by Jody Holford
His heart seized, making breathing nearly impossible. “Gabby,” he said, whispering her name like it was as fragile as she felt in his arms. Here he was merely tolerating his family and she’d spent the last twelve years blaming herself for not having one.
Owen wished he could pull her pain inside himself so she didn’t have to carry it all the time. “It wasn’t your fault they died.”
She tried to pull away as new tears fell, but he locked his arms. “Logically, I know that. But sometimes it hurts so bad I can’t breathe. I’d give anything to have them back. To have them butting into my business and forcing us to have pictures with Santa.” She half laughed, half sobbed. Without letting her go, Owen snagged the Kleenex box on his nightstand. She wiped her eyes, still sniffling, then took a couple of deep breaths. He brought both of his hands to her face, cradling her cheeks in his palms. Her eyes were bright, making the blue shimmer like water.
“Your parents wouldn’t want you to carry around this guilt. You have to let it go. You were a kid; what you did was completely normal. Teenagers sneak out. They go to parties they aren’t supposed to, date people they aren’t supposed to. It’s not your fault a typical teenage rebellion ended so badly. All teens push back. It’s how they find themselves.”
She sniffled again and he wondered what the hell was wrong with him when she was sitting here crying and he was thinking about how cute she looked with her red nose and crazy hair. She looked…real.
“You never did. I bet you never fought back or went against your parents’ wishes. You were probably annoyingly perfect even as a teen.”
For the first time since he’d entered his bedroom, the tension inside him eased. He lifted her off the bed, setting her on her feet, and pulled down the covers. He gestured for her to climb in. When she did, he hit the lights and crawled in beside her, very aware of how natural, how right, it felt to be ending the night with her in his bed.
“Ophelia can tell you differently. I’m not perfect, Gabby. You of all people should know that. And honestly, thinking about it, I’m a bit of a jerk.”
“You are not!”
He loved the way she defended him no matter what. He chuckled, moving closer to her, catching the hint of vanilla soap she showered with. Owen managed to shut down the image of Gabby in the shower, but he knew he might never get the scent of vanilla out of his bed.
“You were right, what you said about Vanessa and the other girls I’ve dated. I had some sort of checklist of the kind of woman I figured would lead me to a quiet and happy life.” But it would be colorless, he realized.
“A life that includes having children.”
“Of course. I love kids.”
“But you hate mess and disorder and family functions.”
He sighed, rolling onto his back to think about that. He stared at the ceiling even though he couldn’t see it and smiled when he felt Gabby’s fingers entwine with his own. Her hand was small, elegant. A perfect fit.
“My family is nutty. They require a lot of energy. They have a lot of energy. I wasn’t always so…particular, but I guess with my job being what it is—working from home—I’ve become less social. Even more than I meant to, maybe. I’ve never been the outgoing one in my family. They all want the spotlight and I’ve always been the one who wanted to stay backstage, out of the glow.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, O.”
He squeezed her hand. “No. There isn’t. But I had a good childhood. I was happy. They embarrassed the hell out of me more times than I can count, but I grew up knowing I was loved. I know I’m lucky and I’ve always wanted a family. With the right person. I guess I’ll have to come around a little on the Martha Stewart tendencies and family get-togethers.”
Gabby laughed and leaned her body against his, her head resting on his shoulder. He moved, adjusting his arm so he could slide it under her head. Her cheek pressed against his chest. Her hand rested softly, tentatively, over his heart. Her fingers played with the hair there absently, but he felt the effects rock through his body. It took effort to concentrate on her words.
“That’s just it, you shouldn’t have to change to accommodate the people you share your life with. That’s what Roger wanted from me. He wanted me to be something I wasn’t and when I refused or didn’t bother, he walked away. Loving someone doesn’t include making them into what you deem lovable. It means wanting them as they are. Wanting the life you would lead with the real them.”
Owen’s work only enhanced his detail-oriented personality. He didn’t make rash decisions. He made pro and con lists. He compared prices and read reviews before making a purchase, even an inconsequential one. He weighed consequences and mapped out possible outcomes. But in that moment, with a barely-there hint of the moon peeking through the blinds and his sister asleep down the hallway, Owen went with his gut. He went with his heart—which he rarely listened to. Perhaps if he had, he would have recognized the feelings sooner.
He rolled to his side, once again adjusting his arm so he could prop himself up on his elbow. His other hand moved to Gabby’s waist, stroking the skin that had been taunting him for the past two nights. He could see the shine of her eyes in the dark. He felt her against him, everywhere. Her scent curled inside him. She was part of him and he hadn’t taken any time to realize what that actually meant.
“Owen?” Her voice was a whisper.
“There isn’t anything about you I would change.” He wanted to say more. He wanted to say the words that were tumbling inside his brain and his heart, words he’d held back or buried. But right in that moment, he wanted something more.
Bringing his hand to her face, he smoothed his thumb across her lips. He heard, felt, her breath quicken as he inched closer, until looking into her eyes began to consume him and he had to let his own close. His mouth touched hers—not for show or because anyone expected it, but because he needed to kiss her, needed to trace her lips with his tongue and memorize the taste of her. Of Gabby.
