I smile against Josh’s mouth.
He takes my lips in his, kisses me, and in his kiss I can feel how much he wants me, how long he’s loved me. Then he says, “Gemma, if you don’t let me strip you down and make love to you in the next five minutes, you and I are going to have problems.”
Exactly thirty minutes later I’m warm and well-loved, curled in Josh’s arms in his bed at the convention center hotel. He strokes his fingers up and down the curve of my spine.
“You figured out I wrote all the quotes?” he asks. His voice is intimate and low in the soft confines of the down-comforter and the dimly lit hotel room.
I turn toward him and run my hand over his bare chest. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of touching him. “I found your journal in Ian’s office. I brought it with me.”
He gives me a half-smile, then returns to stroking my back.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything? Why didn’t you fight him?” I ask. I shiver when he places a kiss between my neck and my collarbone.
Then Josh pulls back and says, “Why would I? He took something I made and shared it with the world. He made people’s lives better. What more could I want? Money? Power? Recognition? If I wanted those things, it would stop being about making the world a better place and start being about me. That’s not who I am.”
He’s right. It’s not. He truly does just care about making the world better.
“But why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell me Ian was a thieving liar and that you loved me?”
His hand stills on my back. “Would you have believed me?”
Oh.
“No.” I had a lot to learn.
He starts stroking my back again.
After a moment of quiet I say, “You don’t have to cancel your tour, you know. It’s a big deal.” It bothers me that he’d give up such a huge opportunity.
He makes a low sound against the back of my neck. “Maybe you could come with me. It’s three months. Paris, Prague, Budapest. Imagine the trouble we could get up to together.”
I hide my face in the pillow and grin. Finally, when I’m able, I turn and look at him. “I like getting into trouble with you.”
After a moment he says, “Gemma?” His fingers play with my hair.
“Hmmm?”
“You love me.” His voice is low and raw and happy.
I nod. “I do. I really, really do.”
He makes a sound and then flips over and pulls me on top of him.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to say that?”
I shake my head no, then squirm a little until I’m settled comfortably on top of his chest. “How long?”
His eyes drift to my mouth and he smiles.
“Two years ago, exactly two weeks before New Year’s, I heard your laugh. I’d heard it a thousand times before, practically my whole life. But for some reason, that day it hit me. Right here.” He puts his hand to his heart. “That was it. I was a goner. I knew that I loved you, and it wasn’t something that would go away. It was for good. Then your mom asked if she could set us up for the New Year’s Party and I thought, yes. Say yes. But you— I bury my face in his chest. “Don’t say it.”
“You told the truth.”
I look at him. He shrugs. “So, I started working on becoming the man you’d want to spend the rest of your life with.”
My eyes widen. “The two-year sex drought.”
His lips lift into a half-smile. “It was worth it.”
I squirm on top of him and he runs his hands over my back.
“So, you didn’t love me as a teenager? Those drawings in your journal?”
He shakes his head and looks chagrinned. “No. I was just a horny teen. Sorry.”
I grin at him. “Don’t be sorry. I liked the Jell-O bit.”
He gives me a considering look. “Think we could recreate it?”
“Maybe.” But then I search his expression. “I need you to know. When all this started, I thought it was just about making a baby, that I didn’t need or want you, but…that’s not what it’s about. Even if it doesn’t work out, that’s okay. I’m just glad, I’m so grateful that I found you. That you’re here with me. That we could do this together. I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”
Josh nods. “I know.”
“You do?”
He gives me his life-is-my-playground smile and says, “You love me Gemma. You can’t help it.”