“So . . . now you can worry about our baby turtles.” He slid one hand to her chin, tipped her face up to his. “But not too much. Okay?”
She didn’t try to move away, nor had she stiffened at his touch. She still had that half smile on her face. “Will you believe me if I say okay back?”
“Not really.”
She laughed. “How about I’ll try?”
“Good start. I’ll take it.”
They fell silent for a moment, but their gazes stayed locked on each other. He wanted to slide his hand around to the nape of her neck, urge her mouth to his, and end the night the way he truly ached to.
“It
was
a good start,” she said, her voice a little uneven. “Today, I mean.”
Morgan’s heart kicked into gear along with his hopes. “It was. In a lot of very good ways.”
“I’m so happy about Lilly and Birdie. And everyone, all of it. I’m glad you two decided to join us, and that we all came out here. It was really just . . . incredible.”
“Agreed. A lot of new friendships started today, and others grew closer. I was thinking about that as I drove back here. Birdie and Lilly . . . I don’t even know where to start about how special that was.”
“Everyone saw it, too,” Kit said. “It touched every heart here.”
You touch mine every time I look at you,
he thought, barely managing not to say the words out loud. “I—”
“Morgan—”
They started at the same time, then broke off.
“Go on,” he said. “What were you going to say?”
She searched his face, his eyes, as if debating to say what was on her mind, and he felt like some part of him was slowly dying inside, as all he could do was wait . . . and hope. He braced himself for the worst, sensing that their closeness was coming to an end. Again. He didn’t think he’d handle it gracefully this time. This time he’d fight for what he wanted. For what he knew was already there between them.
Carefully choosing her words, she began. “Today was so good, so . . . unexpected. I had such a good time. With everyone, but especially with Lilly.” She held his gaze. “And with you.”
Just like that, everything jumbled up inside him. His pulse was suddenly pounding like thunder, echoing in his ears, inside his head. Had she changed her mind . . . did she mean . . . ?
“I’m worried,” she went on, and his heart ricocheted back the other way.
“About?” he managed.
“We were a big group today, but I spent a lot of time with Lilly and . . . I loved it.” She looked at him. “I love her, Morgan, I really do. I mean, how can I not? Everyone does. But I feel that we have this special connection. I . . . can’t explain it, exactly. Maybe it’s because we both lost our parents, albeit at very different times in our lives, or—I don’t know. But it’s there.”
“I watched her with you today, too.”
And it made me fall even harder for you,
he wanted to add. “She reached for you, looked for you, instinctively.”
“I know,” Kit said, but she wasn’t smiling. “And . . . a part of me feels so good, so touched. I want to be there for her—”
“You are.” Morgan was beyond knowing what to think, what to feel. “But . . . the other part of you . . . feels what?”
She didn’t respond and looked away.
He urged her gaze back to his again. “Kit, there’s nothing wrong with you and Lilly bonding. Or Lilly and Birdie bonding, or Lilly and Dre. I want her to have people she can trust, rely on, and turn to. It doesn’t have to be bigger than that.” But the longer the conversation went on, the more he realized he wanted it to be a whole lot bigger than that.
“There was no secret today . . . folks pushing us together, making not-so-veiled innuendos. “It was funny and sweet and everyone meant well. And I know it went right over Lilly’s head, but—”
“But what if Lilly starts wanting that, too? Is that what you’re worried about?”
“I’ve thought about it. Yes.”
“So have I. Would it be so bad, Kit?” he asked quietly. “For her to want that? For us to want that?”
To his complete surprise, her face crumpled, and tears filled those luminous eyes of hers.
He didn’t push, didn’t prod. He just pulled her into his arms, tucking her face against his shoulder and held on. He cupped his hand to the back of her head, soothing her and wrapping her close. “It’s okay,” he said, stroking her hair, though he honestly wasn’t sure whether it was or not.
“What if . . .” Her voice was muffled against his chest.
