Into the Blue (A Wild Aces Romance) (18 page)

The crowd at Eric’s grandmother’s place was huge, spilling out of the tiny house onto the porch, into the yard. I knew everyone here so I shouldn’t have felt uncomfortable, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was an impostor, living on borrowed time. We looked like a couple, acted like a couple, and yet we weren’t really a couple. It all felt like a lie or a fantasy, and while part of me wanted to indulge it and enjoy the moment, another part of me had alarm bells going off, warning me I was headed for heartbreak.

I carried some plates into the kitchen, setting them down on the countertop, taking a deep breath and basking in the moment of silence. We’d been here for almost two hours and it felt like not a minute went by without someone coming up to us, either alluding to the fact that we were here together or asking outright. I’d finally left Eric with the minister, excusing myself from the conversation by saying that I needed to help his grandmother clean up a bit. I was pretty
sure the minister was talking to him about marital counseling, and a girl had to draw the line somewhere.

“Thank you so much for all of your help.”

I turned at the sound of Eric’s grandmother entering the kitchen, a tired smile on her face.

“I love having everyone over, but these things just keep getting bigger and bigger.” She winked. “When everyone leaves, I’m going to put my feet up on the sofa and have some tea.”

I grinned. “You deserve it. I don’t know how you do it every weekend. People come because it’s the best party in town and your chicken is amazing.”

She squeezed my hand. “I’ll have to give you the recipe. It’s been in my family for generations.”

“I’d like that,” I replied softly.

Her gaze swept past me. “He did a good job with the kitchen, didn’t he?”

I grinned. “He did a good job with the whole house. I love the color you chose.”

“Thank you. He’s a good boy.”

I nodded. “He is.”

“It’s been nice having him back, seeing him in town again.”

I nodded again, not sure where the conversation was headed or if I was ready to go there.

“He loves you.” Her gaze turned shrewd, searching, and she squeezed my hand. I was pretty sure I’d gone pale, because with those three words she’d taken the conversation somewhere I definitely wasn’t prepared for.

“I hated seeing the two of you break up,” she continued. “I always loved you like the granddaughter I never had, always was so proud of both of you, so happy to see you together.”

I bit down on the inside of my cheek, trying to control it, but I couldn’t. Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Oh, honey.”

She wrapped her arms around me and held on, and my eyes closed as I relaxed in the comfort of her embrace. I hadn’t had a lot of hugs in my life. Not like this. There had always been Eric, and occasionally Lizzie, but I’d missed out on having a mom I could talk to, who hugged me when I needed it. My grandmother hadn’t been physically affectionate, so for a moment I just let Eric’s hold me.

“It wasn’t you. He wasn’t ready. He was young and still figuring out who he was, how to grow into the man he needed to be. He loved you so much. Always. But you wanted different things, needed different things.”

I pulled back, wiping at my eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I guess I just thought that if he loved me, I would be enough to give him what he needed.”

“I know you did, but he wouldn’t have found himself here. He needed to grow, needed to challenge himself, become someone he could be proud of, someone who could be secure enough to be a husband and father someday. It was different for you—you were always so mature—you had to be with what you’d been through. I know it’s hard to understand, but I think he needed what the military gave him so he could become the man he is today.

“You always loved him, always saw the best in him back then, but he wasn’t quite there yet. Now he is. You both are. It’s not an accident that you found your way back to each other.”

She was right. The man before me was more settled than the boy had ever been. And I could see now that, on some level, I’d been so desperate for a family that I’d put a heap of responsibility and pressure on Eric at a young age, not
realizing that even though I was ready for those things, he wasn’t. But I still wasn’t sure he was ready, that the future I wanted was even on the table.

“I don’t think he knows what he wants.”

“Have faith.”

I wasn’t sure I had much faith left to give.

“I know why you stayed away all these years, and I understand, but I want you to know that I’m always here for you. I love you, too.”

God, apparently today was my day for crying.

My vision turned blurry, and I leaned forward, giving her a quick hug.

“Thank you.”

