THE CRAZY GOOD SERIES - Rachel Robinson Page 0,137

the same fucking time. Wrapping her arms around my neck, I feel her answer. She says it anyway. “I trust you. I just don’t want to be the reason you quit. I want you to want it for yourself. If I were to drop off the face of the planet tomorrow, I’d want to drop knowing you’d be okay.” She kisses my cheek. She kisses my ear. She runs her fingernails through my hair.

“I’m okay now. I know that I’m okay now,” I whisper, closing my eyes, feeling her on me and around me. It’s not a lie. I’ll be okay if I always have this. Windsor’s steely blue gaze is trained on me when I open my eyes.

“This plan?” Windsor asks, narrowing her eyes and biting her bottom lip. Fuck. “Does making out on the new couch come next?”

No. “Yes,” comes out instead. She squeals as I pick her up, cradling her in my arms. “The plan is whatever makes you happy,” I admit, pulling her down on me, sinking deep into the sofa. I want to know she’s mine before I take her again. This time I’m going to do what I should have done the first time. The thing is, there is no way I’m telling her no…maybe not ever again. Our legs are entwined and I feel every body part that touches hers. She props herself on her elbows and looks down at me, her brown hair spilling over her shoulders. My heart starts pounding the second it recognizes the look in her blue eyes. There’s no guessing about it. I know what she’s thinking.

“I love you,” I say, beating her to the punch.

A half-smirk inches its way across her beautiful mouth. Eyes smiling she says, “Blow me, Maverick.”

She cuts off my laugh with a kiss, her hands sliding under my shirt, lifting it as she goes. I pull it over my head and toss it to the floor. She sits up, straddling my hips, her knee-length skirt rising to accommodate. My eyes are immediately drawn down.

“Whenever I couldn’t sleep, when I was upset after you left, I would think about this,” she whispers, laying a hand over her tattoo over my heart. “And the day at your house when I went to see you…” She swallows. I move my hands to rest on her hips. “I saw the tattoo and I knew that if I ever meant as much to you as you said, then we’d find a way to each other. Then Nash came along, a changed freaking man. I hoped that if you ever came back to me, I’d be able to forgive you…and that I’d be the same person you remembered.”

At the mention of Nash, my hands tighten on her hips possessively. I blow out a breath through my mouth. I sense she isn’t finished so I remain quiet as she drags a finger over my chest.

“One word,” Windsor says, finally glancing back up to my face.

I don’t lie. “Nash.”

She sighs, placing her hands on top of mine. “I forgave him for the altar dash. I felt a little bad because the bimbo left him. I know that sounds crazy because of what he did to me, but there it is. He needed my forgiveness and part of my messed up mind wanted to give it to him. It’s a clean break, Maverick. We were just friends getting to know each other again,” she explains. She tells me how much he’s changed and all the things he’s said and done for her when I was busy in drunk mode. It makes me feel a little bitter.

It also makes me feel a little sick that he was there for her when I wasn’t…because I chose not to be. If he honestly changed as much as she thinks, wouldn’t he be the better choice for her? My ego won’t let me believe it, so I push the thought away. I’m the man for Windsor. Kathy even said I was good for her. She told me how Nash was just a placeholder until the great love of her life showed up. She told me I was it. I’m not sure how she surmised as much, but I’m glad she said it.

“I was never supposed to be more than friends with John Nash. I told him so.”

Relief courses through me. Though that had to be a hard conclusion to come to, after all those years spent pouring herself into something that never happened.

She puts a finger