He urged her to lift her head and leaned down to catch her gaze. “What if. . . ?”
“What if I let her down, too?” Her eyes, so big, awash with tears, broke his heart. “I don’t—I can’t risk that. I’ve let so many people down, my employees, my family—” She shook her head, unable to continue. Tears tracked down her cheeks. She looked utterly and completely defeated.
Morgan began to finally understand the enormity of what she was facing and what he was asking of her.
He framed her face when she would have looked away, brushing away her tears with his thumbs. “You’ve really been put through it, haven’t you?”
“So has Lilly,” she managed, her voice rough. “She deserves someone who has their act together, who—”
“She deserves someone who cares about her and who has her best interests at heart.” He lifted Kit’s face to his. “She has that with you. I know you feel you’ve lost your footing and you don’t trust your instincts. I feel like that every day, being a new parent. I freak out pretty much hourly. And that’s on a good day.”
“You don’t show it. You look . . . you two look perfect together. Like it’s the most natural thing. You’re great with her.”
“Thank you. That means a great deal to me. But, you don’t show it, either. You’re handling the rebuild of the shop like you could do it in your sleep, volunteering with Gabe, spending time with Lilly, making new, really good friends with the cupcake group.”
“Those things don’t scare me.” Kit looked right at him, the stark helplessness she felt right there for him to see. “At least not like you do.”
His felt his heart clutch, and sighed. “Kit—”
“Wanting you scares me. Wanting Lilly scares me. I came here looking for a new start.” She smiled, even though her eyes were glassy and tears still pooled. “I was going to take baby steps, slowly get myself back to where I felt steadier, rebuild my confidence . . . work on the guilt that still wracks me. I failed everyone. I lost something generations of people had devoted their whole lives to. Something I’d devoted my whole life to. And, instead, I feel like I just took a huge dive, head first, straight into the deep end of the pool. I’m handling Babycakes okay. It’s a slow process and Lani and Baxter are easy and great to work with. But it’s still intimidating. I want to do right by them.” Her lips curved as she drew in uneven breaths. “I freak out on an hourly basis there, too.”
He tipped her chin up, then cupped her cheek in his hand, needing to feel her, touch her. “So, take baby steps with me. With us.”
“That’s just it. With the shop, I had to dive in. And with you . . . you know we won’t take baby steps. We already aren’t. It’s . . . overwhelming, how you make me feel. I don’t know that I ever have felt like that—like this—with anyone, so fast, so . . . fully. I’m in uncharted territory . . . at a time when I’m already floundering. What happens if I just go for it, then completely fall apart when I realize I can’t handle it?
“I can barely rely on myself right now. I can’t do that to you, won’t do that to Lilly.“ She looked into his eyes with a kind of desperation in hers. “What if you and Lilly start to depend on me, to count on me, and I fail you, too? I don’t think I could live with that.”
“Aw, Kit.” He stroked her cheek, her hair, wishing there was a magic wand he could wave and take the pain away. He could feel the trembling, see the fear.
“It’s not all on you, you know. Not the loss of the company and not this relationship. It’s a group effort.
“The group named Teddy and Trixie should have had your back where the company was concerned. They let you down when you needed them, counted on them. They let everyone down, putting what they wanted first, above and beyond everything and everyone. You never do that. That’s not you. Your employees know that, and I know the Bellamy women who came before you had to know that, too.”
He sighed, knowing words weren’t enough. She’d experienced the pain, seen the faces, had to deliver the news, and watch as the doors were closed, then watch again when her generations-old family home was sold out from under her.
“All I can tell you is that this group effort—meaning me, you, Lilly—has got your back. When you need something, whatever it is, I got you. And when I need something, I hope you got me. When Lilly needs something, we tag team it. Like we already do when we’re all together. Have you noticed that? We just . . . do it. You understand her. You’ve been in her shoes. What more could she ever hope for than you? Then we just keep doing that, keep being there for each other.” He smiled, even as his heart ached for her. “One hourly freak-out at a time.”
