Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
I shook my head slowly. “Maybe later. Ibuprofen—not what the doctor gave me. I don’t want to be woozy and out of it.”
“Okay,” he said, dropping his head to press a kiss to my forehead.
“Is it really over?” I asked.
He caught my hand in his and kissed my fingertips. “The bad part. The bad part’s all over now. The rest is just beginning.” He pressed another kiss into my palm, and I felt the smile spread across my face, like I was radiating light.
“I love you so much, West. How did I not know all this time that it was you?”
He rubbed his lips against mine. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out. But I’m not sure it matters. We know now. And now that I know, I’m keeping you.”
“Are you going to move into Heartstone?” I propped myself up on one elbow, surveying my room. It was a suite, but not one of the bigger ones. Still, considering it was in the middle of a house the size of a castle, it was probably big enough for the two of us.
“You want me to?” he asked softly.
“Definitely,” I said. “I don’t want to wake up without you. I want you to be the last thing I see when I close my eyes at night. Do you mind? I know you love your house.”
“Not as much as I love you,” he said. “And the house isn’t going anywhere.”
I reached up to stroke the side of his face. “After the will is over, maybe we can move in there?”
He kissed me again, longer this time, slower—the tip of his tongue tracing the seam of my lips, teasing them apart only to lift his head and smile down at me. “It won’t be that long. Just a few years. We can find a tenant or do a short-term rental thing.”
“Works for me,” I said. “As long as I get you, I don’t really care where we are.”
“Me either,” West said. “Home is with you. Heartstone, my house—it’s all good, as long as you’re with me.”
My heart was so full I thought it might explode. I kissed him, laughing as he rolled onto his back.
“Watch your arm,” he murmured, easing me on top of him, reaching up to cradle my breasts, stroking his thumbs across my nipples, sending sparks shooting through every nerve in my body.
“I’ll be careful,” I promised. And I was. Careful enough that I didn’t feel a thing from my arm, any pain was lost in the pleasure of being with West.
After, West carried me to the shower, re-bandaging my arm with gentle hands. I’d always known he had kindness in him, but if I’d known when I was a teenager just how much he had hidden under his hot-guy exterior, the crush would have killed me.
Then I thought of how bossy he could be and knew that all things happened at the right time. I wouldn’t have been able to handle West when I was younger. The first time he tried to tell me what to do, I would have bashed him over the head with a crate of beer bottles.
“Are you nervous?” he asked, and I knew exactly what he meant. Today was the day. I’d brought home two plastic milk crates of bottles filled with the new fall brew.
“Nervous? Yeah,” I said as if it should be obvious. “And terrified. What if it’s—”
He shook his head, cutting me off before I could spiral. “It’s going to be phenomenal, Ave. But if it’s not, you’ll try again. You’ll get it. He was fucking with you mostly because he was jealous.”
That stopped me in my tracks. I brushed my wet hair back off my face and stared at him. “Jealous?”
“Of course,” West said.
I was momentarily distracted by the flex of the muscles in his back as he pulled on a dress shirt. We weren’t going black tie, but Thanksgiving wasn’t casual in Heartstone Manor, especially not with so many of the older generation present.
I still wasn’t pulling out my hair dryer—wasn’t sure if it actually worked—but I was going to wear a dress and put on mascara. In my world, that counted as formal.
“Why would Matthew be jealous of me? He still knows more about running a brewery than I do. I’m getting there, but—”
“Ave, you can learn how to do what Matthew does—and you are, you have. You just have to put it into practice. That’s where all the awkwardness is coming from. You know how. Now, you just need to do it. Once you’ve run the place by yourself for a while, you’ll know how good you are at that. But the other part, the beer itself?” West shook his head. “I don’t know that that’s something you learn. Like what Finn does in the kitchen—he has a feel for food that’s just different. Like you do for beer. Its instinctive. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m not like that with anything.”