I feel for you has escalated so quickly.”

She leaned in for a gentle kiss. I was used to passion and lust coming at me from Avery, and the soft kisses were sensual and different. They were good, but I wanted the passionate woman who had promised to control our night the night before. I wanted the desire I always knew she felt for me. I wanted the connection I only had with her.

It wasn’t long before I got my wish.

She took my face in both of her hands. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Thank you for listening.” I leaned forward to kiss her softly again.

“If we’re seriously going to give us a try, which is something I think we both want, we need to be honest with each other. Now that I know how badly she hurt you, I know I need to be gentle with you.”

“God, Avery. When you wouldn’t talk to me or listen to me, I was terrified I had fucked everything up. But I had to be persistent. I couldn’t just give up because you were being difficult.”

She grinned. “Difficult. That’s one way to put it.”

“I have a feeling it’s not the last time I’ll call you that.”

She laughed. “I have a feeling you’re right.”

“You’re worth it.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I never wanted more than a night or two with a woman. But ever since Quinn’s engagement party, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. And every moment we spend together, whatever we started just seems to get stronger.”

“I think we both managed to find something we didn’t even realize we were looking for.”

“I definitely wasn’t looking for it,” I said, leaning forward for another kiss. “But I’m pretty glad I found it.”

Those were the last words we spoke as the soft kisses finally turned into the heated and passionate ones I was used to with her.

Her arms tightened around my neck, and I flipped her so she was straddling my lap. I arched my hips up into her, and she moaned with pleasure.

I needed her naked. Immediately.

But after everything we had shared with each other that night, a slow night of making love seemed more appropriate than a fuck fest.

I tugged on the bottom of her shirt, and she pulled back long enough for me to pull it over her head. She tugged my shirt off, too, and I unsnapped her bra, tore it off of her, and threw it to the floor.

Her body was perfect. Her face was gorgeous. But even more than that, her character was beautiful. Maybe beauty would fade in time, but it was the things that made her who she was that I had fallen in love with.

Sure, it had been quick. Or maybe it hadn’t been. Maybe I needed a firecracker like Avery Peterson to help me past the pain of the last fourteen years. She’d been in front of me for years and I’d blindly ignored her because I was too caught up in my own head to realize that happiness was at my fingertips.

Avery stood and undressed before helping me out of my own clothes. As she positioned herself over me and I plunged into her, I knew I’d found the true happiness I hadn’t even realized I had wanted.

But now that I had it, I was never going to let it go.

“Oh fuck, Grant,” she moaned as she bounced up and down over me. My fingers dug into her hips as I realized this was literally the best sex of my life.

Something had changed between us.

It had been good with Avery before. Excellent. Fantastic.

But now that we knew things about each other no one else knew, there was a closeness and a connection we’d never shared before.

As I drove my cock deep into her, I knew it was because our relationship had changed. We were no longer two people who liked random hook-ups. We were two people who had endured the pain that comes with heartbreak, and we were two people who were better together as one unit.

I grunted as she came back down over me. We were thrusting in a perfect rhythm together, and I had to focus on baseball for a second so I didn’t lose it. I wanted my cock buried inside of Avery for the rest of eternity. Nothing on this earth matched the feeling of being inside of her. The emotions I felt for her as we connected in the most carnal way were intense, and I was well aware it was because I had fallen for her. Hard.

I wasn’t a “fall hard” kind of guy. There had been one woman for me for my entire adult life. Before Rachelle, there was no one. And I had truly believed after her, there would be no one.

And then came the night when Avery had boldly told me I’d be yelling out her name. Whether it had been a joke or not, I couldn’t have known my life would change forever that night. I couldn’t have known the depth of feelings I’d have for someone I’d known for years. I couldn’t have known I’d find my perfect match in her, even more perfect than Rachelle had ever been for me.

But somehow, that had all happened, and as she screamed out my name before unravelling all around me, I had the notion that she’d be the last woman whose name I’d ever yell out as I spiraled into my own climax.