Her hand moved up his chest, around the back of his neck and into his hair where her fingers gripped, tightened, like she was afraid he’d get away. There was absolutely nowhere he’d rather be. Using his tongue and his teeth along the column of her neck as he’d wanted to earlier, his fingers drifted down, lowering the strap of her tank top. He nipped at her jaw, trailing kisses back up to her ear, telling her she was perfect.
She was everything. She was his.
How the hell could he have missed this? And how would they ever go back to the way it had been before?
Chapter Twelve
Gabby ran her hands over his chest, pushing him back so she could explore the defined muscles she hadn’t expected him to have. He spent most of his days sitting in a chair, though he did use the treadmills in the complex’s fitness center. She just hadn’t let herself fully picture the reality of Owen shirtless. He was a real-life canvas and she wanted, needed, to leave her mark, before he realized there was no audience. Which means this isn’t for show. Which meant, maybe, she had time to savor, but she couldn’t quite convince herself to slow down.
When he’d stepped out of the closet, naked from the waist up, she’d lost the thread of their conversation. And now there was little talking, only hands gliding, words whispered, the rustle of his sheets as they twisted around the bed.
She was frenzied, scared of the moment ending. Everything ended, but not her and Owen. He moaned into the darkness when her lips found the sensitive spot where his shoulder met his neck. Even there, she felt his strength. He was hers—her strength and her rock. Her family. Her everything. And though it scared her, to let him feel what she felt, to show him, with her hands and her mouth and her gentle sighs, everything he meant to her, she couldn’t hold back and she couldn’t slow down. She knew life wasn’t gentle about snatching things away, and if this was her one moment with him, she wanted everything she could get.
The furnace hummed in the quiet, a white-noise background against their pounding hearts. She felt his
heartbeat, frantic, under her palm and pressed her lips to that spot, lingering until his hands threaded through her hair and pulled her up so they were kissing. Kissing Owen, really kissing him, was better than art. It was color and chaos wrapped together in calmness. It was breathtaking and beautiful. She didn’t know one person could make her feel so much.
His lips were soft and warm and he tasted like toothpaste and desire. She couldn’t touch enough of him at once. When her hands slid to the waistband of his pajama bottoms, his hand covered hers and the kissing stopped. Breathing heavily, she waited. Her pulse echoed in her ears.
Owen pulled her hand to his lips, kissing the knuckles with such gentleness. She felt his muscles tense and knew he was getting himself under control. Her heart caved in like crumpled paper. He was stopping them. Before they’d even started. Pain flared inside, a flash of light—quick and surprising. Then it seeped through her, pouring into her limbs. He didn’t want her.
“Gabby.”
Moments ago she’d cherished the sound of her name on his lips but now, in that same darkness, it was a slap in the face. She didn’t want his excuses. His reasons. His Goddamn list of why this wasn’t right. She pulled out of his arms and left the bed.
“Gabby, don’t.”
She laughed humorlessly. “Don’t what? Go? Stay? Don’t read into anything?”
He said nothing and all the warmth in the room, in her body, faded. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, shuffling her feet on the softness of the carpet.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “We’ll just pretend this didn’t happen.”
She didn’t know exactly which “this” she was referring to—playing the part of his girlfriend, exposing her feelings, or making out like they’d been two people starving. Before she took her first step away from the bed, Owen was up, gripping her arms, yanking her close. His breathing was still uneven.
“No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to back away and close up,” he said.
Gabby pulled at his grasp but he didn’t let go. “You don’t get to decide what I do.”
He gave his own mirthless laugh. “I’ve never been so happy to have my family around.”
“What?”
“You go shower if you need a minute because there’s nowhere else to go. You can’t run from this and you can’t shut down because I needed five damn seconds to think.”
Her voice rose. “Think about what?”
He shook her gently. “About this.” He gestured back and forth between them with one hand. “About the fact that you drive me so crazy, I almost forgot my sister was sleeping down the hall. I want you, Gabby, and that changes things. It scares the hell out of me, but I’m not trying to pretend it didn’t happen. I’ll let you run and hide in the shower, but you need to let me have a few seconds to freak the hell out. And not be pissed because I did.”
Despite his words and the clipped tone, she stopped shivering, stopped being cold. It was so perfectly Owen. Of course he would panic. It was a change to their regularly scheduled program. She stopped fighting him, let her hands relax on his chest. She was tired of fighting the feelings inside her, but they were better than going up against him. She didn’t want tension between them. And the look on his face, the way his expression softened when she stepped closer, said he didn’t want to fight either.
“I’m not pissed. Don’t worry about it, Owen. Nothing has to change. I’m a big girl. I knew what I was signing on for.”
He didn’t let her go. His gaze burned into hers.
“Everything has already changed,” he whispered.
She didn’t want that. If she couldn’t have him as the love of her life, she needed him to still be her best friend. Gabby pulled out of his grasp and wrapped her arms around her waist.
Would they be okay? They could still step back so they didn’t wreck their friendship. She had to give him that out. “We can go back to the way it was.”
