The Redhead Revealed

He looked at me now with tears in his eyes, and I saw once more what I’d done to him.

“I tried, Grace. I was so damn mad at you, but, Christ, I missed you, and this girl, she was so beautiful, and she smelled like coconuts, you know? She smelled like coconuts, and that reminded me of you, but they were awful coconuts—synthetic, and syrupy sweet, and not at all like my girl, and I just—I didn’t, I mean, I did things, but I didn’t…” he rambled on, so torn up inside.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to hear another word. I’d heard enough.

I came around the table and knelt in front of him again. I lifted his head so he’d look at me. He looked so very sad and so very young in that moment. I pressed my fingers to his lips to stop his words and leaned in. My heart was thumping wildly.

“I don’t care. I don’t want to know. Do you love me?” I asked.

“What?” he asked, his voice muffled through my fingers. He looked at me with wide eyes.

I chuckled lightly and removed my hand, cupping his cheek with my fingers. “Do you love me?” I asked again.

He was quiet for just a moment, and I couldn’t breathe. My world stopped in that instant. It could easily have been a lifetime as I waited for his answer.

“I do love you, Grace, of course I do. But—”

That was all I needed to hear.

I was on my feet and in his lap in a nanosecond. I pressed myself into his arms and kissed him square on the lips. This was my man, and I needed his mouth on mine—right now.

I pulled back to see him staring at me. “Then I don’t care what you did,” I explained. “They can cancel each other out. I don’t want to know the details. Please don’t ever tell me,” I said quickly, then forced myself on him again. This time his lips responded, and he kissed me hungrily. His hands found my hips and pulled me against him, pulling me home.

We kissed eagerly, passionately, and I forgot everything except his lips, the scratch of his stubble, and the feel of his hands on me. My fingers found his hair and dug in. I scratched his scalp, and he sighed into my mouth at the sensation.

I heard a scuffle, then a muffled giggle. I turned to see a few ladies from the hotel restaurant peeking in, but all but one immediately scrambled out the door. The one remaining blushed deeply.

“We just came to see if you were ready for your lunch, Mr. Hamilton,” she stammered, clearly feeling his star power.

I looked back at Jack, and he nodded to say it was my choice.

“I think we’ve decided on a little room service instead, right, George?” I asked, gri

“Whatever the lady wants.” He gri

An elevator arrived, just as the doors to the adjacent banquet room opened and dozens of women from the Greater New York Area Quilting Society poured out after their buffet lunch. And there they found their Super Sexy Scientist Guy groping an older redhead. Shocked whispers turned to swooning frenzy in less time than it took to blink. Phone cameras appeared instantly.

“Grace, we need to get out of here,” Jack whispered in my ear, trying to shield me from the cameras as we hurriedly stepped into the elevator.

I laughed out loud. Nothing was go

He responded without hesitation, kissing me back with equal force as the doors closed. The quilting bee took plenty of pictures, and I didn’t care for a second. This was my life, his life, our life, and we might as well get used to it.

Chapter 17

He held me the whole way up in the elevator, refusing to put me down. We kissed slowly and leisurely, exploring each other’s mouths again, with serious attention to detail. When we got to his floor, he swung me up onto his back and carried me piggyback down the hall.

“Wow, swanky digs, Hamilton,” I said as I took in his suite from my perch on his back.

“Nothing but the best for this guy,” he said, closing the door and locking it behind us.

“I’ll say,” I responded softly, laying my cheek against his shoulder and squeezing his waist with my legs.

He walked me over to a big chair in the corner and dumped me unceremoniously.

“Hey!” I exclaimed.

He settled himself on the floor in front of me on his knees, his hands holding onto my legs. His fingertips made little patterns on my thighs while he studied me carefully.

“We need to finish talking,” I said gently, tracing his cheekbones and jaw line with my fingertips. We seemed to need the physical contact.

“I know.” He sighed and laid his head in my lap.

I scratched his head.

He made Jack’s Happy Sound.

We sat like this for a while. Just being.

“Grace, I want to ask you something,” he said, his voice a little muffled by my thigh.

“Ask me anything,” I said. And I meant it. No more secrets, no more half-truths, no more keeping anything from him.

“Did you mean it when you said you thought we were in a little sex bubble? Is that really all you think we are?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

I sighed. “Look at me, please,” I said, and he turned his face upward.

“I was out of my mind when I said that. I do think we were in a bubble when we first were together in L.A., but only because everything was so fast and concentrated—and it was fantastic. Then I left. And we never got to see each other. There was never a normal progression to our relationship. Amazing, but not normal.”

It was his turn to sigh as he laid his head back into my lap. But I put my hand under his chin and turned him back toward me.

“Here’s what I realized, Jack. What’s normal? That’s one of the things I was concerned about—this need to be normal, to be defined. Is it normal for two people so far apart in age to fall in love? Nope, but we did. Now think about everything else. Neither one of us is living a normal existence. Everything about us—our lives, our careers—is the opposite of normal. And how amazing is that?” I said, giving him a light slap on the cheek.

He gri

“Yeah, fuck normal. I don’t want normal. All I want is you, George.”

He rose to his knees, bringing himself within kissing distance. “We still need to talk about some things,” he said, the green begi

“Yep,” I said, sliding down a little in the chair to get closer to my Brit.

“I want to hear more about this—what did you call it? Baby train? I want to hear about this baby train you may or may not be on,” he said, his hands slipping below me and hitching my legs up around his waist.

“Mm-hmm…” I snaked my arms around his neck as he lifted me out of the chair. He began to walk me toward the bedroom.

“And we need to have a very long talk about what we’re going to do if you get freaked out again,” he said, his eyes the color of the sky before a big, fat, Midwestern summer thunderstorm. In other words, really fucking dark.

I shivered a little. “I’m not go

He rolled his eyes as he held me above the bed, then dropped me. He stood back to look at me. His eyes raked me up and down, and I scooted to the edge of the bed, pulling him closer to me. I clutched at him, wrapping my arms around his waist and resting my head against his tummy. I inhaled deeply, breathing in that inherent Hamilton scent, and I felt warm and toasty instantly. I inhaled again, and he chuckled, bringing his hands to me, brushing my hair back from my face as I looked up at him. I rested my chin on his belt buckle and gazed at him as he traced his fingertips across my forehead, my eyelids, my cheeks, and finally my lips.