It feels like I come forever. Wave after wave after wave.
He is the tide, and he carries me out to sea.
And what must be minutes later, I pull out of Colin and fall onto the mattress next to him. I’m staring at the ceiling, waiting for my heart rate to slow to normal, when he climbs on my chest and kisses my lips.
“How did you get paint on your forehead?” he asks as he tries to wipe it away.
I laugh. “Shelby, it’s everywhere.”
“You should see these sheets,” he replies with a sweet smile.
“I’m keeping them forever. Framing them. We’ll put them in an art gallery and call itMake-Up Sex: Oil Paint on Egyptian Cotton.”
Colin laughs. “Oil paint and cum.”
I lift my head and grin at him. “Shakespeare, did you just saycum?”
With a blush, he hides his face in the crook of my neck. “Yes, why?”
“Say it again,” I reply, holding him close.
“What?Cum?”
“Wow, I’ve really corrupted you, haven’t I? When I found you, you were a proper English gentleman; now you say thingslikefuck meandcum. What would your mother think?”
“She’d think I found myself a vulgar Scotsman who makes me happy, and she’d be right.”
“Well, right now, this vulgar Scotsman needs to get you into the shower before this paint gives us both a nasty rash. Then, you are going to eat something and get some rest.”
“So bossy,” he mumbles before climbing from my chest.
“I’ll show you bossy,” I reply before smacking him on the ass and shoving him out the door.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Declan
Colin and I have to scrub each other for over thirty minutes in the shower to get it all off, but there are worse ways to spend half an hour.
Once we’re both as clean as we can get, I tug him into my arms and hold him under the stream. As glorious as this day has been so far, I have to remember that Colin had to do something extremely difficult, and I wouldn’t blame him for having some conflicted feelings about that.
As much as I don’t want to talk about Pierce Michael Hall ever again, I have to at least ask.
“How are you feeling?” I mumble against the side of his head.
“To be honest, I feel terrible,” he replies sadly. “I think he did love me, deep down, and I don’t like to hurt anyone.”
“I know you don’t,” I reply, squeezing him tighter. “But I’m proud of you for making a tough decision and doing what you want.”
He pulls away and stares into my eyes. “He’s too cocky for his own good. This was all his idea. Thinking he could challenge you. And I didn’t fight him on it.”
“Shelby, I gotta know. Why did you agree to have the weddinghere?”
He twists his mouth for a moment as he thinks. “I told myself that you wouldn’t be here. I told myself it was a form of closure. But I think deep down, I knew…”
“Knew what?” I ask.
“That it would bring me back to you.”
