I nodded.
“As long as you remember what tends to happen when we close the door behind us.”
She smirked. “I know. And trust me, I’m prepared.”
I grinned as I pulled her inside and once the door was closed, I pressed her up against it, hearing her purse fall to the floor as she wrapped her arms around my neck and let me kiss her like I’d been dreaming of doing every day for the past two months apart.
She moaned as my hands squeezed all over her body, but when she tore away, she was laughing. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing here?”
I blinked. “Honestly, didn’t occur to me,” I said so earnestly it made her giggle.
But once I got myself together, and once she gave herself a look around my apartment, I went ahead and asked. “What changed your mind?”
Standing in front of my floor-to-ceiling window, looking that much more like an angel with the blue sky behind her, she looked at me. “You mean about seeing each other?”
“Yes.”
She wet her lips as I came close. “I talked to someone who made me realize I could never actually leave you.”
I laughed. “Holland?”
She shook her head. “The other one.”
I paused. Then squinted. “Cole?”
She nodded, making my heart beat a little faster, and with a soft smile, she told me all about the game in Pawtucket. Her conversation with Cole.
What he said about me.
I was so stunned I didn’t know what to say. I tried to dial back my excitement, my hope that this could mean something. That somehow, AJ had done it again. Bridged the gap between me and my sibling.
Take it easy, asshole. Don’t get carried away, I told myself.
But then she took something out of her purse and as soon as she handed it to me, I knew what it was. Hell, I’d picked it out sixteen years ago, before Dad and I mailed it over to Cole. I took one look all the videos in the camera roll before I set the box back down and cupped AJ’s face in my hands.
She broke into that big, beautiful smile of hers just before I pressed a kiss to her lips, and this time, I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Two months wasn’t a long time but without her, it was an eternity, and now that I had her in my arms again, I wasn’t letting go.
“I thought I could try,” AJ breathed hastily between kisses as I hoisted her up in my arms and wrapped her legs around my waist. “I thought I could turn it off, but I couldn’t. I don’t know how to stop thinking about you, Adam. Or loving you or wanting you. It’s not something I can do.”
“Me neither,” I murmured, my lips still locked on hers as I carried her into the bedroom and laid her on top of my bed.
There we go.
Maybe this bed’s not so bad after all.
In fact, with our clothes strewn on the floor, the whole place felt like home already.
“God, you don’t know how much I missed this,” AJ whispered once our bodies were flush against each other again. Heart against heart. Skin against skin.
“I think I have an idea,” I laughed as she wrapped her legs around me. “Promise me we won’t even try it again.” I savored the sound of her little moan as I sank myself inside her. “I told you once and I meant it. I can’t live without you, AJ. Not even for a fucking second,” I murmured, rocking into her, already losing myself inside her. “Promise me you’re mine forever.”
Her lips curved against mine as she answered.
“I promise.”
Epilogue
AJ