“Was she all right?”
“No, she hit her head on a submerged rock, and a few days later she died in hospital. That one incident was enough to scare me for life.”
“And yet, you’re not scared of swimming with sharks,” he muses.
“I know. I’m an oxymoron, and it’s a stupid fear.”
Garrett comes closer. Boldly, he threads our fingers together, squeezing our palms together, his tanned skin a fraction darker than my own. Veins pulse on the back of his hand as he flexes his hold on mine, kneading our flesh together, a kind of comfort no one has offered me in so long.
“Avery…” The soft whisper of my name makes me peer up at him. “There’s nothing stupid about you.”
The faraway sound of hooves pounding earth and satisfied neighs from closer by fade into a buzz as he fingers the ends of my bangs, twisting them away from my face.
The way he’s looking at me makes my insides warm, my lungs burn with the need for air. But it feels so thick, too thick to breathe it in. And I don’t want to breathe. I don’t want to think. I don’t want anything except for Garrett Dixon to look at me forever in the way he’s looking at me now.
I want him to kiss me. I want him to kiss me and to touch me. I want him to devour me with every nerve, fiber, cell, and molecule of my being.
And maybe it’s wrong. Maybe it’ll never happen, but the longer he looks at me in this thought-consuming way…the more I need him to do it. The more I need him to make me forget everything.
Another gripping squeeze brings me closer to him, my heart beating so hard that it’s threatening to blow. The sun gleams in the dark golden threads of his thick hair as Garrett leans forward, so slow, and I wish it was faster because all I can think is that I’m about to combust.
His thumb skims the shell of my ear, down to my jaw.
Oh God.
The tip of his nose ghosts mine.
Oh Jesus.
My pleas echo in my thoughts, while all I want is to feel something. Garrett’s kiss. I want to know what his affection feels like. The taste of it.
“Garrett…”
Bright, ocean-green eyes bore into mine, darkening the longer we stand breathing the same air with our pulses hammering together between our hands.
“You’re killing me, Avery. I want to give you time, I do. I want to give you what you need.”
My hand flattens to his hard stomach, pushing and pulling. Unlike all the other times he’s given me room to maneuver around him, Garrett holds my hand tighter while his hand cups my face harder.
With my blood rushing hot and frantic through me, my pulse pounds and pounds so deafening inside that it drowns out all thought and feeling outside of it.
My fingers claw at him as he pulls me flush to him, his strength winning out, all the gentleness from the last several weeks gone.
The longer he holds me to him, the more I crave him. The warmth of his body thaws the ice in my veins and breaks down all the barricades I tried to erect around my heart.
“What if I’m not good enough?” I murmur as he releases my hand and my face, arms wrapping tightly around me until I’m tucked in his chest. “You might not want me.”
Cupping my face with both hands, he leans over me. “You don’t ever say or think that. You are more than enough. You are more than any man could hope to deserve.”
All the breath leaves my lungs, and my knees buckle at the fierce honesty in his eyes, leaving me certain that Garrett Dixon is a fire that will consume me beyond control.
Like the core of the earth, he’s a molten magnet. Impossible to draw away from. Impossible to restrain. A force beyond anything I’ve ever known.
“You’re all I can think about,” he speaks into my hair, lips fluttering over my temple as I rest my head on his chest. “More than anything I’ve ever fathomed. God, Avery, I want you. I want all of you. Everything.”
His words fill me with possibilities…desires that I have no recollection of feeling before.
“You are and always will be pure fucking sunshine to me.”
The heat emanating from his body seeps into mine, our closeness setting my nerves alight. My heart pounds harder. My core throbs.
His hands meander down my bare back, to my sides, curling around my hips as he steps forward, feet planted on either side of mine.
I hold on to his shoulders as he presses his lips to my forehead, tipping my head back with the controlled force of his kiss.
“You are so much more than you’ll ever know,” he breathes out around a smile, the surety of his statement never wavering even in its gentleness.
“You are everything,” he whispers across my hot skin. “Avery…”
Garrett glances between my stare and my parted lips. His hands lock tighter around my hips, holding me flush to him. He’s so hot and hard, and I feel his need solidifying between us the longer he tries to rein in his kiss.
My hand twists in his T-shirt. The subtle breeze envelops me with his scent, and I am completely surrounded by everything that makes Garrett Dixon the only man I could ever trust again. Everything about him feels like home.
My entire being trembles at the realization. Meanwhile a soul-deep desperation tornados inside me.
“Kiss me.”
“What if I don’t ever stop?” He ghosts his lips over mine.
“Don’t stop…please.” I’m begging him, breathless and raggedly. “Please, Doc.”
My mouth dries as he runs the tip of his nose along my cheekbone, inhaling deep as his lips press to mine softly before he pulls away and a hand cups my jaw. He presses my head to his shoulder while his thumb rakes over my bottom lip.
The thundering of his heart is loud and fast. The sun is beaming, the early morning breeze wrapping around us, binding us tighter together.
And I cannot breathe.
I can barely hold myself up.
And then his mouth crashes onto mine. His hand coaxes me onto the tips of my toes by my jaw. The other rounding to the curve of my ass, keeping my body completely tethered to his.