Her bottom lip trembled with a smile, even as her eyes searched his. The yearning, the want, the desire were there, vibrant and tremulous . . . and so was the fear.
Morgan knew being vulnerable, baring herself to him, was costing her. “I know it would be easier if things happened to us when we were most prepared to deal with them. But we both know that’s not how it works. Things happen to us when they happen. The part that is up to us is what we do about it. I know what I want to do about this. About you. About us. Crazy or not, there already is an us. You know that, right? You do feel that?”
She nodded, but he could feel her tremble again in his arms. He wanted to hunt Teddy Carruthers down and wring the bastard’s conniving, soulless neck with his bare hands for causing her so much pain.
He wouldn’t get a better chance to pour his own heart out. And she needed to hear him before she made up her mind for good.
“So, should we walk away from the good things because the harsh things happened? Or . . . do we cling to the good things, and revel in them, because we so dearly know their value. I mean, otherwise, why the hell are we here?” He worked to soften his tone, gentle his own indignation on her behalf. “I want to revel, Kit. I want to revel in this.” His voice shook a little. “I want to revel in you.”
His gaze shifted from her big, vulnerable eyes to the quiver of her bottom lip . . . and he lowered his head, soothing her—and himself—in the only other way he knew how. He took her mouth in a kiss saying all the rest of the things he had no words for. He didn’t know how else to explain to her what they had and why it was worth fighting for.
She gasped against his mouth, stilled for a moment, surprised. . . then sank right into it with him on a long, keening sigh. He didn’t think, he didn’t pause, he didn’t second-guess.
He claimed.
Even the depth of the carnal kiss they’d shared before didn’t touch the connection they were making at that moment. It wasn’t slow, and it wasn’t tender. It was hot and hungry, no games, no holding back. It was a single kiss, but it laid them both bare. He took, he tasted, he plundered. . . and urged her to do the same. It was only the need to draw in air that broke the kiss apart.
“You know,” she said, fighting to breathe and speak at the same time, clinging to his shoulders to keep steady on her feet. “I think you missed your calling . . . as a trial attorney.” She managed to shoot him that crooked half smile of hers, standing there with her hair going every which way, her cheeks still streaked with tears, and her mouth looking like someone had just kissed it quite thoroughly.
His heart teetered right over that edge, and there was no hope of pulling it back. “And why is that?” he asked, his own voice sounding like gravel scraping on sand.
“Because, when you defend something you’re passionate about there’s not a jury in the world who’d deny you your desired outcome.”
He grinned, too, resigning himself to the fact that his heart was never going to straighten itself out and get back to a regular rhythm anytime soon. But if she kept smiling at him like that, frankly, he didn’t give a damn. “There’s just a jury of one I’m interested in swaying to my point of view.”
Kit reached up and brushed the hair from his forehead. . . and smiled. “Well”—she took a shuddering, shaky breath, but her smile didn’t waver—“I think you can consider me swayed.”
Morgan’s face split into a wider grin. He wanted to bust out a war whoop, swing her joyously around, dance under the moon . . . and take her right there on the sand.
“I’ve always thought your grin was mischievous bordering on wicked,” she said, not seeming at all put off by that fact. Quite the opposite, if he could be any rational sort of judge. “But right now, it looks downright fierce.”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked, taking in her whole face, her eyes, those streaked cheeks, that soft mouth. “Because you make me feel some pretty fierce things.”
She shook her head, and when her gaze drifted from his eyes, down to his mouth, his lips curved in a slow, lazy smile. He bent his head slowly, his gaze staying on hers until their lips met, and then he took her, opened her, reveled in her. The hunger was a slow, consuming roll, but just as ravenous. He slid his hands down her spine, closed his palms around her waist, then moved them down over the curve of her incredibly delicious backside, urging her closer until he molded her body to his.