His hand stroked her back and the touch sent tingles up her spine. “I don’t want to. I didn’t say I wanted to. It just kind of overwhelmed me for a minute. You, me. It’s us. And my sister is sleeping on the couch. Like, footsteps away. Not exactly what I’d want for our first time.”
God, even the thought of it filled her with so much longing she felt like she might burst. Everything he said made perfect sense, but fear still crept into her bones. “We can’t wreck this. Us. What we have,” she whispered.
His voice was strong and sure. “We won’t. I just needed a minute. I couldn’t breathe.”
“That was the best part,” she said.
His gaze swallowed her whole and he nodded his head slowly. “I know.”
His lips touched hers again, softly, like a feather brushing over her. When he pulled back, he put his forehead to hers for a moment and closed his eyes. The unease settled inside Gabby as they breathed each other’s air. The silence of the room surrounded them and her pulse stopped scrambling.
He set his chin on her head, tucking her into him in a way that made her feel safe. Loved. She could feel his heart racing still. He didn’t like change and she’d never known anything but. She’d learned to face demons and move forward. There were some things in life you couldn’t plan, couldn’t predict or prepare for. Gabby had used the pain of that lesson to fuel her art and her life. Because she knew it only took one second for the world around you to become unrecognizable.
She pressed herself closer to Owen. Life could change in an instant, but right now, they were here. Together. Because they both wanted to be. And she’d be a fool to wreck it by wondering what if.
…
Waking up beside him after a night of sleeping in his arms, with even the possibility that they could try for real, that he might want to, was like looking through an unfiltered lens. Everything felt crisp and new. It was almost too much and Gabby’s hands felt restless. She needed to paint. She needed to put her feelings about Owen’s soft murmurings in the dark and keeping her close through the night onto paper. As she slipped from the bed, he moaned softly, pulling her back. Her heart actually fluttered. Waves of happiness rippled inside her and the feeling made her shaky.
“Go back to sleep,” she whispered.
With barely any light, she sat in his chair, sketching him. She didn’t need the light. The explosion of feelings inside her was bright enough to have the pen flying over the smooth texture of the page.
As she drew and shaded, her pulse settled, but her mind ignited. She turned the page, creating a series of five boxes. In one of them, she sketched the one painting she’d finished. The tiny heart lost in the storm of colorful emotions became larger in every picture, until the heart was at the forefront, the storm behind it. When she painted them, she’d have the color scheme go from dark to light. The heart in the final painting would all but pulsate with life and energy. If she could pull it off the way she saw it in her head.
“I love watching you work,” Owen said, startling her with his raspy voice.
Her eyes wandered up the bed, taking in the way the sheet covered him, the way the fabric rose and fell with the shape of his body. She drank in his abdomen and the narrow trail of hair that led up, or down depending on which way she was traveling. She bit her lip, wishing he’d kicked free of the sheet in his sleep. By the time her eyes met his, he was watching her back, his gaze still sleepy, but amused.
Setting her book aside, she went to his side table and picked up his glasses, passing them to him. He took them with one hand and grabbed her wrist with the other, tugging her down on top of him.
“I don’t even need them to know how you were looking at me. I could feel it.”
She laughed and ducked her head into the crook of his neck, nuzzling there. His hands stroked her back, making her arch and sigh at the same time. His fingers played against her skin where her tank top rode up.
After they’d crawled back into the bed last night, they’d gone to sleep, wrapped in each other. Only clothes had separated them
and when she’d awoken in the night, he’d still been holding her, like he didn’t plan to let her go. If Owen needed time to adjust, it was the least she could give him. Seeing him sleep-tousled while his fingers slid over her skin tested her patience, but he was right: his family was there. Even though she wanted this, they both needed to accept that they’d crossed a threshold. Regardless of what they said, they’d never be able to go back to being ‘just friends’ in the way they had been. And that scared her almost as much as losing him completely.
“I told my family I’d take them back to the mall today,” he said. She looked up, bringing her hand to the thin layer of stubble on his chin. It was rough under her fingers and she liked the sound of running her thumb back and forth. “Are you listening?”
“Family. Mall.”
Owen laughed and squeezed her against him. “God, you’re a distraction. I’m going to get up and make breakfast. If I don’t show my mother I can cook, she’ll never leave.”
When someone knocked on the bedroom door, they both froze. Owen cringed when his mom’s voice came through the wood. “Owen? Gabby? Are you up? I made breakfast. Merry Christmas Eve.”
Owen pushed away from Gabby and pulled jeans out of his dresser, his movements hasty and almost frantic. “Okay, Mom. We don’t need a wake-up call.”
Gabby lay back on the bed, arching an eyebrow in amusement. His cool, sexy-calm was gone, and now it was like a scene from a rom-com. He jumped on one leg, trying to get into his jeans. When his eyes met Gabby’s, they widened. She bit her lip.
“Someone is grumpy in the morning,” Beth called.
She sat up, still holding back her laughter. “You can relax, Owen. It’s your house. She can’t ground you for making out with a girl in your bedroom,” she whispered.