Groaning, he nips at my cupid’s bow before licking the sting it leaves behind. His fingers sink deeper into my flesh, a welcome frisson of pain that sets my entire being alight. Every nerve and pore cry out for more as his tongue pushes into my mouth.
I freeze at my first taste of him. And I know there will never be anything like it ever again.
There’s nothing tentative or soft about his kiss. He pushes and pulls, gives and takes. A yin and yang of overwhelming sensation.
Sweet, commanding, and devastating. It shatters all I ever thought I wanted. All the dreams I ever held dear and clung to with all the hope in my being.
All there is, is Garrett Dixon, and I cling to him like he could be all my tomorrows.
Chapter Sixteen
GARRETT
In all the years I’ve lived in Virginia Beach, I have never visited the aquarium. In fact, I think the last time I visited an aquarium was when Mark and I were kids. Walking around the dark and quiet tunnels has a nostalgic whim to it. The atmosphere is so relaxing, and it’s sort of awing seeing Avery in her element.
Hmm, maybe I should get a tank…
Avery could come over and take care of it, and Iris would be so enthralled by it that I might be able to kiss her mom some more. Because, damn, now that I’ve had a taste, I’m salivating for the next. Obviously, now that we are on a kissing level, every fucker and their friend keeps worming their way into our “alone” time. Especially since Charlie and Mark got back from DC last week.
Where Makenna and Iris entertain each other, it would appear that my usually supercool and independent sister-in-law has had a personality transplant and is constantly hogging Avery to herself. I should be sharing with her, not the other way around. To make it worse, Jackson and Catherine are visiting, and our aquarium plan got hijacked. It was meant to be a low-key, no-pressure, non-date date.
“If you keep looking at her like that, she’s going to think
you’re a serial killer.” Mark pauses beside me as we get to the main tank, laughing at me as though he’s aware of my jealousy.
Something else that’s new.
“You look like someone’s stolen your puppy,” he teases some more much to Jackson’s amusement.
“Well, if your puppies stopped monopolizing my puppy—” I stop as they both burst out laughing.
Assholes!
I fucking hate Mark and his ability to stealth ninja his way into my head. He does it all the time, something I’ll never thank Charlie for, and with Jackson around, he always takes it to the next level, like he always did when we were kids.
“You want to talk about it, Doc?” Mark sticks his hands in his pockets, plumping his chest as though we’re about to have a moment or something.
“I’m not coming to Jesus, dickhead, so you can deflate your ego and swallow down whatever funny shit you’re dying to spit out.”
“Oooo, someone has his panties in a twist,” Mark snickers quickly followed by Jackson’s sigh. “If either of you start with Pam, I’ll smash your heads together.”
“Seriously, man, don’t.”
“Fine, we can have a come-to-Mark conversation instead.”
Fuck my ever-loving life. Of all the brothers I could’ve had, I got this jerk.
“She’s different to your usual MO.” He nods at where Avery is standing with the girls and the kids.
Jackson gives me his quiet smirk. Technically we were friends first, but that counts for shit these days.
“She is different,” Jackson finally says, catching his youngest daughter, Kennedy, as she tries to make a getaway.
“I want to go back to Nemo,” she pouts at him, and without a second thought, he hitches her over his shoulder and heads back to one of the smaller tanks.
“Do you even really know what to do with a kid?” Mark asks as we follow behind him.
“I’m a doctor—I was around kids before you started making them.”
“Hmm…I guess,” he hums. “But still, she’s different, you know?”
“No, I don’t!” My defensive outburst takes Jackson by surprise because his brows hitch right up, and his blue eyes narrow on me. He’s uberprotective of the girls; raised voices aren’t his and Catherine’s style. “Just spit it out, whatever it is…”
Cracking his knuckles with a shit-eating grin, Mark says, “Well, you know, Avery has dark hair…light eyes…she’s not that much taller than Charlie…”
“Wait, most people are taller than your wife,” Jackson laughs in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood.
“True. I swear to God she’s part dwarf.”
“That’s mean,” Kennedy spins, marking him with the cutest glare. Her hands are on her hips, and she looks ready to go at him.
“Jeez, relax, it was a joke.”
“Not if no one else is laughing.”
“Your daddy laughed.”
“I don’t think he did,” I tell her. “Did you hear him?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t incite her, A-H.” Mark abbreviates the cuss so she doesn’t repeat it—something that’s a guarantee with her. She’s all sass and smart-ass.
“What’s incite, Daddy?”
Jackson makes quick work of appeasing all her sudden curiosities, managing to avoid the cuss. He’s getting better at untwisting himself from all the circles she runs around him.
“You want to go hold Charlie’s hand in the shark tunnel?” Jackson nudges her toward the others.
Cullen and Makenna are trying to pull her onto the autowalk, while Catherine and Avery are treading the thing in fits of laughter.
“We’re going to be here for hours. Last time we came here, I had to throw her over my shoulder and take her through the damn thing.”
“I used to think she was the most rational of the two of you. Now…” Jackson crosses his arms over his chest, watching the comedy sketch in front of us much like his older daughter, Erin. “Anyway, I think what Mark’s trying to say is that Avery’s not your usual type.”
