“I’m so sorry, Flynn. For everything. For calling you names. For being your friend and then taking that friendship away because I was a coward. For not standing up for you when I should have. For not being stronger,” I babbled. I was a snotty mess. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, disgusted.
Flynn didn’t respond to my apology. He continued to watch me as I cried myself out.
“I know you’re sorry, Ellie,” he said when I had calmed down.
“Huh?” I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly.
“I know you’re sorry, Ellie. You weren’t very nice to me. You made me feel angry and sad and I cried a lot because of you. But now you make me smile. You laugh and I laugh and we have fun together. You want to be with me and I want to be with you. We belong together,” he said with complete conviction and an emotion I hadn’t heard in his voice before.
“You think we belong together?” I asked weakly.
Flynn nodded, dropping his eyes to his fingers that were tunneling through the sand. If I wasn’t such a mess, I’d be thrilled by this huge step for him. He wasn’t recoiling. He was purposefully touching the beach beneath him.
“You make me feel good, Ellie. I make you laugh. We’re happy together. That’s all that matters.”
And he was right. That was all that mattered. We had each other.
I loved him. He had given me a life I never dreamed I could have. He had given me connection and belonging and acceptance.
He had become my world.
I leaned over and kissed his cheek and he ducked his head bashfully.
“Can we go back to the hotel now? I want to get a shower. I’ve had enough sand,” Flynn stated, getting to his feet, rubbing his hands on his pants as he tried to get rid of the grains sticking to his palms.
“Let’s go,” I said, getting to my feet.
As I walked behind him, letting him lead us back to the stairs where we had left our shoes I knew that I would follow Flynn Hendrick anywhere.
Flynn had gone straight to the bathroom after we returned to the hotel room. I heard the shower turn on and I knew he’d be in there for a while. Flynn was not a quick clean kind of guy.
I had wiped Murphy down with a towel and patted his bed so he wouldn’t jump up on ours. He listened obediently; curling into a ball and promptly began snoring his big, doggie snores.
I opened my tattered suitcase and pulled out a pair of pajama shorts and tank top. I needed to shower. I was feeling pretty gross from the sand and salt. But I had to wait until Flynn deemed himself clean enough to get out.
I thought about him naked and wet only a few feet away and I felt myself flush and my body began to buzz. It had been a long time since I had sex. It wasn’t something I had ever spent a lot of time thinking about.
But now, as I fell deeper and deeper in love with Flynn, I found that I thought about it…all the time.
What I wouldn’t give to open the door and climb into that shower behind him but I knew that was absolutely out of the question.
I looked over at the large bed that we would be sharing. We had slept in the same bed for weeks now and I had carefully kept a lid on my sexual desires. But it was becoming harder and harder to do that. Going slow had never been my strong suit. And I was starting to feel if I went any slower I’d be dead.
Sex had only ever beenjustsex.It had never meant anything. Sure when I was a kid I thought that by sleeping with Shane and a few other faceless guys that they would care about me. That I wouldmatter.
Even when they had ultimately rejected me after getting what they wanted, my pride had been hurt more than anything else. Because I may have let them into my body but I had never let them into my heart.
But Flynn had dug down deep. I knew that if he ever rejected me, moving on wouldn’t be an option.
I wanted to give him my body. I wanted us to connect physically just as we had connected in every other way.
Ineededit.
Icravedit.
My mind started to go a million miles a minute, thinking about Flynn touching me. Taking off my clothes. Kissing every part of me.
By the time he came out from his shower, steam billowing into the room, dressed in his flannel sleep pants and usual T-shirt, I practically pushed passed him to get into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.
