She slides up and down my length, one hand stabilizing her on my leg, the other in front of her, playing with her clit. And suddenly her walls clench around me, her body lurches forward, and my own release is close.
“I’m gonna—” She cries out, all her muscles contracting and relaxing in waves. Her outburst causes me to break, and my own release pumps into her hot and fast.
Wren falls onto the mattress beside me and crawls up to lie on the pillow next to mine. Her hair is damp, tendrils sticking to the sheen of sweat on her face. I kiss her temple, brushing a strand off to the side.
“The next time we do this, I want you to come looking in my eyes,” I murmur, and draw her head closer, letting my mouth linger on her forehead. She settles into me and we find a comfortable spot to lie together in the warm yellow glow of the bedside lamp, her head resting on my firm peck.
We lay in silence for a moment, and although my body is relaxed, I’m still replaying the events of the night at the bar. Spencer showing me the picture of Wren’s painting she posted online, the insane amount of people who liked it, even in the span of a couple of hours. The multiple offers from gallery owners to put her art on display. I hate that my first reaction was to be jealous about it, that sticky, hot feeling climbing up my back.
I glance down at Wren in my arms, her breathing evening out, her eyes closed. I just got her back. I spent ten years wishing and hoping that she might find her way back tome, and now … Wren hasn’t even brought it up. Surely if Spencer showed me, she also showed Wren, told her about the opportunities she has to turn her art into something she could get paid to do.
It’s not that I don’t want it for her, I just don’t want to lose her again. Last time was too painful.
We’re different now, I remind myself. We’re grown adults, and we are no longer at the mercy of our circumstances. I’m certainly not. That may have been the case then, when I didn’t have the money to follow Wren wherever she wanted to go, but I do now. I get to choose how I respond to this—it’s my decision if I want to let something like this come between us again.
“Wren,” I whisper, gently shaking her shoulder. She takes a sharp inhale of breath as she wakes, probably having just dozed off. “We need to talk about something.”
She sits up now, her eyebrows knitting together as she regards me. Nerves rattle around in my gut, but I tell myself this time with Wren has to be different. If she’s thinking of leaving for the city, then we have to get it out in the open. Most of all, I want her to know I’m on board. I’m on her team.
“What’s going on?” she asks, chewing on her bottom lip nervously. She brings her hand up to chew at her nail, the first sign of her anxiety I’ve seen in a long time. I reach for her hand, holding it against my chest so she can ground herself on the beat of my heart. So she can feel how it beats for her.
“Nothing. I just … I need to know if you’re planning on leaving. I mean,” I stammer. I’ve never been the best communicator, and I’m not getting this out how I want to. “I want to know so we can figure it out, together this time.”
“What?” Wren’s face changes from anxious concern to surprise in a millisecond. “Who told you that?”
“Spencer. I talked to her at the bar. She showed me the response your painting has been getting online. The offers you’ve had from the galleries back in the city. It’s huge.” Wren sits up and pulls away from me, drawing her knees into her chest and wraps her arms around them.
“Yeah, I guess it is. I never expected it, honestly.” Her eyes flick down to her hands. “I didn’t tell you because I don’t even know if I want to entertain it.”
“Why not? Doing what you love and getting paid to do it sounds like a dream.” I think about my own choices, the career path I took. I love where I am now but … if I could have done something differently, maybe I would have. If I had every opportunity to do whatever I wanted, would it have been construction? Firefighting? I don’t know. But Wren should have the choice. She does have the choice.
“Because it would mean leaving Heartwood, leaving you. I didn’t think you’d be enthusiastic about the idea. And you have the arts centre project to work on …”
“Wehave the arts centre to work on,” I remind her, although it still isn’t a valid reason for her not to take a new opportunity. We decided although I would take the lead, she would continue to work as a freelance consultant on the project. At least until she figures out what she wants to do in the long term. “And we can figure that part out later.”
“Regardless, I didn’t think it was realistic right now.” Wren swallows thickly, her throat bobbing. “Besides, we onlyjust started to sort through our baggage, and I’m scared we’ll repeat the past over again.” My chest aches at the thought of Wren being scared, the idea that I would ever let her go again.
“But we won’t. We’ve both grown, Wren. We’ll figure it out together.” I tug on her upper arm again to turn her to face me. Her ebony eyes are watery when they find mine. “Same team, remember?”
“Same team,” she echoes.
“Okay,” I say, glad it’s settled. Now I have to prove to her we aren’t destined to repeat past mistakes. “So, tell me about these galleries.”
CHAPTER 36
WREN
Hudson reaches overand places his hand on my lap, one hand still on the steering wheel. His calloused fingers brush over the soft, fleshy part of my thighs, and a ripple of warmth goes through me from my core and settles low in my belly.
I glance over at him, soft sandy blond waves framing his tanned face, and past him, out the driver’s-side window, the endless expanse of blue ocean comes into view. He rolls down the window and the familiar sharp tang of briny sea air hits me instantly, cool and refreshing.
I glance down at the display on the dashboard, and the ripple of warmth at the sensation of Hudson’s hand on my thigh is replaced by a flutter of excitement and nerves when I see the gallery is only fifteen minutes away.
“You okay?” Hudson asks, his eyes flicking to where my knee is bouncing under his hand. There’s no point in pretending with him anymore.
“A little nervous,” I admit. We’re on our way to drop offthe paintings I promised Gwen, the curator, when she e-mailed. As it turns out, VanTek was going to work on her gallery in the beginning stages, but she got smarmy vibes from Rick and fired the company. I like her already. Not just because she loves my work—and hates Rick as much as I do—but because she wants to feature Canadian artists. And I also like the idea of partnering with other creative women. It feels like the right amount offuck youto Rick and Brody and all the other men who constantly made me feel incapable, less than.
Tonight, my painting will be front and centre at her opening, and the whole trip feels surreal, like serendipity. By closing the door on something that wasn’t meant for me, something I was trying to force, I opened up all this space for new opportunities.
