2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series) Read online

  “So am I,” he said, pressing against her from behind to show her just how serious.

  “I don’t have time for this right now,” she snapped, a final effort to fight his powers of persuasion. She pulled away from him—like ripping off a Band-Aid, the quicker the better—cradling her things in her arms and heading for the bedroom.

  “You really need to chill out. Your flight isn’t for hours,” he said, following her and leaning against the dresser drawer she needed to get into.

  “I don’t want to do this last minute.” She grabbed her suitcase from under the bed, a full-size suitcase for one night because she had certainly learned her lesson about packing extra clothes when traveling to Nekoyah—fool me once.

  “Will you do me the last minute?” he asked.

  “I’ll do you when I’m good and ready.” She turned to him. “Now move.”

  Hands up in a show of submission, he moved just far enough out of the way that she had to squeeze against him to get what she wanted.

  She opened the drawer and grabbed what little was in there, turning to her suitcase.

  “Hold on a minute. This stays right here.” He pulled the red thermal union suit out from among the more feminine clothes. “You don’t need it in New York.”

  “But it’s cold—”

  “You can have your lingerie, but I’m not going to have you wearing this for any other man but me,” he said firmly.

  She felt her nipples harden with the intensity of his gaze, thinking of how she liked to cuddle in the fabric and how he liked to wrap his whole body around her. The way the neck was hopelessly large and scooped down, exposing enough of her chest that within moments of slipping into it he would pounce on her, trying to slip it back off.

  “Fine,” she relented gruffly, though she was completely touched. She grabbed the union suit out of his hand and tossed it back in the drawer.

  “Are you almost done?” he asked hopefully.

  “You know, I saw Drew this morning,” she said in answer, trying to change the subject from sex, not just to distract him but herself as well. “You never said anything to her about us?” she dug.

  “No.” He sounded disinterested.

  While she was relieved that her meltdown was on the down-low, she couldn’t help but wonder… what if they hadn’t made up? When would he have shared that with Drew? Or anyone? Or would he just let people assume what they would when she no longer came around? Would he erase her so fully that she would never be spoken of or thought of at all? There was that simmering feeling inside again—the same one that had boiled up on Friday. The one that was quick to point out how matter-of-fact Fynn was about… everything.

  “Did she happen to tell you she was pregnant?” Now she was just baiting him for some kind of reaction. Trying to get a rise out of him beyond the waist.

  “Excuse me?” His voice level and calm, no shock or excitement at all, perhaps a touch of bemusement actually.

  “Just wondering.” She shrugged her shoulders and began organizing the things in her suitcase. He seemed imperturbable.

  “She told you she was pregnant?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “So you’re just floating a storyline? You ever think of working for the tabloids?”

  “I just had a hunch and since you are tighter than a steel drum with information, I figured I would ask.”

  “Well, the answer is no. My sister has not mentioned that she is pregnant… probably because she isn’t pregnant,” he said definitively.

  “Good to know,” she said, trying to be just as unflappable, although she was quite certain she was right. She’d had some recent close encounters with the pregnant kind and all signs pointed to positive.

  “What else did you do today?” he asked, sighing with force at the certainty that he was not having sex anytime soon.

  “While you were working?” she pointed out, bristling a bit at the thought that she had taken a day off of work to come here but he had still gone to work bright and early. Obviously building furniture and cabinets didn’t allow for a day off—much like doctors were always on call, woodworking was an intense industry. He was done before noon, so she couldn’t be too mad, but she liked to submit the fact that she had never once mixed work and their time together.

  “Yes,” he said evenly, not getting the point.

  “I shopped. Bought the makings for a fabulous dinner. Pined away for you,” she added, fluttering her eyelashes coyly.

  “You’re cooking dinner?” he asked, turning slightly green.

  “No, I bought the fixings for you to make dinner.”

  “Oh!” he chuckled. They both knew that she wasn’t good kitchen material. Even having her do prep work was dangerous. She had grated her fingers while shredding cheese, sliced her thumb while dicing onions, and burned herself whenever she got within two feet of the stove. No, she didn’t belong in the kitchen. Thank God Fynn could cook a small menu rotation or they would starve.

  She zipped up the suitcase, satisfied that she had remembered everything, and then turned to him. “I’m ready to go.”

  “You look a little chilled,” he said, worry in his voice.

  “I’m fine—”

  “I think I need to strip you down and cover you with a Fynn blanket,” he said huskily, pulling her against him.

  “But what about dinner? We need to eat early.”

  “You are my dinner.”

  -13-

  “Oh my God, Fynn, wake up! I have to go!” She jumped out of bed, only vaguely remembering getting into bed in the first place. She hadn’t had a sip of alcohol and she still had only a hazy recollection of how she ended up between the sheets. That was how good the sex was. She remembered being up against the dresser at one point and then on the floor, but the bed?

  “Come back here,” he moaned into his pillow.

  Catherine flopped down on the edge of the mattress, reaching underneath the bed, trying to find her socks, her bra—her anything. When she felt a strap she yanked triumphantly, her bra whipping up into her face like a slingshot. She slipped it on and hooked it and then went fishing for her panties, groaning loudly to remind him she was still here and still panicking.

