Chapter 14
"Peter, you don't understand," she cried. "I've lost the weight, but I'm still fat. I've got flab-"
"You've got sleek legs that run on for miles," he said. "And I look forward to the day all those yoga stretches you've been doing pays off, cause I've got plans for those legs."
"My arms are bigger than yours."
"Then it's a good thing looks are deceptive. Cause I've got the strength to be the man that you need."
"Stretch marks."
"Don’t tell me you don't want to lick every one of my stretch marks until I'm a puddle at your feet," he whispered sexily. "I've got plenty of them for you to work on."
She closed her eyes tightly, hunching her shoulders closer together in uncertainty. "I'm not ready for a relationship. I don't have the confidence to deal with disappointment right now."
"Emille, you have the confidence to French a rock star in front of the man you love. You have the confidence to taunt me by kissing four men in one night."
That sounded so bad when he put it like that.
"You've had your fun being the Bachelorette. Now it's time to end this game and give me my rose." She snorted a laugh and ended up coughing. Patiently, Peter patted her back until it was over.
When her throat stopped itching, she said, "You never showed an interest in me. Why are you saying this all of a sudden?"
"Because I'm horny as hell after watching you do those Reverse Crunches tonight."
"Oh. My. Lord." She covered her face. "You saw that?"
He nodded. "And the Spiderman. But it was really the Pulsing Lunges that got me." Peter pulled her hands away from her face. "By the time you get off the treadmill, you're all sweaty, and those baggy sweats you wear can't hide a thing once they get wet. And then you go to the rowing machine. I used to think you did it for strength, but now I'm convinced you do it to relax your body after your run. Maybe get your head in the game for strength training. I do that with pull-ups."
Emille was looking at him suspiciously now. "Peter, was tonight the first time you've come to the gym while I was there?"
"I've be there a few times," he shrugged, his cheeks heating up adorably.
"Have you been stalking me?"
He twisted his lips to the side. "Silent support. But that's not the point. Admit you love me, so I can go inside. And you can go home and think about what I need in a woman."
"How am I supposed to know what you want? If I'm your rose, then I'm perfect the way I am, right?"
"The rose was perfect in the garden, but outside the garden it became a tree that never stopped growing. I don't want a woman who is just a flower among flowers. I need you to realize that in my eyes you are more magnificent than any other flower. I want you to see yourself the way I've always seen you."
She gulped. What could a girl say to something like that? "Peter, what do you really want from me? This is so sudden, and you're asking me to think about things I haven't considered in-" she stopped.
"Far too long," he murmured. His fingers interlocked with hers. "It's not sudden, Em. Nothing about us is sudden. But, what I want from you is you wearing high heels when we go out sometimes, because you know it drives me crazy; and you know your legs stop traffic," he said, nodding in agreement to Ryce's earlier assessment. "I want you to get pedicures, cause I'm obsessed with you, and I'll suck on your toes if you'll let me." The way he said 'suck' caused a visible shiver to run through her. "I want you wearing low cut blouses on a Wednesday night, as my reward for slaving over a hot stove for you. I want you to crawling out of my bed in the mornings, naked and sore, cause whatever you demand I am the only man in the world who can provide. I want you to continue working out and being active, cause you laugh more - and I think it's hot when you check yourself out in the mirror and like what you see. I want fifteen years of me waiting for you to come to your senses," he said wryly, "to be worth fifty years of making up for lost time. I want to 'recreate' with you for the rest of my life."
Like a moth to a flame, Emille pursued is gentle tugs.
"The only thing I'm asking from you is that you be my sexy lover, cause you already are my loving friend."
"Friends to lovers never work," she said weakly.
"But, if we weren't friends, how could I learn to love you the way I do?" he whispered against her lips. "Through think and thin, Emille, I love you. Say, yes."
She froze. "Yes, to what?"
Peter stilled, then a curious, thoughtful look came over his face. "Yes. Yes, you love me," he laughed.
She wondered if it was a realization or a demand. "I'm thirty-five years old, Peter. If I'm going to bother with getting myself into a relationship with an older man, I have some demands of my own."
He ignored the dig at his age. "Like what?" he asked, still smiling.
"If I'm going to dress sexier, then you are too. I like you in tight shirts and tight jeans. Stop dressing to make yourself look bulkier. Your body's built like a high tension wire, and that gives me all sorts of kinky thoughts."
"Kinky thoughts?" he teased. "You have those about me?"
"Every time you make me rub tanning oil on your back on a Sunday morning," she said, no longer afraid to show her attraction to him. "Also, while I understand the nature of your job, I want one weekend night a month with you. You and Jack are just going to have to figure out a way to make that happen."
"I'll talk to him."
"All this time I thought you were a chronic bachelor. But, if you've been in love with me for fifteen years, or however you've got your numbers figured out," her voice was hoarse with emotion, "it's about damn time you married me. And I'm not going to settle for a five year engagement. Either you want me now, or you don't want me at all." Emille raised her brow arrogantly. He wanted her. For the first time in her life, she felt like a woman who wasn't begging man to be with her. It was liberating. He had made her liberated simply by wanting her - tummy fat and all. Needed her, he'd termed it.
