Chapter 9

It’s warm in South Carolina but I’m sweating for other reasons. There is the distinct possibility that Joy will not open this door and the longer she leaves me standing here, the more it looks like that will be the outcome of our very long friendship and too-short romance.

I wish I could calm my pulse but it’s pounding harder with every passing moment. I lean my hand on the door frame and gather the courage to accept that she’s not going to let me inside. I did this to us. I should have told Vivian that I couldn’t come back at that moment and accepted that I’d need to find another job. I could have quit when Joy stopped writing back to my texts.

That stupid project meant too much to me and my career. If I quit, it would have gotten all around the industry and made it very hard to find employment. What the hell would Joy want with an unemployed architect who is a pariah to companies?

I startle and step back when the door flies open.

Eyes wide, Joy has tears running down her cheeks. In a pale-blue blouse and navy shorts that reach mid-thigh, she stares, open-mouthed. “You’re here. You lied.”

“No. You asked if I was here to pick up my truck. I didn’t come for the truck. I came as soon as it was possible to be here and not lose my job.” It’s likely my heart rate is so high that I may pass out. Maybe that will gain me some sympathy and it would be worth it. These weeks have been a kind of torture where there were no good choices or at least, none that gave me what I wanted.

“I thought—” She dashes away her tears. “I didn’t think you’d come back.”

She’s so fucking beautiful and so wrong about her effects on me. She doesn’t seem to know that I can’t live without her. I’ll need to tell her and then prove it to her with a lifetime of love. “I will always come back to you, Joy.”

“Do you mean that?” She presses her fingers to the inside of the screen as if it’s some mystical barrier between us.

I reach out and feel the warmth of her through the mesh. Not trusting my voice, I nod and slow my breathing to keep my growing excitement from making me say the wrong thing, or the right thing too soon. “May I come inside?”

“Yes.”

I open the screen door and cross the threshold. As she backs up, I close the distance between us. “I have a few things I want to tell you and ask you that were not in my letter. Will you give me two minutes?”

“Two?” She stares at her feet and presses her back against the kitchen peninsula. One of the stools tips to the side as she’s squeezed between them.

Righting the stool, I give her some space. Trapped is not the way I want her to feel. “To start with, if that’s alright?”

With a nod, she escapes around the counter and goes into the kitchen. “Do you want a drink or something?”

“No. Not just now.”

She drops her hand from the handle on the refrigerator and looks at me as if she might burst into fresh tears at any moment.

Maybe if I sit, she’ll relax. I take a stool. “I’m sorry I had to leave and that I didn’t find time to call you.”

“It’s…”

“Don’t say it’s alright, Joy. It’s not, but I can’t change that. I got caught up in getting my work done and thinking that if I worked longer and harder, it would get me back to you quicker. It was stupid, and I’m sorry.” Before she can tell me not to worry about it, I continue. “I have loved you for as long as I can remember and at some point in our friendship, I fell in love with you. I can’t put my finger on the exact moment, but it terrified me. The idea of rocking the boat we were sailing in and risking losing you was too much to bear. The solution was to not meet in person and go on with the status quo. Except that meant never having the thing I wanted most in the world.

“When you wrote to tell me that your mom had passed, I didn’t think. I jumped in with both feet and when you offered yourself to me, I was too smitten to resist. Maybe we should have waited for a time when you were more clearheaded and less mournful. Even so, I can’t regret a single moment spent with you in my arms. Those were the best two nights of my life and spending that day here with you was all I’d ever dreamed of.”

Eyes wide, she stares silently and grips the refrigerator door behind her. Maybe she’s trying to keep herself from moving toward me. Her throat bobs as she swallows.

I take a deep breath. “I’d like to always have you in my arms if you want me, if you love me.”

She looks at the wood floor. “Don’t you think it will be hard to do that from New Jersey?” She releases her hands, and steps to the counter, still keeping it between us.

“Yes. Eight hundred miles between us won’t work. At least, it won’t work for me.” With all the risks I’ve taken in my life and all the physical moves I’ve made; this next question terrifies me. “If you want the same things, Joy, I would move here to be with you.”

She blinks. “What about your job?”

