Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(79)

“I love you, too. I love you, too.” The words were rambled sweetly into his neck as he stared up at the sky, a man thanking God for his fortune. “I want to stay right here with you. I don’t want to leave.” Her sobs jabbed his heart with sharp little swords. “I’m sorry I even tried.”

“Okay, beautiful. It’s okay.” Jasper stroked shaking hands down Rita’s hair and back, reassuring himself she wasn’t a hallucination. With the goal of sitting up and gathering her in his lap, Jasper attempted to move but found his legs were paralyzed, clinging to the road like melted plastic. “No, it’s not okay, actually. You damn near killed me. I’m not recovered yet.”

She smoothed hands up and down his chest, as if trying to warm his heart into jump-starting. “Keep saying things like that. I deserve them.”

That got his blood flowing, mostly out of protest. Jasper moved into a sitting position, releasing a heavy sigh when Rita wrapped her limbs around him and clung. “No. I don’t want you feeling guilty. I don’t want you to feel anything but glad you came back to me. Not now, not ever.”

Her lips moved over his jaw, his cheeks, leaving kisses. “I never really left. My heart stayed here the whole time.”

“It must have crossed paths with mine. It left town when you did.” He pushed open her lips with his own, groaning at the perfection he’d thought never to feel again. His Rita. “You brought it back. You’re…staying?”

“Yes.”

Don’t flatten back onto the road again. Hold fast, man. Make sure this is the best thing for Rita before you let the relief completely take over. “Your family—”

“My family.” She seemed deep in thought a moment. “They know I need to be here. And I know they all need to be someplace else. I’m not sure where yet.” Her sweet breath was a thing of dreams coasting over his face. “They’ll find it. The way I found you. Hopefully it won’t take them driving away to realize they can’t live without it.”

A dam burst inside Jasper, finally allowing relief to rush in and fill all the cracks her leaving had caused. “I’m not making presumptions, Rita, but you’re moving in with me.” Another fierce trading of kisses. “All right, I’m making presumptions. I need you walking my floors. Need your touch on everything I owned before, the things we’ll own together after today. Need your touch all over me, too. I need so many things and they all begin and end with you.”

God, he loved the way his words visibly affected her, made her eyes go soft. Loved knowing that the constant ache behind them was worth every second. “After thinking I might never see you again, I’ve never been more sure I can’t go a day without you,” Rita breathed. “Take me home.”

Jasper stood, taking Rita with him. “I’ll take you to our home.” He kissed her on the silent street beneath the lamplight. “I’ll read you the specials until you fall asleep.” Another kiss. “I’ll tell you I love you between each one.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered. “Did I mention that?”

He slung her up into his arms, heading for Buried Treasure. “Did you?” His throat constricted. “I’m feeling a bit of amnesia coming on. Might need to hear it again…”

She chanted it against his neck the whole way home.

Their home.





Epilogue



Aaron watched through the giant back window of the Suburban until Rita became a speck, growing smaller and smaller beneath the streetlights of Hurley. Goddamn. He really hadn’t thought his sister had it in her. Kind of made him wonder whom else he’d underestimated or discounted recently. When Aaron accidentally made eye contact with Belmont in the rearview mirror, he feigned great interest in the contents of his briefcase. Although, yeah, not really feigning, right? He’d read the initial entry from Miriam—the one that had taken them on this heinous ride through hell—but hadn’t gone beyond it. Mostly due to the journal being in Rita’s possession since—

Liar. Quit being such a fucking liar.

No one wanted to go through their parents’ final thoughts on this earth and have confirmed what had been so obvious all along. He was the only one in the family who had been born without a heart. Their mother had never been able to hide her discomfort with Aaron’s ability to lie, to cajole, to win at all costs. The ease with which he moved from one girl to the next, no discernable shame concerning relationship overlaps. What would Miriam think if she knew why he’d been fired from his job working beneath the senator?

Her lack of surprise would have been the stuff of legends.

Which is why he wasn’t opening the journal. Not today. Not in twenty years. Being a great liar gave him the ability to pad the reality of how soulless he was against the backdrop of his siblings. Peggy was the bleeding heart who had such a hard time saying no that she’d yes’d four proposals so no one’s feelings would get hurt. Belmont’s still waters ran deep—deep enough to keep everyone the hell out. Even if it hadn’t always been that way between Aaron and his brother. They’d even been friends. Or maybe he’d just imagined the whole thing—it sure seemed that way now.

Aaron cleared the discomfort from his throat. At one time he’d thought Rita and he were most similar among the Clarksons, but he’d never experienced the kind of emotion it took to sprint a quarter mile toward anyone. Shit, he’d never gone past a second date. So here he sat, minus a sister and still an asshole. What the hell was he thinking, crashing the campaign trail in Iowa? He could very well be crucified.