99 Percent Mine(94)

He takes my hand, twists my sapphire engagement ring straight, and puts his lips on mine.

My world turns gold.

Throughout my life, Tom’s been right there when I’ve needed him, his eyes narrowed in earnest thought as he assesses how to help me. Translate that to our sex life. I’ve never been able to test my physical limits with another man, but this one knows me, A to Z. Right now, there’s a screwdriver in his fist and I feel it against my back. It makes me smile.

He’s the hottest kind of capable.

Sometimes, when he’s especially inventive, my heart cannot keep up. He’ll ease off until our movements are languid, and he’ll hold me together until my system reboots and we can resume. And we resume plenty. He nearly kills me and that’s okay. I survive.

Sometimes I nearly kill him. That’s my favorite thing to do.

He breaks our lips apart to ask, “When are we getting your bed out of storage?”

I shrug and in response he bites down on my bottom lip until he feels the shiver shake my bones. It’s a little reprimand for dragging my heels on this decision.

We twist another screw into this lust. I feel a hand sliding up my back, tracing over the strap of my bra for a few shivering seconds.

“Most girls would be sick of being in a tent by now. Not you.”

“I wonder why.” I balance better on the balls of my feet to tiptoe higher. I put my hand into the hair at his nape and encourage him to move closer. “Tent sex is just ruining me for any other kind.”

“I’m serious, Darcy,” he sighs when I allow him a breath. Then we’re sinking back together, his tongue against mine. He tries to ease us into something slower. “Is this going to be our house? You just told me it was perfect.”

I end the kiss and look around, pretending to consider it. “It’ll shape up pretty nice,” is all I’ll say, covering the spike of fear inside. Tent life suits me. Am I the kind of person who can have a house forever? What would that feel like? When I inherited the cottage from Loretta, it had a built-in expiration date.

Ever since Tom put this ring on my finger, he’s been challenging me to address my fear of forever. My heart condition has been so stable, I’m beginning to think I can.

“Do you think I can do it? Live in the one place?”

“I do.” He leans me against him. “I think we both can learn together.” I remember belatedly that he’s got just as much to feel insecure about. He’s moved around working on houses for years. I feel his hand put the screwdriver into the tight back pocket of my shorts. Then he squeezes hard. I like his grunt.

I try to explain myself. “It’s my wanderlust. I think I was a circus worker in my previous life. I just love pitching that tent somewhere new.”

“This can hardly count as travel.” He gets that worried look in his eye. He’s paranoid that he’s stifling my international travel aspirations, but he just doesn’t get it. I’ve already seen every corner, bar, and back alley. The novelty of these micro-journeys from house to house has been a delight.

One day I’ll take Tom to all my favorite places. It’s one of my daydreams, working out the short list. It’s okay that we need a few more flips done first.

He kisses my cheekbone. “Every time we buy a place, I think: This is it. She’ll love this one. This is our house. And then you sell it.” He’s melancholy now. “Two houses ago, you could have had a home studio. I saw your face when you stood on that Italian carpet. Then … sold.” He sighs.

“We’re house flippers.” I smooth his hair down with my fingernails. “You got me addicted. I don’t want it to end.”

“Is that what you think will happen? That it will end?”

“You’ll move to the next flip and be in the tent without me.”

“You know I can’t do this without you. We’ll choose houses within travel distance and be home every night.” Patiently, he hammers down every concern I have. “Choose a house.”

“Why?” I’m just playing along. I know why by now.

“So I can make it your dream house.”

“I think that tent is everything I ever wanted,” I reply. We stare into each other’s eyes and the edges of the room start to darken and fade off. “I once had an impossible thought. I decided that if you were mine—” I swallow my words when he tips my jaw to one side and begins to kiss my neck. It’s not fair. He knows I short-circuit from that.

“If I was yours,” he prompts with a smile in his voice.

“I decided, if you were mine,” I try again, and my voice is a raw, husky outward breath that hardens his body and sharpens his teeth on my skin, “I’d sleep with you in a tent, all night, as the wind howled and the rain fell. To be with you, I’d sleep on the ground for the rest of my life.”

“And I told myself that I’d build a castle for the princess.” He moves closer still, and the stepladder wobbles under me. I don’t even feel a moment of fear. He’ll never let me fall. “That was what I promised myself.”

“I don’t need that,” I argue, but he cuts me off.

“I promised myself that when I was just a kid. Back when all I knew how to use was a hammer, I decided that one day Darcy Barrett would walk into a house I’d made and she’d look at me like …” He trails off, and his expression turns wry and wistful. “Actually, how you’re looking at me now.”