“You put her and Charlie beside one another and… What happened to the peroxide blonde, silicone tits, and Botox addiction you normally go for?” He rests his hand on my shoulder, squeezing as he keeps a distance.
Jackson looks between us, clearly trying to decipher what the fuck Mark’s doing with the holding me at bay thing.
“We’ve got to be careful with him now—he’s throwing punches.” He snickers.
When I spoke to him on the phone the afternoon the shit with Carl went down, he wasn’t so jovial about it. But I guess his worries that Carl would use my actions against Avery have subsided. Regardless, he was right. I am smarter than that.
Mark didn’t see the extent of what he did to Avery. Soft, gentle Avery with her kind smile and sunshine-filled soul. The fucker had it coming to him, and he was lucky that Iris was there; otherwise, I wouldn’t have stopped until the only way he could’ve left was by being towed away in his dick mobile.
“I know you look up to me, Doc, but you don’t have to copy my excellent taste for us to be friends.”
There are moments where I’m really unsure how we came from the same gene pool, because he has a way of twisting shit in really fucked-up ways.
“I don’t know why I expected you to be serious about something for once.” I bat his hand away and take a step forward, but his belittling remark pulls me back. Turning to look at him, I add, “What if I just like Avery for being Avery? Because she’s smart and sweet? What if I don’t care about the color of her hair or her eyes or whether she can reach the top shelf for herself or not? Ever thought of that? Ever thought that maybe you don’t know jack shit about anything?”
“Fair enough.” He nods after a silent beat, taking a step back as I turn and walk away.
“He’s trying to watch your back,” Jackson murmurs, falling into step beside me. “And if there’s anything he doesn’t know, it’s because you haven’t told him. That’s on you, not Mark. He’s working on the intel he’s got.”
“Not everything is a joke.”
“No, it’s not, and I don’t think he finds it funny that if things go to shit with Avery, if you step out of line, Charlie will crucify him.” Stepping in front of me, he stops me in my tracks. “He’s still got your back.”
“And I know I don’t deserve that, but…” I don’t know how to tell him how I feel about them without blurting it all out. And I want Avery to be the first person to know that I’ve never felt like this about anyone or anything. They’re all I want. Everything I’ve ever searched or longed for. When I’m with them, I’m whole, and my need for more is all about them. I want more of them. More time and memories and laughs.
“She’s got a kid,” Jackson repeats, holding my gaze as though he’s trying to see into me and all my intentions.
“You can’t be all in one day and screw her over the next,” Mark adds in a quieter tone from behind. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“I know that, and I’ll tell you the same thing I told her.” I take a deep breath, turning so that they’re both in my line of sight. “I want everything.”
“You told her that?” Mark looks at me with surprise.
“Yeah, I did.”
Mark opens his mouth to reply, but Jackson gets there first. “They’re a big responsibility. Look at Liam with Aaron and Aarabelle—it’s not easy having to father another man’s child. Especially if the first thing you do is beat the crap out of him.”
“If you were in my shoes and Avery was Catherine, what would you do?”
“I will beat the shit out of any asshole that lays a bad finger on my girls, and I won’t stop until they’re begging me for a grave,” Jackson answers without a second of thought.
“Well, they’re my girls.” The words leave me in an unexpected breath. So easy. Free. So very true.
“Okay, well, just remember who’s ordained.” Mark slaps my back while Jackson groans, “Jesus, slow the fuck down, man.”
“I was checking how serious he was. My brother would’ve shot out of here.” He smirks at me, sobering at my scowl. “Don’t look at me like I fucked with your great titty porn stash.”
“Joy, here it goes, and I’m out, ladies and gentlemen.” Jackson bats his hand in our direction as he joins the commotion at the mouth of the shark tunnel.
“Why do you bring that shit up every time?”
“Because you scarred me.”
“Blonde, silicone tits, Botox addiction…” I mirror his words from earlier.
“You’re sick,” he spits at me. “Pam was a natural goddess back then. Anyway, you’re just doing that thing where you try to flip things so you feel better about yourself.”
“It’s called projecting, dumbass, and that’s not what I’m doing at all.”
“Whatever, four eyes.”
“Mom must’ve dropped you on your head or something.” I walk away as he pulls a fucking stupid crybaby face.
What an ass!
“Doc?” Iris sits up when I close the book.
We started The Little Prince last weekend, and she’s asked me to read to her every night since. It’s become a kind of ritual—I read her a chapter, and then I manage to steal a kiss from Avery before heading home.
“I can’t read you another chapter, otherwise we’ll both be in trouble with your mommy.”
There’s no argument from her today. She cuddles her Care Bear and rag doll tighter. They both look as though they’ve seen better days, especially the pink bear.
“Do you love my mommy?” she asks me plain and simple without a single flutter of her lashes.
“There’s no one in the whole universe I like more than your mom.”
“Like the prince loves his rose?”
“Yeah, champ, like the prince treasures his rose.”
“So, if you love my mom and we’re staying, does that mean you love me too?” Iris doesn’t give me a chance to answer before she adds, “It’s okay if you only like me.”
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