CHAPTER 29

“I won a trip to Tucson next weekend,” I said softly. Avery’s fingertips were moving in swirls across my chest when we’d both regained our composure after our exhausting, perfect fuck.

“How?” she asked. Her voice was soft and hoarse from all of the yelling and screaming.

“Random drawing at work.”

“Nice. I’m lucky if I get a Popsicle once every semester at work.”

“Come with me.” It wasn’t a question.

“I did just come with you,” she said with a giggle.

I laughed. “You can come with me all weekend in Tucson.”

“More sex like that?” she asked.

I nodded. “All weekend."

“Then I’m definitely in.”

I kissed her forehead with a chuckle. “I love you,” I whispered.

Her fingers paused on my chest, and she froze.

Fuck.

It slipped out.

I was thinking it. I meant to say it in my head. I didn’t want to scare her, and now I had.

Fuck.

I couldn’t take it back. I didn’t want to take it back. I’d wanted to say it, but she’d specifically made a comment about how she wasn’t ready for me to use that word earlier that same night.

Her eyes met mine. I saw the fear in hers, so I did everything I could to convince myself I wasn’t terrified of her reaction. I didn’t want her to see fear in me. I wanted her to see the confidence I felt with those important words that held so much meaning to both of us.

It was an impulsive slip, but I didn’t regret saying those words.

“I love you, too,” she said, and then her lips found mine and our kiss was filled with relief and reverence and adoration.

That night, I slept the best, deepest sleep of my life as I held the woman I loved—and who loved me back—in my arms.

* * *

“When should we tell Quinn?” I asked the next morning as Avery whipped up a batch of pancakes.

She glanced up at me and back to the batter with a little shrug.

“What are you so worried about?”

“We’ve talked about you before, Grant. Your sister may annoy you, but she loves you.”

“So wouldn’t she want me to be happy?”

“Yes. And she’s openly told me she wants you to end up with someone who’s not like you.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning she wants you to be with someone stable, someone who you will commit to and who will commit to you. She knows both of our reputations. I’m just worried she’ll judge us and assume it’s something less than it is before she knows anything about it.”

“So we inform her.”

“I know.” She nodded. “Grant, she’s one of my best friends. I can’t lose her if things don’t work out between us.” Her voice was soft.

If things don’t work out between us.

Why did those seven words hurt me so much? And why was I so sure we were going to work when she was still questioning it?

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t. I figured we’d table the conversation for now. I didn’t have immediate plans to see my sister between now and when we returned from Tucson, anyway, and I had only seen Reed at work in passing recently. I wanted to confess to my best friend I’d fallen in love, but I couldn’t tell him because he’d tell his wife.

I headed to Avery’s fridge and poured us some orange juice. I took out the syrup, and she flipped the pancakes onto our plates. I met her at the table, both of us silent after her awkward final phrase that had scared the hell out of me.

We sat across from each other and she handed me a plate.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“What now?” she asked, her tone exasperated.

I heaved in a deep sigh as I squeezed syrup over my plate. “Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.

“God, Grant. We’re back to square one. I thought we were being honest with each other.”

“We are being honest.”

“Then tell me why things just got awkward between us.”

I took a bite of my pancake and chewed slowly. I swallowed, and then I took a sip of my juice. “Because you don’t think we’re going to work.”

“When did I say that?” I noticed she hadn’t even picked up her fork to start eating yet.

“You don’t want to tell Quinn about us because you’re worried about what will happen if we don’t end up together. You haven’t even given thought to the idea that maybe we will end up together.”

She stared down at her plate. “It’s all I’ve thought about,” she admitted in a whisper. “I’ve never been so terrified about anything in my life.”

I set my fork down with a clatter, but she didn’t look up at me. I stood and crossed over to her, kneeling on the floor next to her. She finally turned toward me, and I settled between her legs. I rested my arms on the arms of her chair. “You think I’m not terrified, Avery? I’ve spent every second since the engagement party either thinking about you or trying to figure you out. Yes, this is a risk. Yes, it’s scary. But we’ve got each other.”

