When Jackand I walked through the front door of our house several hours later, arms loaded with bags, five furry faces immediately trotted over to greet us.
“Lydia Sunday,” Jack chided when the tiny tortoiseshell clawed at one of the grocery bags he carried while Jane, Lizzy, Mary, and Potato twined around his ankles. “Honestly, ladies. You’d think you’d never been fed in your fucking lives.”
“I’ll feed them,” I offered, unwrapping Sir Pecksworth and setting him on the counter by the stove with a fond pat. “If you put the groceries away.”
Jack glanced up from where he was fiddling with the window air conditioner unit and gave the cookie jar a smirk and a headshake.
“Deal,” he said. “I’ll even make up a batch of that marinade you like so we can grill some…” He gave Pecky a significant look, then shot me a wink as I scooped dry cat food into bowls. “C-H-I-C-K-E-N for dinner.”
Then the air conditioner let out a blast of cold air, and he sighed happily.
I felt a slow smile spread over my face as I watched him.
In the golden-hour sunshine streaming through thewindow, with the cool breeze blowing his hair and making his sweaty T-shirt stick to his chest, Jack Wyatt was impossibly handsome. The sight of those strong shoulders, the stubbled jaw, would never get old. Would never cease to make my heart skip and my mouth water.
Wanting this man, wanting simply to be near him, had consumed my every thought for years. And now, here I was, not only sharing Jack’s bed but his home and his life. Planning a future with him. Allowed and encouraged to reach out and touch him,kisshim, any damn time I wanted. I got to sleep with his arms around me. He’d agreed to be my personal Mr. Darcy, forever and ever, amen.
Part of me—the shadow of teenage, virgin Hawk, who’d rubbed his dick raw just imagining Jack naked and couldn’t have fathomed the things Jack and I got up to once we were nakedtogether—still couldn’t believe I was here, living the fucking dream.
But the truth was, life with Jack was so much more than anything I’d dreamed of.
It was goofy, spelled-out dad jokes and him knowing my favorite chicken marinade.
It was watching him evolve from reluctant cat owner to obsessed cat parent.
It was the library he’d built me and the Thin Mints he stashed there.
It was him embracing my maximalist decorating style and letting my collection of crocheted blankets consume our whole house.
It was “craft stuff” and “Hawk’s books” line items in our budget every month without complaint, though we were supposed to be saving for our wedding.
It was the unexpected thrill of being the person who comforted Jack when he was sick or tired or disappointed.
It was him encouraging me to bring a needy ceramiccookie jar into our home because I wanted it… and becausehewanted me to have everything I wanted.
It was more than I’d known Icoulddream about.
It occurred to me, as I watched Jack snuggle a cat under each muscular arm so the “ladies” could look out the window—a thing he did regularly for these cats he’d once side-eyed—that it had been a really, really busy summer filled with important projects, and important work at the restaurant, and important shit to do at home… and I maybe hadn’t taken the time to appreciate the most important person in my world. At least, not the way I should.
And suddenly, I couldn’t wait another fucking minute to do just that.
“For fuck’s sake. Why is it always Lydia?” Jack asked, interrupting my thoughts with a nod toward our smallest and most trouble-loving feline, who’d leaped up on the counter to bat at Sir Pecksworth, turning him so his beak faced the wall. “Does she needmorestimulation, do you think?”
Without waiting for a reply, he shuffled the cats around in his arms until he could snag Lydia, too. Then he brought all five felines and their food out to the screened porch, where their water bowls and jungle gyms were already set up, and closed the door behind him.
”You really should have named that one Kitty,” he said when he came back. “Even if a cat named Kittyistoo on the nose. Kitty was the nicer Bennet sister. Instead, you named her after the sister who was an unmitigated pain in the ass, and now it’s become a self-fulfilling prophesy. I’m warning you right now, if a cat militia comes to the neighborhood, I will not allow her to?—”
“Jack,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to talk about the cats. OrPride and Prejudice.”
Jack blinked. “You? Don’t want to talk aboutPride and Prejudice?” He frowned. “Are you okay, baby? You do look kinda flushed. Are you thirsty? Or hungry?”
I wound my arms around his neck, pressed my body against his, and nodded. “Starving,” I whispered, pulling him down for a kiss. “All of a sudden, I’m starving. But not for food.”
Jack groaned, his hands sliding down to grip my hips and pull me closer, kissing me slow and deep. “Hawk?—”
I broke off with a needy whine. “Need you.Now. Please, Jack.”
Jack’s eyes darkened, and his hands tightened on me with the kind of bruising intensity I knew, from personal experience, meant he was going to take me apart in the best possible way.
