“You’re moving in with Nick Rogers.”
“Yes.”
“I told you—”
“That he’ll fuck me and leave me? I think it’s pretty clear that’s not the case. I’ll get you the new address.”
“Okay. I get it. You want me to back off. And I will, after I saybe careful,Faith.”
“I’ve done a lot of that all my life. It’s not worked out so well. I’ll see you in two weeks.” I end the call and face Nick, both of us settling elbows on the island.
“You sold another painting,” he says, warmth in his eyes. “You’re going to be famous before you know it.”
“I don’t want to be famous. It’s about being good enough and as is the case in many careers, money is one of a number of validations. I’ve made eighty thousand in a week, Nick. From my painting. That’s crazy good.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “It is. You told Josh you were moving to San Francisco.”
“Because I am.”
“What about here?”
“What about it?”
He snags my hip and walks me to him. “The minute we arrived here, you tensed up. I don’t like what this place does to you, but we’re both going to like what I’m about to do to you.” He scoops me up and starts walking and doesn’t stop until he’s laying me down on the mattress, and his big body is over mine.
“Now we celebrate. You sold another painting. And we won the war.”
“Are you sure we won?”
“Yes. I’m sure we won.”
“Why do I feel like there is more?”
He rolls us to our sides, facing each other, his leg twined with mine. “There is more. More fucking. More loving. More us.”
“Because you think you—”
He strokes hair from my face. “I know I love you, Faith.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
“I love you, too.”
“Then there’s more. There’s always more. But whatever it is, good or bad, we do it together. Say it.”
“We do it together.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Nick
More.
That word stays with me as I make love to Faith, and even afterward as we dress in casual wear—Faith in jeans and a V-neck blue t-shirt that shows off her necklace, which she keeps touching. I like that she keeps touching it, as if she’s remembering me giving it to her. As if she connects me to her art, and since she loves her art so damn much, I’ll say, paint me, baby, any damn day.
I dress in black jeans, boots, and a black t-shirt that reads:Lawyer—Let’s just save time and assume that I’m right, which gains me the laugh from Faith I’d been looking for. Because her laugh is sexy as fuck and damn addictive. Like the woman herself.