Not exactly the resounding yes with a rain of kisses I was looking for. “I would work from here and fly into New York when they need me to. I had a long talk with my boss and told her that this was what I needed to stay with the company. I thought she might tell me to find a new job, but I explained that you have a bookstore here and couldn’t relocate. I think that may have appealed to her feminism, and she accepted my terms. She even wished me luck.”

Pulling her eyebrows together crinkles her nose in the most adorable way. She steps around the peninsula and into the living room. “How can you want to live in Magnolia Point after all the fabulous cities you’ve lived in? Won’t you be bored here?”

Risking sounding like a complete lovesick fool, I go to her and take her retreating hand. “I would live anywhere you are. Magnolia Point or Istanbul, it wouldn’t matter to me. You are the only thing that matters, Joy. I have wanted to see you and touch you since I became an adult. Now that I have, I never want to stop loving you.”

She looks at our joined hands as she turns toward me with fresh tears shining. “I thought you regretted the nights you spent with me.”

“Not for a single second.” Lifting her hand, I kiss her fingers. “I wanted you long before you shared yourself with me and I’m never going to stop wanting you. I will rent an apartment nearby and we can date in the way normal people do, but you should know that I’m going to want more than that, and I’ll wait for you for as long as it takes you to catch up with me.”

“More? Does that mean you want to live with me?” She shifts to stand closer.

I comb her curls away from her face and cup her cheek. “Oh, Joy, I want to marry you. I want a lifetime of moments with you.”

She draws in a shaky breath. “Yes.”

“Yes? Yes, you want to date?” I’m holding my breath.

“I want it all. I want the moments, the lifetime, the marriage. I want all of that with you, Aiden. I love you. I’ve always loved you.” She wraps her arms around my neck and presses her perfect lips to mine.

Hugging her tight, I drag her body closer and open my mouth for her to explore. My cock instantly responds to the pressure of her soft curves and the sweet moans rumbling in her throat.

My entire body is humming with excitement, happiness, and desire. I break the kiss to explore her neck with my lips and nibble on her earlobe. “I will never leave you. When I go away for work or family, it will always be leaving home, Joy. When I come back to you, I’ll be coming home. You are my forever, if you want me.”

“I want you. I want every day with you, Aiden. I should have trusted you.” She wraps her leg around mine, opening herself against me.

If I could wish us both naked at this moment, I would. Gripping her ass in both hands, I lift so she can wrap both legs around me. “Can I take you to bed, Joy?”

She grinds her hips forward and moans. “Fuck, yes. I need you, Aiden. I will always need you.”

The house is the perfect size to get her to the bedroom in only a few steps. As I lower her to the mattress, I slide my hands down her legs and pull her little white sneakers off. “I guess this means you forgive me for leaving.”

She pulls her shirt over her head and tosses it on the floor. Her nipples are rosy shadows beneath the white lace. Hand on the button of her shorts, she says, “Only if you’ll forgive me for not trusting that you’d come back. I’m ashamed to admit, I had thoughts that you had wanted me for sex and nothing else.”

Half out of my shirt, I stop. “It was never the sex. As wonderful as that part of this is, it’s you that I dream about.” I lie down beside her. My hand automatically goes to her abdomen. Her skin is so soft and warm. Leaning on my elbow, I stare into her stunning green eyes. “It was and is an overwhelming need to be near you, to know your thoughts, to have you know mine, and to give you pleasure in all ways. I want to share a life with you, hear you laugh, and comfort you when you cry. I want you to be the one to share my troubles and triumphs. I love you, Joy.

“Tonight, I want what you want. If that’s me holding you all night or going out for a cheeseburger and a chat, that’s what we’ll do.” If my cock could voice a complaint, it would, but I push my intense desire to the side. I need her to believe my love is more than sex.

She cups my cheek. “You’re too good to be true. How will I ever get enough of you?”

Turning my head, I kiss her palm, my heart openly displayed for her to cherish or crush. “I hope you never will.”

“I will love you forever, Aiden Lane. But…” She looks at my throat to avoid my eyes.

“But what?” I lift her chin with one gentle finger.

“Promise you’ll write me a letter from time to time? Maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t want to lose my pen pal.” Her cheeks pinken as if she’s asked for something illicit.

Happiness fills me in a way it never has before. I’ve always felt adrift, without a place to call my own. “I promise to always be your pen pal.”

She wraps her arms around me, and I’m home.