Where We Belong (Carolina Rebels 6)

That seems to completely break his resolve as he stands and carries me to his bedroom. We fall onto the bed together and Collin stops for a moment. His mouth parts, but no words are said. This moment feels impossibly huge and life-changing. The air we’re breathing seems to be electric and on the verge of lifting us up to float around like it does. “I’m going to marry you one day, Julie.” I don’t know if I gasp or stop breathing altogether. “I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“You’ve never given up on me, and you’ve even rescued me a few times. I won’t give up on you. If we break, we’ll figure out a way to put us back together and we’ll be stronger. Let’s focus on the here and now for the time being.” I wrap my arms around his neck. He allows me to bring those lips back to mine.

Tonight will officially change the dynamic of our relationship and I can’t wait to experience every second of that change.

Waking up with a naked Julie sprawled over my body does crazy things to me. It’s proof last night actually happened and I didn’t dream up the best night of my life. Finally being with Julie was pure perfection. It was better than anything I’ve ever experienced. We fit together seamlessly. I could live off the memories of last night for the rest of my life and be as satisfied as a man could be without having the real thing.

Marmalade saunters into my room and jumps onto the bed. I might not like the cat, but there’s something relaxing about him. As I scratch under his chin, Julie turns her head and kisses my chest.

“Morning, Collin.”

“Good morning. Sleep well?”

“Yes. You?” She glances up at me with a bit of concern.

“No complaints from me. Are you hungry?”

“Let’s stay here for a while longer.” She manages to cuddle closer. “You seem very perky this morning.” Her leg moves down slightly and bumps into my erection.

I laugh. “You aren’t allowed to call my dick perky. It’s offensive to all of mankind, and yes, that includes women.” My hand leaves Marmalade to rest on Julie’s thigh. “It seems unbelievable, doesn’t it? That last night happened, we’re both here and naked, and we’re talking about my perky dick.”

Julie laughs a little as she draws circles on my stomach. “It seems like the world finally righted itself and started turning in the right direction,” she replies softly.

She’s right. It feels like that. How can things finally be on the right track with Julie, but feel like they’re fracturing when it comes to Cal? There are dozens of questions I want to ask him. Why didn’t he tell me about what happened with her? Why did he do what he did? What else is he keeping from me?

Then again, I can’t get too high and mighty in that respect. I don’t tell him anything about Julie and he doesn’t know about my latest medication change. The latter, however, isn’t something he has to know. That’s my decision to make. Which is probably what Cal thought. But if I thought I (almost) knocked a woman up, my brother would be the first to know.

“You were just a happy man,” Julie says, lifting her head to look at me again. “What happened?”

“I was thinking about Cal.” There’s no reason to deny it, so I admit it.

“We’re supposed to be free of him for a few days, remember?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m going to make breakfast.” With a little bit of reluctance, I leave her in bed and hopefully, leave my thoughts behind as well. Getting out of bed is a bit of a bad idea, though. I want to crawl right back beneath my sheets instead of getting dressed and searching through my own fucking kitchen for what I need. “Jules!” I shout. “What the fuck have you done to my kitchen? I can’t find anything!”

The irritation I feel right now is unreasonable. I know so, but controlling it feels beyond my reach. This new medication might not be a good fit, but I try to wait the full two weeks for it to get in my system good before saying anything. Unless I have a drastic reaction, of course. But wanting to slam cabinet doors closed and open drawers just to slam them closed again because my new lady is staying with me for a little while and has already fucked up my system sounds like an overreaction.

“What are you looking for?” Julie asks as she walks into the kitchen wearing some slinky-looking black robe.

“My little griddle. I want to make pancakes. I need my whisk too. Who gave you permission to rearrange my kitchen?” I snap.

She opens a cabinet I hadn’t checked yet. “I didn’t mean to,” she replies softly, but firmly. “I forgot where things went and you weren’t here for me to ask.”

Fuck this. I’m not waiting my two full weeks. I haven’t felt like myself since I started and it’s obviously not helping me. Julie places everything I need on the counter. She’s about to walk away from me, but I grab her wrist and sigh. She’s the last person who deserves to be treated the way I just treated her.

“I’m sorry, Jules. Will you get this started? I’m going to call my psychiatrist.”

“Yeah, of course.” She kisses the corner of my mouth and walks around me while I head to my room and close the door behind me.

A perk to being a pro athlete with an insane schedule is that I don’t always need an appointment with my psychiatrist. He’s an ass, though, and I say that in the nicest way possible. He already forced me to make an appointment to come in soon, but he’s going to be adamant I come in now that I’m wanting yet another med change.

After waiting a few minutes, I’m able to talk to him and tell him what’s been going on since I started the new medication.

“We’ll try something else, but I want to see you this week,” Dr. Gressley says.

“What the fuck for?”

“Because that’s how these things are supposed to work and I happen to know you’re on a bye week. I can tell a lot just by looking at you. You’re making an appointment,” he tells me.