When he finally pulls from my body, he takes his place behind me and pulls my back into his body, but he’s not finished with me yet. He presses his mouth to my shoulder and starts kissing gently across my shoulders and back.
He makes his way to my far shoulder, leans to my ear, and with a deep steadying breath, he speaks to me. “I want you to stay. I’m not going back to the city. This is where I grew up, and this is where my family is. I know it’s my home, but I want it to be yours too…”
This is my dream. The corners of my mouth pull up at his words, though he can’t see my expression.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
Even in my contentment, a twinge of unwelcome worry plagues me after the last month apart, but he reassures me easily as he pulls me to face him. “I’m never letting you go again. I promise. I never wanted to be apart from you. I just wanted…” His head is shaking slowly from side to side, and his brow is furrowed. “I just wanted what was best for you. And I didn’t think that I was.” His eyes are sad as they regard mine.
“What’s changed?”
He watches me, saying nothing. He’s debating his words, or perhaps building the courage to speak them, but after many long seconds of silence, he responds, “The last month has been … awful. I think my sister was ready to ship me back to New York, and quite frankly, I’m not certain she wouldn’t have tracked you down herself if you hadn’t shown up today.” He’s smiling gently now. “I’ve been miserable away from you. And oddly, my sister said nearly the same thing you said to me. If I love you, it’s my job to give you everything I want for you, and not let the guilt I feel for how I’ve failed you get in the way of doing that … and I do love you. She called me a chickenshit for leaving you.” Now he’s smirking, but his eyes are gentle and honest. He watches me intently for many more seconds. It’s apparent he’s not yet finished speaking, and I hold my tongue, wanting nothing, including my mouth, to stand in the way of his words. “I’m glad you came today. It forced me to see that you were okay. I’ve imagined for so long that I’d destroyed you by the things you were forced to endure at Trimbles. And, I think I needed to see that you came out of all of it okay. Hurt, sad, upset, maybe even heartbroken, but not broken. I needed to see that. You’re still intact … at least proverbially.” He finishes with another smirk.
With my mind set at ease, and my future locked securely to his, I relax, and so does he. Rain is starting to fall gently outside, and Derek rises from the bed and walks to the sliding wall of windows, pulling them wide open. The scent of rain and earth filter in. I’m given the most amazing view of his backside as he stands watching the rain. He’s so beautiful. Lean and tight. His bottom begs to be touched and caressed. I want to massage every muscle I can see. He turns and catches me staring at his backside, and comments with a wry grin, “Watcha thinking about?”
“That your bottom is just as impressive as the rest of you.” I smile sweetly.
“Impressive, huh? I could say the same of you.”
He returns to bed, and I get what I want. I touch the firm cheeks of his bottom as he lies on his stomach watching me. I caress the strong, tight muscles, and move my hands over the backs of his thighs and back up to his bottom. As I trail my fingers up the cleft between his cheeks, his muscles jump and flinch instantly before he relaxes once again with a chuckle. When I’ve finally had my fill of his backside, he pulls my body back down to his, and we stay there in one another’s arms.
Derek leaves me only long enough to call Morgan to set dinner plans for the next night and reassure her that, yes, I’m still here, and, no, I’m not going anywhere.
She apparently doesn’t believe him, and as he approaches me with his phone in his outstretched hand, he comments with an exasperated note to his voice, “She wants to talk to you.”
I spend the next couple of minutes speaking to Derek’s sister, and by the time I hang up, I’m convinced we will definitely be friends. She’s coming for coffee the next morning, and as she ends the conversation, it is with one final stirring comment. “We have so much to talk about, Ashton. You deserve answers, and I promise I’ll give them to you.”
As I disconnect and hand Derek the phone, he watches me cautiously. I’m sure I look dumbfounded. I am dumbfounded. He continues to study me, but he finally sits nervously on the side of the bed by my side.
“She says I deserve answers… What does she mean?” And I look to him with questions wrinkling my brow.
He’s nervous but resigned. “It involves Morgan too much for me not to let her tell you herself. But I promise you, no more secrets. You will know everything you want to know about me.” And I know he’s telling me the truth. I trust him. Whatever his secrets are, they have never been meant to hurt me, only to protect me, however impossible that might have been.
After I call Liz to invite her and Frederick to dinner the next night, we finally settle back in to spend nothing but time together until the next morning.
Chapter 29
“I’m so sorry, Ashton. This is my fault. All of it.” She’s beautiful even with tears in her eyes. Morgan has the same dark and intense gaze as Derek, but she is not in the least bit intimidating.
When Morgan arrived an hour ago, we settled outside on the expansive deck with our coffee, and by the time we’d finished our first cup, I’d discovered I’d been right on the money with Morgan. I will definitely like her. She is an elementary school counselor in nearby Burlington. Her husband, Charles, whom I will meet at dinner this evening, is a lawyer. It is clear she adores her husband as much as I adore Derek. The way she keeps looking between Derek and me, regarding our interaction with a small smile on her face while we sip our coffee, is precious to see. She truly enjoys seeing us together, and it puts me instantly at ease with her.
But as we start in on our second cup, and she suddenly apologizes for some reason I can’t begin to fathom, she has me at a complete loss. What could this woman possibly have to apologize to me for? I’m shaking my head, wanting to assure her there’s no reason to be upset. I’m finally happy, complete for the first time in so many long weeks, but she is in pain. It makes no sense, but as I try to reassure her, she stills me with a hand on mine. She needs to be heard, and I know the mystery I’ve waited to unravel for so long is at a near end.
“I was just so young and stupid.” She smiles through her tears at the long-past memories. “You have to understand, Ashton, Derek and I come from a very influential and wealthy family. They’re good people, moral people, but there were … expectations, so many expectations.”
I look to Derek, and he reaches a hand to mine but says nothing. He’s intent on giving Morgan this time.
“When I told them I wanted to go into social work, they … hmmm … let’s just say they freaked out. They’d always thought I’d be a doctor, lawyer, even an architect like Derek, but social work just wasn’t what they had in mind.”
I can imagine them both—young, beautiful, smart, and capable, having the weight of the world on their shoulders from a family that expected far more from them than any parent should. But how does it relate to Trimbles? Moreover, how does it relate to me?
“I, on the other hand, was no Derek. Even at twenty-five, Derek was determined, and already successful and popular at his firm in New York. He fit our parents’ mold without ever having to try.”
I look to him with wonder in my eyes. My Derek fit the mold? The once dark and terrifying ruler of my universe wasn’t always the rogue?
Morgan continues. “I was impetuous and quick to strike out at them. I might have been a bit brash in my younger years…” She trails off again with a resigned shake of her head. “Don’t get me wrong. My pursuits were noble enough, and my interest in social work was valid and true, but I didn’t always handle my family in the best way. Which is to say, we fought … constantly. Stubborn as ever, I left, or fled from them more like it. I was cut off; I had nothing until my twenty-third birthday when my inheritance would be paid out, and I had never worked a day in my life. I had already been accepted to NYU, and while Derek was happy to let me crash with him when I arrived in New York, I was just as good at fighting with him as I was with my parents. And that’s when I met Mr. Grayson.”