Becca didn’t speak for most of the drive back to my hotel and I couldn’t tell if she was upset or just pensive.

I was still reeling from the afternoon. I’d figured she was exaggerating when she’d protested my invitation to the Harvest Dance and my grandmother’s brunch. Bradbury was a small town, but I hadn’t quite realized how interested everyone would be in our relationship or the questions that would dog us all day.

No one was rude and there wasn’t any malice, just . . . aggressive curiosity. About my job. About Becca. About me and Becca.

If that was what it had been like for her after we broke up . . .

“Are you okay?” I asked, glancing her way when we hit a stoplight.

“Yeah. Just tired.”

I didn’t blame her. I’d had a pounding headache for the last hour.

“That was a big crowd. I had no idea it had grown that much. When I was a kid, it was like ten people. Now I feel like the whole damned town is there. I’m not sure how she still does it; I swear she has more energy than I do.”

My grandmother was seventy-five and showed little signs of slowing down. She still worked part-time at the library, supervising a small staff manned mostly by volunteers who adored her. She took two trips a year, both with her church group, and managed to make it down to Florida every few years to visit my mother.

“I need to come back more often. I shouldn’t have let it go as long as I did.”

Becca didn’t respond.

I frowned, turning down the road toward the hotel. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did someone say something to you?”

She laughed. “Seriously?”

I grinned despite the worry filtering through me. “Fair enough. Did anyone
not
say something to you?”

“Nope.”

“Is it always like that? Always so intense?”

“You mean people being nosy about us?”

I nodded.

“In the beginning, it was worse.” Her voice tightened and my stomach lurched. “Everyone had an opinion on where we went wrong, a suggestion on what I needed to do to win you back.”

Fuck.

“You didn’t need to do anything—”

“I know. Now. Twenty-one-year-old me spent more time than I should have wondering if they were right.”

I let out an oath. I never wanted her to think the problem had been her. It was my restlessness that had driven me away, and if anything, she’d kept me here far longer than I would have stayed if not for her presence in my life.

“It’s okay. They all meant well, thought they were helping. It wasn’t their fault that it was basically like pouring acid into a wound.”

It was anything but okay.

“God, I’m sorry, Becca. I honestly had no idea it was like that for you.”

“Hazards of small town life, I guess.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t stay in Columbia. Get a job there.”

I was, but then again, I wasn’t. She’d always said this was her dream, and she was loyal. When she committed to something, she was all in.

“I thought about it,” she admitted. “But I do love it here. Bradbury has always been home, and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. My roots are here, my memories of my parents. I always imagined raising my kids here, telling them stories about the grandparents they’ll never get to meet.”

“I’m sure they’d be so proud of you.”

She smiled softly. “Thanks. I hope so.” She reached out and took hold of my free hand, linking our fingers. “You know, your grandmother’s proud of you. Her face lights up when she talks about you. I used to hear about you through the grapevine because she was constantly telling the patrons who would come into the library about your accomplishments.”

I felt my cheeks heat.

“I was proud of you, too. Even when I didn’t want to be. She said something to me earlier—”

“I’m sorry—”

“No. It’s okay. She was right. She told me that when we were younger, when we were together, you were still trying to figure out who you were. I guess that while I was trying so hard to push for an ‘us,’ I didn’t appreciate the fact that you never really got to be your own person or figure out what you wanted independent of me.”

“You weren’t—” I cleared my throat. “I don’t ever want you to think that you held me back or that you were a burden. I know what I said about Bradbury, but I didn’t see you that way. I loved you; I just didn’t know who I was yet.”

“I know that now. I just didn’t then. We were both young and we made mistakes. Forever’s hard to navigate when you’re still in college, when you have no clue what your future will look like.”

We needed to talk about what was next for us; we’d certainly volleyed the question enough today. I figured I’d lay my options out for her and see what she wanted, prayed she was willing to give us a shot. It was a lot to ask. Nothing about this life would be easy on her. I’d seen the other wives struggle, watched guys get divorced over the weight of deployments and TDYs, all the shit that got piled on us. My job was dangerous, and for someone like Becca, who’d lost her family in an accident, I figured it would be tough to live with the uncertainty and the fear that she’d get a call in the middle of the night saying I wouldn’t be coming home.