  “Babe, it’s… what is it? Four-thirty?” he asked, squinting at his alarm clock. “You’ll never make it.”

  “I have to try. I can’t just go back to bed and forget that I have a life to get back to in New York.”

  No answer from the bed.

  She stood up and whirled around, facing his already drifting form, feeling incensed that he didn’t give a crap that she had to go! Now! Was this just about sex? Was she spending all her time and money just to get screwed? She could get screwed in the city for free—even get drinks and dinner too. Maybe she was barking up the wrong tree with this whole long-distance sextival thing they had going.

  Magnus came skulking into the room. “I wish you could drive,” she humphed at him, and he looked back at her, appropriately shameful of his evolutionary deficiencies.

  “Where the hell is my underwear?” she groused. “Fynn!”

  “What? What? I’m up.” He lifted his head, eyes bleary.

  “I’m going to miss my flight,” she enunciated clearly.

  He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, rubbing his face. “God, you’re like some kind of drug.”

  “What?”

  “What you do to me,” he said.

  “Don’t,” she cautioned, holding a hand up. She wanted to keep her mad. She didn’t want him throwing out lines that made her melt. She could feel her resolve and her body beginning to liquefy.

  “Come here,” he cooed, reaching out and grabbing for her hand. “I wanted to give you a proper goodbye. Something to remember me by.”

  “Sweet,” she said coldly, in no mood for humor involving sex secretions to remind her of him.

  Undeterred, he continued, “I love your hands, you know that?” He caressed the one he had captured.

  “I don
’t have time for—”

  “I love the way they feel and—”

  “Fynn,” she warned, eyeing the clock.

  “There is just one thing miss—”

  She yanked her hand away, grabbing her jeans that had been slung over the footboard and shoving her legs into the leg holes. “I have to go. My plane…. I can’t keep doing this,” she said, dancing around, trying to button them, careful to avert her shit-brown eyes from his crystal blue ones. He even has good genes that I can’t offer a relationship.

  “It’s ridiculous,” he agreed.

  “I can’t keep track of the time zones on my watch. It takes me all week to figure out how to change back the time after you set it for me while I’m here,” she moaned, yanking on her turtleneck sweater, pissed off. Usually her misgivings didn’t show up until she was back in New York. Right now she was still supposed to be on ecstasy time.

  He chuckled, always seeming humored by her utter ineptitude in life, the universe… everything. He stood up and went to her, reaching for the neck of her sweater and folding it down properly, carefully pulling her hair free. “I can always set it for you before you leave,” he noted.

  “That’s not my point, Fynn,” she said darkly, hating that he was always pushing her off her mark and lulling her into this whole thing all over again.

  “So then what is it? Is it the sex? Because you know I’ve been studying up on that—going to strip clubs, hookers, trying to up my game.”

  “Fynn,” she warned again.

  “I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s going on,” he said plainly.

  “You should know what’s going on.”

  “I should?” he asked, bemused.

  She huffed, figuring his emotional incompetence wasn’t worth anymore breath than that.

  He stood there dumbly, waiting, a wry look on his face that she was being one of those pesky “girls” again.

  She stared him down, frustrated that he couldn’t seem to see any problem here. Of course there’s no problem here. Not for him. He goes about his days like he always did and then sex flies in on the weekends for free. Why would any guy have a problem with that? Finally she just blurted it out. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Ooh, well I can take you to bed and take care of that in a jiffy,” he said with a wink, holding out his hand.

  “No, Fynn,” she whined. “I’m tired of living out of a suitcase… on both ends.”

  “That’s why I gave you a drawer—heck, you can have the whole dresser.”

  “I don’t want the dresser, Fynn,” she said, exasperated at his practical answers for a philosophical problem.

  “I see.” He nodded his head intellectually like she’d just brought up a worthy point.

  “This whole thing is just too much. It isn’t working,” she continued.

  His lips were a grim straight line, eyes trained on her. “No… it’s not,” he said finally.

  “What?” she choked out.

  “You’re right. It isn’t working.”

  She was shocked. This whole thing had been his idea in the first place! What the hell did he have to agree with or complain about anyway? He wasn’t the one being packed in with the masses in coach and hurtled between two worlds every damn week!

  “So you feel the same way?” she challenged, hurt. She wanted him to finally see it, not agree with it. If this was how he felt, he should have said something earlier. Saved her time and money. Instead he took advantage of an easy lay—a woman who melted into a puddle at his feet, often at the mere sound of his voice. Probably took great pride in thoroughly screwing me over one last time.

  “I absolutely agree with you,” he said with a swift and certain nod of his head to punctuate the point.

  “Well, I guess that I should get—”

  “The rest of your stuff.”