I saw a tear trickle down one of her cheeks, and then one down the other. More followed quickly in their wake.

I reached up and took her face between my hands. I pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. “And there is no one else I’d rather be terrified with. There’s no one else I’d rather take this leap with, no one I’d rather fight with, and no one I’d rather make up with. It’s only you. We’ll navigate this together, and on the off chance it doesn’t work out—which isn’t going to happen—you and my sister will still be friends. I really think she’ll be happy for us, Ave.”

“You really think so?”

“I’m sure of it. She married my best friend. Why wouldn’t she be happy to see me with one of her best friends?”

“Can we just go to Tucson and then tell her when we get back?”

“If that’s what you want.”

She nodded and dashed away her tears. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. If you’re upset, I’m upset. Like you said, we have to be honest with each other.”

“How has no woman snapped you up? You’re perfect.”

“A woman has snapped me up,” I said, leaning forward for another kiss. “And she’s pretty perfect herself.”

***

My week passed slowly as I looked toward my weekend with Avery in anticipation. I couldn’t wait to get her alone in a hotel room, but more than that, I was excited to spend two days with her. Uninterrupted. Just the two of us.

We’d spent plenty of time together, but we always had the option of going home, of parting, of saying goodbye. But this would be us—just us—and I was thrilled at the thought.

I picked her up at her apartment on Friday. She had a small overnight bag and her purse. I helped her get her bag into my trunk, stopping to give her a kiss before she got into the passenger seat of my car.

“How long until we get there?” she asked as I turned out of her apartment complex.

“It’s about an hour and a half. You in a rush?”

She laughed. “Yep. Horny.”

“We can take care of that right here in the car.”

“Nice try. I’m making you wait.”

“Tease.”

She shrugged and grinned. “I may or may not have packed some sexy lingerie for the weekend.”

We weren’t even on the highway yet and she was already tempting me. I grinned. “It’ll just end up on the floor.”

“Well at least you’ll get to see me in it before it gets there.”

“Sorry in advance for any damage I do to it while ripping it off of you.”

“Jeez, Grant.”

“Babe, if you can’t take the heat, don’t start the conversation.”

She laughed as she plugged in her iPhone and hit play on her playlist. “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails started playing and Avery’s hand found my thigh.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” I asked as Trent Reznor’s voice talked about fucking like animals.

“I made a whole playlist of songs that make me think of sex.”

“What else is on it?” I asked as something between a moan and a chuckle escaped me.

“Well, we’ve got ‘Pony’ by Ginuwine, ‘I Want You’ by Third Eye Blind, ‘Justify My Love’ by Madonna, Kings of Leon, and a bunch of others.”

“I don’t need a playlist to make me think of sex.”

“What do you need?”

“Oxygen.”

She laughed, and that gorgeous sound made me just a little more excited for our weekend together.

Our car trip was filled with talks of other road trips, and we reminisced about our first night together.

It felt good to finally be over the darkness Rachelle had brought into my life. Looking back, I realized how detrimental she’d actually been to my mental health. I’d based so much of my life around her that I’d stopped living for the present and only lived for the memories of my past.

I’d continued to wait for her because I thought she was it for me. Some idiotic recess of my mind truly believed I’d end up with Rachelle someday, so I didn’t bother with serious relationships and I stupidly blamed it on the way she’d broken my heart.

I waited for her, waited for a past to catch up to me that never would.

What a horrible way to live life.

I glanced over at the beautiful woman sitting in the seat beside me. She was staring out the windshield, bobbing her head to the Rihanna song about whips and chains.

I couldn’t help the smile pulling up my lips as I took in her beauty. Everything about her was beautiful. She was exciting and fresh and new. She was what I’d been holding out for.

She still wasn’t a replacement for Rachelle. Instead, she was something much, much better and brighter in my life.

Instead of holding onto the past, I suddenly found myself running toward my future.

As I turned my attention back to the road, I felt a calming sense of peace.