The part of me that was completely in love with her wanted to throw caution to the wind and take the next step, but we had to go slowly. Not only were we reentering each other’s lives after a decade, but this was going to be a huge adjustment from two college kids in love. The military could put stress on the most solid relationship, not to mention a new one filled with lingering resentment from all that we’d been through.

It wasn’t in my nature to take things slowly, to be anything other than balls-to-the-wall, but I told myself this wasn’t the time to rush, that if I wanted a future with Becca, I was going to have to ease her into it and slip past her defenses into her heart.

*   *   *

I followed her into my hotel room, lying back on what had somehow become “my” side of the bed, enjoying the view as Becca stripped out of the pretty flowered dress she’d worn to church and my grandmother’s. I reached out and caught her hand, tugging her toward me.

She grinned. “Again?”

We’d definitely burned off some calories before brunch at my grandmother’s.

“Maybe.”

She sank down on the edge of the bed, her lips twitching. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Maybe I just can’t resist you. And I definitely don’t want to.”

I leaned forward, resting my forehead against hers, closing my eyes.

“Eric . . .”

I loved hearing my name fall from her lips.

My nose grazed hers, my lips finding her cheek, pressing a soft kiss there, and then another one at the corner of her mouth.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Her hands went for my shirt, tugging at the material, an urgency to her actions that always seemed to be there between us. I helped her, shrugging out of the sleeves. When I was naked from the waist up, I lifted her in my arms, rolling and twisting so she was beneath me.

I reached between us, gathering her hair in my hand and spreading it out over the pillow. For a moment I just stared, a lump in my throat as I asked myself how I’d ever gotten so lucky—then or now—to have someone like her in my life. To have someone who looked at me the way she did, because for all that she was cautious, she looked at me now with so much love in her eyes that I ached from it.

She humbled me. Constantly.

When I was younger, it had terrified me, the responsibility of living up to the kind of expectation that lingered behind that love overwhelming me. It wasn’t intentional, but I still felt the pressure there, the need to be more, better, enough. But now, instead of scaring the shit out of me, it drove
me.

I shifted, spreading Becca’s legs beneath me, and then I settled between her hips, my arms wrapping around her again, arching her forward so her breasts brushed my pecs, her hands running over my back.

I told myself to go slow, tried to temper my movements to drag out her pleasure, but I just fucking couldn’t. I was strung out on her, on the feel of her under me, the taste of her on my lips. I slid my hand between us, rubbing her clit over her silk underwear, her wetness seeping through the fabric, coating my fingers.

We both hovered on the edge.

I pulled back, reaching between us and tugging on the waistband of her thong, ducking and pressing kisses to her stomach that had her twisting her hips in response.

She gripped my back even more tightly, her nails raking the skin there in a move that had my dick tightening in anticipation.

Words fell from our lips but I had no clue what was said,
my mind gibberish, my heart already gone. There were other times when I mastered foreplay, other times when the buildup between us was electric. This was not one of those times. The only thing that mattered was sliding inside her, some primal part of me needing to feel like we were one, grasping the connection between our bodies even as I felt as though life pulled us apart.

When her underwear hit the floor, I spread her even wider, opening her, my gaze drifting down to admire the view before me. I positioned myself at her entrance, her wetness seeping out onto my cock, and then I slid inside in one smooth stroke, a groan torn from my lips as she clenched down around me, all of that wet heat drawing me deeper into her body. My lips found hers as I held myself still inside her body, as she throbbed around me. I gripped her hair, looking into her eyes, needing to see the arousal there, needing to feel that connection as well.

Nothing beat this feeling. Nothing came close.

We didn’t speak when we were finished, our limbs entwined on the bed. I could feel the crash coming, knew we both thought of the moment we didn’t dare speak of, hovered on the precipice of what came next.

It fucking terrified me.