Page 202

“I promise to be honest with you. And to get angry at you when I need to.”

“That’s my girl.” He kisses me slowly, sweetly. Heat runs through my veins and drowns out the sound of the storm raging around us.

I lift my lips from his and press a finger to them when he tries to close the distance again. “But Calloway, you still have to propose.”

Beneath my finger, his mouth spreads into a wide grin. “Oh, I will.”

CHAPTER61

WEST

The storm passes during the night, sweeps past the house and moves farther inland, but I don’t notice until it’s nearly dawn. Nora’s running her fingers over my bare back, lying half beneath me, bodies languid and heavy with near-sleep and pleasure.

She woke me up by burrowing into me, and one thing led to the other until I was inside her with her toy tucked against her clit.

“That rain,” she murmurs, “probably destroyed the last of the apple blossoms.”

“Mhm.”

Her fingers move over my skin like I’m her cat. “It’s almost morning.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re not leaving this bed.”

Her voice is sleepy. “You probably have work to do too.”

“I’ll cancel it.”

“All of it?”

I smile into her shoulder. “For you? Of course.”

She laughs a little. “You’re going to spoil me.”

“Good.” I shift closer, press my lips down to her warm neck. We’ve barely moved since we had sex, not even to clean up the mess between us. “I know you’ve got a big day, though.”

“Yeah. I’ve given the collection everything I have, and now I just have to hope it’ll be enough.”

“It will be.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. Your best will always be good enough.”

I kiss her collarbone, and she relaxes under my touch, her nails raking lightly down my back.

“I’m excited but nervous,” she says. “For a long time, those two emotions didn’t belong together in my mind. But they do now. I think you taught me that too. Because you always made me both at the same time.”

She constantly disarms me.

I lift my head to respond, but a soft pounce on the bed makes us both turn. A low, whiskered face and yellow eyes stalk our way. Darcy was annoyed with me for stealing her away from her atelier earlier, but he followed us into her room with a raised tail and a cautious look at me.

Now he pads across her comforter without paying me any mind.

“Good morning,” she says with the same loving voice she just used on me. “Want to join?”

“I’m not into threesomes,” I mutter against her neck.

“What?”