"I want kids." She waited for his reaction. A man who wanted kids didn't make it to forty and not even have one. She expected him to say something, but all she got was a look that said, That's a given.
This should surprise him though. "I want a job."
"Come again?" he blinked.
"You don't work on a regular schedule, but right now I do. Once we're married, I want you to hire me to manage some of those properties of yours, and I want a salary comparable to the one I have now. That way, I can crawl out of bed with you late every morning, and work into the evening, so I'm not tired when you get home halfway to dawn. I want to see you."
"You've thought about this?" he asked, amazed.
She snorted. "Not as a real possibility, but you're not the only one with fantasies."
"Anything else you want while you're at it?"
There was nothing else she really needed. Except… "Yeah. I want a pool in my back yard."
He pulled her tightly into his arms, laughing against her cheek. "Done. Done. Done. Done. Done," Peter repeated, kissing her face. "Are you going to put me out of my misery and tell me you love me now?"
"Why should I tell you what you already know?"
"Because I'll never believe it until you say it."
She pulled away, cupping his cheeks in both hands. Staring directly into his eyes, she said, "Peter, I have loved you for years, but I never thought a man like you would ever fall for a woman like me. When lately you started showing an interest in me, I thought it was only because I'd lost the weight. That if you only knew what I was hiding beneath my clothes, you'd stop looking at me the way you sometimes do. The way you're looking at me now." She kissed him. "I'm glad you waited to tell me that you love me. I'm glad that we've had these years together to prove that you're not ashamed of me, so I shouldn't be ashamed of myself." Her expression was wry as she admitted, "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad I crushed table number twelve."
"Don't ever do that again," he said, his face serious, but his eyes danc
ing.
She sucked her teeth and slapped his chest. "Anyway, if it wasn't for you picking me up the way you did, and insisting I go see a doctor for my ankle, I don't think either of us would have gotten here. You've shown me love, respect, tenderness and support. Even when I was at my worst, you treated me as if I was at my best." Her eyes burned with tears. "You've always expect that of me, Peter. Once I was able to see your version of me, I learnt to expect my best, and stopped trying to bury her. The woman you want is me. I am that woman who has always wanted to step out of her shell and take chances. I am taking chances now. I want to be your wife, Peter. I want to be the woman you love, and date, and marry, and build a life with. Not Gwyneth or anybody else like her."
Knocks sounded against the windows. They turned their heads to see who were interrupting their private moment. Four male faces grinned in at them.
"Y'all finally sorted your thing out?" David asked what they'd all come to find out.
Peter nodded.
"Is Ryce spending the night?" she asked under her breath.
Peter took his sweet time thinking about whether Ryce would be spending the night at his place or with Jack or Nate. Finally, he nodded. "Yeah." His tone implied he wasn't to pleased about that. "But he'll be coming back to town for Austin City Limits. How would you feel about tying the knot on your birthday?"
Emille froze, then swung her head to look at him. "So soon?"
Peter winked at her. "I'm giving you a month to practice holding that Standing Separate Leg Stretch for more than thirty seconds."
She frowned, mouthing, Standing Separate Leg Stretch? Then an image of herself bent over in the yoga pose came to mind, and she burst out laughing. "Oh, Peter! You are bad. Very bad."
"That's the best view in the house," he said unabashedly.
He was stilling grinning when he kissed her. Emille was getting used that. That he kissed her with laughter. It was nice.
When he climbed out of the car, the guys crowded him, teasing him about busting a forty year old man making out in a car like a teenager. As Emille drove away, she caught a glimpse of her favorite men in the world and wondered if she knew four women who she could pull together in a month to stand with her groomsmen as they saw her wed to their best friend.
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Coming Soon! The Wright Choice, due out the end of September, 2013.
About the author:
Josephine Kent is in the wiser part of her twenties, single, and a bit cynical, but, she's an ever hopeful, romantic. Having yet to meet Sir Lasting means that he could be anyone. While Josie's not necessarily hunting for Mr. Lifetime Worthy, she knows that the world is full of awesome guys, and is enjoying the view as she wonders just what her own Prince Keepim might really be like; and what type of woman could really love him.
When she's not falling in love with the guy she writes about, the truest loves of her life daily lunch dates with Bob Ross, cooking pretty inedibles, and six rentable kids called nephews. In her dreams she is a great mathematician, a budgeting diva, a do-it-yourself maven, and a bohemian fashionista. In reality, she's numerically dyslexic. She always ends up spending the money saved from budgeting. Her do-it-yourself fails are often epic. And she still hasn't mastered the fine art of mixing prints.
If you'd like to contact her, please do so at
[email protected]. She'd love to hear from you. Also, if it doesn't take up too much of your time, a review on this work would be very much appreciated.
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