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Jay’s grin widened and then he looked a little sheepish. “I have a little secret. I read everything you’ve written in theSea Shellfor the past two years. You’ve got all the chops a screenwriter needs. You managed to make a high school musical sound riveting, and how there’s still an unadopted dog in all of California with you writing the Dog of the Week, I do not know.”
She was absolutely floored. “Seriously? You read my writing in the paper? All of it?”
“Sure did. Even the interview with that clown who lost a big shoe and just kept on performing. I laughed so hard.”
She joined in, and when they both finished chuckling, she said quietly and seriously, “Just in case you missed me saying it earlier, I love you, Jay Malone.”
And then he told her, yet again, that he loved her too. Words she would never tire of hearing.
Chapter Thirty-One
Erin spent the week feeling as though she was living in her very own romantic comedy movie. Nothing could have prepared her for how much fun writing a screenplay with Jay would be. In between his agenting commitments and her job at the paper, they worked together feverishly on the end of the screenplay. Of course, sometimes they argued: her ideas were often quite different from his, and that would cause them to sit back—usually naked and in bed—and discuss the way she saw the world versus how he did. Sometimes she felt it was a female perspective versus a male one, but they always seemed to come up with something better together than either of them would have been able to on their own.
By Friday night, the script was almost done and they were reading through the final draft, when Jay said, “Every one of the scenes you wrote—and the scenes of mine you’ve edited—just fly off the page. I can see these scenes onscreen already. Where did you learn how to write a romance?”
She thought about it for a minute. “From life, I guess. I watch my parents, and every day they show each other in little ways how much they’re still in love.” She gazed into her memories. “And then I watched Arch and Tessa fall in love. Smith and Valentina have had a pretty rocky time of it, but they’re so happy now and having a baby. Even Mila and Hersch. Mila was never going to fall in love easily.”
He laughed. “You didn’t either. But I think we’re the kind of people who, when we do love, it’s forever.”
She couldn’t help it. Tears filled her eyes. “Forever. I feel that too.”
They kissed deeply and then smiled at one another. “What about you?” she asked. “Where did you learn about romance?”
“From loving you. I finally get what all the love songs and movies and novels are about. I’m ready to be the kind of man who can truly love a woman.” He looked into her eyes, “I will only ever love you, Erin. I’m making that promise to you now.”
In her heart, Erin knew it was a vow he intended to keep. She’d never felt happier.
Then Jay smiled sheepishly and swept out his arm, gesturing at the room. “You know, I said I bought this place so friends and clients could stay, and that’s still true. But deep down it was also because I’m ready for a family.” He chuckled. “A big one, clearly.”
Erin’s eyebrows shot up in a mild pang of alarm. “How big?”
“As big as you want it to be,” he said. “But I do have six bedrooms, and I’d love a big family like yours. And, as soon as you’re ready, I hope you’ll consider calling this place home.”
Erin was speechless. Everything was moving so fast and yet it felt so right. Gently, she moved the computer off her lap and kissed him. And then they were moving instinctively, their bodies taking over. Jay took the lead this time and she was happy for him to do it. She could barely contain herself as he spent what felt like hours caressing her, kissing her breasts and her belly. He discovered how aroused she became when he licked around her navel and once he found that tender spot, he lingered there until she couldn’t take it anymore. She let herself melt into his arms and moaned as he loved each part of her body with his tongue, gently licking, making his way down farther and farther until she was trembling all over, feeling worshiped and adored.
As much as she loved the attention he was lavishing on her, she wanted to do the same for him. She took his head in her hands, pulling him back up to eye level, before rolling them over so that she was on top.
“Hey,” he moaned into her mouth, “I was enjoying myself down there.”
“Me too,” she murmured back, “but it’s your turn now.”
She felt his excitement swell against her leg and decided that he too needed teasing right to the very edge. So she took her time exploring him, allowing herself the pleasure of feelinghispleasure. His body was divine. Tanned and sculpted and oh so manly. She loved the shape of him. He smelled clean and fresh, a subtle whisper of the sea-salt air and sun in his warm skin. When he cried out that he couldn’t take it anymore, he needed to be inside her, she straddled him and guided him into her, and together they rocked to a mutual climax, hands entwined, sticky with sweat, completely and utterly spent.
* * *
The next morning, Jay left Erin sleeping in what he was coming to think of astheirbed. He walked Buzzy and Nelson on the beach, which was already becoming a routine, as though it was his morning job, along with making the coffee and usually breakfast. Erin needed more sleep than he did; besides which, she had developed her own routines and roles. She was, he had to admit, much better at tidying things away and making the house look prettier. A carefully arranged vase of flowers she’d picked from the garden, a bowl of enticing-looking fresh fruit on the kitchen counter—small touches he’d never have thought of, but that made the house feel more like a home.
Most of all, it felt like home because she was in it.
Out on the beach, with the ocean air blowing away the cobwebs, he cringed to remember that he’d even admitted to her last night that he had bought a house to fill it with children. She hadn’t exactly looked thrilled at the idea. She’d brought it up again after they’d made love, her eyes wide. “Six children? You’re really planning to have six children?”
“Well, not all right away,” he’d replied and then laughed. “Okay, I could compromise. How do you feel about five?”
“That’s your idea of a compromise? I was thinking two.”
“How about we split the difference and call it four.”
“How is splitting the difference between two and five four?” She was quite irate. “Isn’t the compromise between two and five more like three?”