I offer my hand. Jamie takes it. And like always, we offer each other a bracing, backslapping hug.
“Petruchio.”
My head whips toward the sound of Kate’s voice calling my name as she storms down the hall. My gaze skips past her to the open studio door, and the blood in my veins turns to ice. What did she hear? What has she made of it?
Kate tips her head to Jamie, says, “Morning,” then grabs my hand, hard and tight, and just keeps walking. I spin, following her as she tugs me down the hallway toward her room.
“Kate, I don’t know what you heard—”
“Hush.” She shoves open her bedroom door, rounds on me, gets a good fistful of my shirt, and yanks me down for a hard, bruising kiss. “I don’t need a word of explanation,” she says against my mouth. “I trust you, whatever it is. I believe you.”
They’re words I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear, how desperately I needed to know she meant.
“Kate,” I whisper brokenly, lifting her up, wrapping her legs around my waist, holding her so tight. “Listen to me.”
She kisses my cheek, my temple. “I’m listening.”
“Your family loves you. So much that they called me on my bullshit after I was an ass at Thanksgiving and told me to knock it off. As you can imagine, I didn’t take that particularly well.”
“Christopher, I told you, I don’t need—”
“I know you don’t. But I need.” Searching her eyes, I tell her, “I decided I’d keep my distance, let us cool off, wait you out until you left. But then you didn’t leave, and you broke my heart when you showed me how much I’d hurt you. I have never been so glad that I bought a bottle of Irish whiskey and that you drank a quarter of it, that I held you and put you to bed and you told me the drunken truth. But I’m even more grateful that now we don’t need outside forces or liquid courage to help us face our truth and be honest. Because, yes, it’s been messy, but this is what we have done since that night—we have been trying so damn hard to talk to each other, to see and understand each other, and I don’t want that to stop.”
I draw in a breath, brushing back a strand of her wild hair as I stare up at her, the woman I love so deeply. “And I want to do that because I love you, Kate.”
Her eyes flicker, filling with tears that spill down her cheeks. I lean in and kiss them away, before I meet her eyes once more. “Because I have loved you a hundred different ways for so long I don’t know when loving you began, just that I haven’t spent nearly enough of my life making sure you know it. I don’t expect you to love me yet, Kate. I know I don’t deserve it. But one day, I hope you’ll believe I’m worthy of your heart.”
She shakes her head, a smile breaking across her face like the sunrise filling the room around us. Fresh tears track down her cheeks and she wipes them away. “You won’t be waiting long.”
My eyes desperately search hers. “I won’t?”
“No,” she whispers.
Air rushes out of my lungs as I hold her tight and bury my face in her neck, breathing her in, barely able to believe this is my existence, that this isn’t some dream I’m about to wake up from.
Drawing in an unsteady breath, she lifts my chin until my eyes meet hers. And then she gifts me with the tenderest kiss. “I love you, Christopher Petruchio. With my whole wild heart. I love you so much, there aren’t words to explain it.”
Reaching behind me for the door, I push it shut, then walk her back toward the bed. “I can think of other ways you could explain how much you love me.”
Her laugh is smoky and bright. “Oh, is that right? Well, I can think of a few ways you could return the favor.”
“Katerina,” I murmur, dropping over her onto the bed. “We both know I will more than double the favors you give me.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge, Petruchio?”
“Hell yes.”
Hands fumbling for each other’s clothes, we tug them off, laughing when arms get stuck, ankles twisted, as we rush to get naked.
Without preamble, Kate presses me onto my back, swinging one long leg over me until she straddles my lap. Holding my eyes, she smiles, then bends, kissing me tenderly. I sink my hands into her hair and tug it loose from its confines, until it spills down her back, over us, into a curtain blocking out the world.
“Now,” she whispers, kissing me. “Please, Christopher, now.”
As she lifts her hips, I guide the head of my cock inside her, stopping her from lowering down on me. “Not too fast, Kate. You’ll hurt yourself—”