The Last Letter(83)

“He hugged me!”

“Not that I blame you. He’s a good man; he really is. He’s spectacular with the kids, and kind, and dependable, and really easy to look at. Add in his knight-in-shining-armor complex, and you were bound to fall for him.” She took my hands.

“He hugged me,” I whispered.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. He’s already made it clear that’s off the table, and I can’t blame him. I’m not exactly baggage free, you know. Two kids, one who is sick, a business to run, huge trust issues. I’m not really what someone like him would look for.”

“And what exactly is he like?”

“Pretty perfect.”

Ada sighed and dropped my hands. “Okay, well, you feel free to stay in here and pout. But just in case you feel like acting your age and doing something spontaneous, Larry and I are taking the guest room for the night. So we’ll be here. All night. And into the morning. You know…just in case.”

“I do act my age.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t, and you never have. You’re not old, not damaged, not a dried-up spinster. You’re twenty-five. So yeah. I’m going to bed.”

I stood in my office, unwilling to move but also unready to take off my heels. That felt a little too much like defeat.

YOU ARE ENOUGH.

I stared at Chaos’s words, chanting them in my head. He was right. I was enough, and I was done being a passive participant in whatever my relationship was with Beckett.

Glancing at Maisie’s handmade diploma, my eyes lingered on Beckett’s choppy handwriting. What was it with military guys and their worse-than-doctor handwriting? His was just as bad as Chaos’s, and that was saying something.

I’d lost Chaos before I could act on my feelings, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Beckett.

I left my office, snatched my keys off the entry table, and walked out. I could have sworn I heard an “attagirl,” coming from the guest room window as I climbed into my car, but when I looked back, the room was dark.

“You are enough,” I mumbled to myself the entire time I drove to Beckett’s cabin. His lights were on, so at least I wasn’t waking the man up. I parked the car, and then I swallowed back the slight taste of panic that flooded my mouth, straightening my back as I walked up his steps.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I set my knuckles to the door before I could chicken out, but in the precious seconds it took for Beckett to answer, I started to grow some very chicken-like feathers around my heart.

“Ella?” he answered, flinging the door open wide. He was still in his suit, but he’d loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button at his throat, revealing a small section of skin that I was suddenly desperate to kiss. “Is everything okay? Is it Maisie?”

“Maisie’s fine,” I told him, both annoyed and loving him more because he thought of her first.

“Oh good. What’s going on? Come on in.” He stepped aside, and I walked into the cabin, heading down the hallway. Where before it had been cold and impersonal, now it had pictures that Colt and Maisie had drawn hanging in various places, like those I found myself staring at on his fridge as I wandered into the kitchen. He’d adapted his “neat and orderly” and let us “complicate” the very space he lived in. Silly, but the pictures calmed a tiny bit of my rampant fear that Beckett would disappear one day.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked slowly.

“No.” I spun around to find him leaned back against the counter. He’d ditched the suit coat on our walk in. “You took me on a date.”

“Yes.” He gave me a sexy little smile as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt, and I wanted to kick him.

“You took me on a date. Dinner, dancing, romantic little walk. Then you took me to my door and hugged me. Like I’m your sister.” I stalked forward, and his expression changed, a look of hunger flashing before he got it under control.

“I did. Guilty on all counts.”

“I’m not your sister, Beckett.”

“I’ve noticed.” He sucked in a deep breath and put his hands on the counter, his knuckles turning instantly white.

I brought myself flush against him, nearly groaning at the press of his hard muscles under my fingers as I rested my hands on his chest.

“Well, maybe dates have changed in the last seven or so years, but in my limited experience, they end with a kiss.” I rose up on my tiptoes until my mouth hovered just under his.

“Ella.” He said my name like a plea, but for what? To give us what we both wanted? For me to back away and leave him to sleep with his honor?

“Tell me what you want. Because I want to kiss you. Even if it’s just this once.” I closed the tiny gap between our mouths and brushed my lips over his. How could a man that hard have such soft lips?

His body turned to stone against mine, every muscle locked. Under my fingertips, his heart started to pound.

Growing bolder, I kissed him softly, lingering on his bottom lip. Then I retreated just enough to look into his eyes. The rest of him might be a statue, but those eyes said everything he wouldn’t, and he was a second away from—

His mouth slammed against mine, and the rest of him came alive. One of his hands tunneled through the back of my hair while the other wrapped around my waist and tugged me even closer.