  Are we finishing each other’s sentences and breaking up in the same breath? What is happening? Is this payback for my dumping him? She felt like this was some kind of awful out-of-body experience she was having. Sure she’d started this conversation, but it was stress-induced. She was going to miss her flight! She kind of thought he would be understanding and come up with solutions for making this whole long-distance thing easier. Maybe he would offer to come see her every other week or even just once in a while. But there were Magnus and Cara and others who depended on him. She knew that. Plus, Nekoyah was their place. Where they started. The few times he’d come to New York it was just… weird. Their relationship seemed foreign in the city. But at the first teensy weensy bit of complaining he was ready to wash his hands of her?

  “You might want these,” he offered, dangling her underwear in front of her.

  She jigged her hips the slightest bit, feeling the chafe of denim. Yup, I forgot to put on my panties. Brilliant! She snatched them from his grasp and shoved them in her pocket, unwilling to admit that she had dressed out of order; it was a choice. Besides, she certainly wasn’t going to let him have a parting peek at her hoo-ha.

  “Well, this is all of it,” she said with as much conviction as she could muster, pointing toward her suitcase. Now that she had her panties, the only thing left was her union suit. Maybe she should make a grand show of grabbing that too, just so he knew she was leaving for good and she would be wearing it for other men in the future (not that other men would find it sexy).

  Fynn’s eyes were burning right through her, smoldering. Oh my God, I’m never going to see him again. She’d never thought of the additional ramifications of a long-distance relationship. The long-distance breakup didn’t leave room for running into each other—accidentally. No drive-by’s or bump-into’s. If this was over, it was completely over. The lump in her throat—her heart—throbbed.

  “Exactly,” he said. “You’re going to need to get the rest.”

  She was too hurt for mind games. “What the hell are you talking about?” she snapped.

  “The same thing you’re talking about.”

  She choked on her bewilderment. Coughed once. “I guess that’s that then.”

  “So, it’s a yes?” he asked, life dancing in his eyes.

  “What do you mean a yes?”

  “You’re moving here permanently?”

  Her lips were already pursed for a less than savory question about his mental state—he was acting nuts. That was her job.

  “What?” She stopped there, shaking her head to clear it of everything but his words. This she’d never seen coming—daydreamed it, imagined it, tried to put both her feet there in her mind and walk around in it… but to hear him actually say it?

  “Are you moving here?” he enunciated slowly and clearly and so loudly that she couldn’t help but to hear it this time.

  “Are you really asking that?” she demanded. Her heart had already slid back into place but now her stomach was aflutter, moving up toward her lungs and threatening her ability to breathe.

  “I’m asking a lot more than that,” he said grimly.

  She gulped. You need a kidney? A liver? Out with it! she wanted to scream.

  “Catherine Marie Hemmings will you—”

  “Hold on a second, leave Catherine Marie out of this,” she said, waving her alter ego—the ninny—away and giggling nervously, wondering if this was how it was supposed to be, the entire moment dreamlike, complete with the floating feeling and the inability to move quickly.

  “Excuse me,” he said formally. “Catherine, will you watch my dog while I’m out of town next week?”

  “I will—” She froze, sifting through the words, searching for the question that had to be there somewhere—the question. That’s what he’d been building to, certainly. It couldn’t be dog-sitting. She’d had one other false alarm in the proposal category before, when a guy she was dating a mere month dropped to a knee on the sidewalk at Rockefeller Center and she quickly let him down easy so as not to embarrass him in front of all the ice skating tourists. Turned out that he’d dropped his toothpick from dinner out of his mouth an
d abhorred littering—conscientious little fucker.

  To be mistaken again? Twice in a lifetime? In a decade?

  “So?” he prodded.

  She spoke slowly and clearly. “You want me to move in so I can watch Magnus?”

  “I want you to move in and watch him,” he clarified.

  “Oh… well, that just makes it so much better,” she said sarcastically.

  “What do you think? Otherwise I have to line up Mr. Hall, and you know what happened last time when Magnus broke out and found the riffraff and brought it back with him,” he chuckled, coming toward her and wrapping his arms around her. “Who knew that I would fall for the riffraff.”

  She pulled out of his embrace and gave him a sour look that told him he was dangerously close to the edge right now.

  “Are you worried about living together before marriage?” he asked, like he’d just realized the ramifications of such a choice. “After the last several months and… well... everything we’ve done, I just assumed that you’d be game.”

  “Game? Really? Is that what you assumed?” Now there was an annoying buzzing in her ears, her anger humming.

  “Of course, if it’s a problem—”

  “Oh, it’s a problem alright,” she said, her tone steely, impervious to his boyish grin and those damn eyes. She didn’t care about living with a guy before marriage, just this guy who wanted a live-in caregiver for his dog—one with sexual benefits.

  “We can take care of that too.”

  “Take care of what?” she asked, wondering if there was no end to his cocksure attitude.

  “We can make you Mrs. Trager.”

  “But—” She stopped. Hardly the proposal she had imagined and yet the words poured over her like liquid butter and made her toes curl with something close to ecstasy. Mrs. Trager. God that hit the spot.

  -14-

  When Catherine came to she was on the bed, laid out, and Magnus’s face was just inches from her own as he sat dutifully watching over her, or more likely waiting for her to do something for him. Considering his proximity, she had a sneaking suspicion that the dream she’d had that she was getting a facial was likely more a slathering in dog saliva.