Hitched (Promise Harbor Wedding) - By Erin Nicholas Page 0,31
Everyone’s been tiptoeing around, not talking to you about how you’re feeling for a long time now, right?”
She opened her mouth to reply, then snapped it shut, frowned, and finally said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You got away with that for a year. I guess if you wanted to have everyone leave you alone—even when you were getting sick and exhausted—then you should have stayed in Promise Harbor.”
Her chin came up. “Maybe I should have.”
“But you know as well as I do that you didn’t want to be in Promise Harbor. You wanted to get out. You wanted to escape.” He took four steps closer, his toes just on the other side of the threshold into the bathroom. “You wanted me.”
“Maybe I just came for some hot sex.”
“Maybe,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “But I’m not the one who just had an orgasm and bolted out of bed crying. Seems that if that’s all you wanted, you would have stayed put and gotten more.”
She looked surprised that he brought it up like that. Then her cheeks got pink. “I didn’t…it wasn’t because of the orgasm.”
“What was it?”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know. It just all came out. I couldn’t stop it.”
He reached out, rubbing his hand up and down her upper arm. “Honey, it’s okay. In fact, I think it’s great. I’m not mad. My pride’s not wounded. If you want, I’ll take you back over to the bed right now and show you how not wounded I am. But,” he went on when her mouth curled, ever so slightly, “I know that I’m dealing with a lot of emotions right now being with you again. I can only imagine all the feelings that are messing with you.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s not—”
“Allie, your mom died.”
She flinched. “I’m aware.”
“That’s big. Huge. And I know you. I know that you haven’t told one single person how devastated you are.”
She pressed her lips together, not meeting his eyes. “They know how devastated I am.”
“But them knowing isn’t the same thing as you admitting it. You’ve been too worried about your dad and brothers and Sophie to probably even admit it to yourself. And I know none of them asked.”
He felt a familiar churning in his gut when he thought about Allie’s family. Or rather her blind devotion to them. They weren’t bad people, by any means. He’d liked her mom and dad—what he’d known of them. But when he and Allie were dating, they hadn’t involved their families. They’d been off at college and spent all their time together outside of Promise Harbor. He didn’t go home to visit, and when she did, he stayed behind. It worked.
But Gavin had seen her when she was getting ready to go home for a visit. She’d been tense and distracted. Then when she came back to him she’d been tired and stressed. Nothing like how she’d looked in the church at her own wedding, but the strain around her eyes had always pulled at him, made him feel protective and possessive. He’d wanted nothing more than to erase that look and make her smile. Not talking about her family and her weekend at home had seemed the best way to do those things. And so their Sundays of fun had started.
Eventually, though, the inevitable happened. When it finally came down to choosing between him and them, she chose them. She had this idea that they couldn’t survive without her, and now that Lily was gone, he was sure that had multiplied a thousand times.
Gavin made himself relax. She was here now. He could take care of her. Her family was too far away to lean on her.
“Can we go back to bed?” she asked, dropping the towel.
As far as diversionary tactics went, that was a good one.
But Gavin was strong. He shook his head. “If you think you’re going to get out of talking by distracting me with sex…you’re almost right.”
She smiled.
“But I can play that game too—until you talk to me and tell me about serious stuff, no sex for you.”
She stared at him. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” At least, he was going to try hard to mean that. There were more important things here than sex.
When she was standing in front of him naked, it was nearly impossible for him to remember what they were without fierce concentration, but he knew there were some things.
“I need you, Gav,” she said quietly, moving closer and putting her