Wild Love (Rose Hill, #1)(105)
There are rocks beneath me.
Air bubbles above me.
And Ford in front of me.
His hands are on me, wrapping around my waist and pulling me to the surface before I even have time to kick my legs.
“What the hell, Rosie!” he barks at me the minute we breach the surface. He rapidly moves us to a place where he can reach the bottom, though I still can’t.
His cheeks have turned a dark pink and his eyes are glowing, the way they do when he’s mad. “Are you insane? That scared the shit out of me!” His jaw pops, and I give him a small smile in response. “Actually, don’t answer that. I already know.”
My soaked clothes are heavy, so I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. His warm arms wind around me, and his hands grip my ass. “I left all safe bets behind, Ford. I don’t want a safe relationship. I don’t want a safe love.” His eyes dance between mine, and I forge ahead. “I want messy and snarky and…” I peek back over my shoulder at the old barn, transformed into a new office, before turning my gaze back on him. “I want a wild love. I want you, even though you make me want to push you into the lake and break your computer and throw paint all over your pristine floors. I want this feeling I have with you where it hurts to breathe when you get too far away, where my skin itches uncontrollably when you look at me. Where thinking feels overrated because we both know nothing and no one will ever feel like this. Like us.”
He nods and I watch one lone tear trickle down his already-wet cheek, mingling with the water that’s already there. Like it never even happened. But I know.
“So I’m going to be mad at you for a few more hours. And then we’re going to carry on. I’m going to be chaotic, and you’re going to be meticulous. I’m going to drive you up the wall and you’re going to insult me in that way that feels nothing like an insult and everything like saying I love you. And we’re going to do this thing together.”
I cup his cheeks and give his head a little shake. “Because who the hell else would put up with me?”
Then he drops his head to my chest and murmurs, “Putting up with you is my favorite thing to do.”
At 11:59 p.m., I hear a soft knock at the bunkhouse door, and when I swing it open, Ford is standing there. One side of his mouth quirks up in a smirk while he casts his gaze down to the glittering Rolex on his wrist, stacked with beaded bracelets. Like those somehow make him more salt of the earth and less I buy tens of millions in commercial real estate for shits and giggles.
We say nothing for several seconds, and then he holds up his wrist, showing that the clock has officially struck midnight before crossing the threshold of the house.
He steps right up to me, gripping my chin and murmuring, “It’s officially tomorrow and I’m fucking sick of being without you,” before dropping his lips to mine. “I have a couple of things I need to tell you.”
“Okay,” I murmur between kisses. “Hurry and tell me so I can put your mouth to better use.”
“I’m sorry,” he breathes out. And I can hear the ache in his words.
Then, “I’m giving you half of Rose Hill Records.”
That has me pulling away to look him in the eye. “No.”
“Yes.”
“You really have to stop waving your money around like this. It’s obnoxious.”
“Rosie, that business”—he points back toward his property—“is worth absolutely nothing right now. There’s no client list, there are no contracts. There is some equipment that could easily be sold and two people who work really damn well together. Please. Be my business partner, and if the place goes under… well”—he rakes a hand through his hair and chuckles—“then I guess you’re going down with me.”
I swallow. Going down together. Feels like we already have. We’re too intertwined to let the other one go. So I nod and scoff a watery, “Please, I’m exceptionally good at my job. I’d never let that place go under.”
When my eyes land back on his earnest face, his gaze traces over my features, searching for a silent affirmation. And he must find it because he nods.
I nod back.
Then we spend all night clinging to each other in that bunkhouse, and he doesn’t even complain about my pet mouse.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
FORD
If someone had told me six months ago I’d be standing in the living room of my parents’ summer house with Rosalie Belmont’s head tipped against my shoulder while my daughter and ten of her friends watch WWE wrestling, eat pizza, and drink root beer floats, I’d have told them they were out to lunch.
“Look at our little storm cloud,” Rosie murmurs, her hand at my back, thumb hooked beneath my belt. “Hanging out in the same living room we used to. Isn’t this where you and West played that mean Ouija trick on me?”
I cover my mouth with a fist. I shouldn’t laugh over the memory of Rosie and a bunch of other girls screaming. But it really was funny. West snuck away and hit the breaker when things were tense. Frightened teenage girls ensued.
Rosie went from screaming in terror to hugging me. I held her tight and was glad West wasn’t there to see.
“I don’t remember that trick,” I lie. It was definitely us.