It’s the heat between us. The wet storm. A palpable yearning roused and magnetic. I’m breathless, feeling Loch stirring hard against me, but he won’t cross the line while I’m dancing delirious with desire.
My lips tickle the shell of his ear. “Are you going to kiss me?”
Votives twinkle on tables. Guests murmur. Shot glassestink. The sun has set, and the DJ’s received the romantic memo for the night. It’s the perfect moment.
“Remember the first night I did?” His fingertips caress the small of my back.
“Yes.” I sigh into the scent of his inked neck—tobacco and sweet vanilla.
“You wanted to go slow because you needed to know me.”
“Yes. But we didn’t go slow; we fell in love.”
“I’ll always be in love with you.” He pulls back, his hand cupping my cheek. “So you need to know something else about me.”
My pulse climbs.
I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward with him, but… “Okay.” I steel myself.
“I’m so sorry for my lies, Alena. But please know our truth...” He pauses, holding my gaze. “The bully you told me about? The one who hurt you? It was me that day on Folly Beach. I was there with my brother Nick, throwing a football, and once I realized what that asshole did to you, after you ran away crying, I beat the shit out of him. I blinded him. I almost killed him.”
My heart stops. “What?”
He cups my other cheek. “I wrote you a letter that day because I couldn’t talk to you. You weren’t supposed to know who I was then. But I needed to say it. How he was so fucking wrong because you are so fucking beautiful. And it took me years to go back to that beach, and when I did, I saw you again. Rescuing that little boy in the riptide. Do you remember that day?”
I can’t forget it. The boy’s mom was screaming for help. She couldn’t swim, not like I’d been trained, and…
“Yeah.” I gape, shocked. “You were there?”
“Fate.” He nods. “I was there, and I swear I fell in love with you that day because you were so fucking badass and beautiful. Just like your mom. The woman who made me love Slurpees. I’m so sorry I had to lie to you, and so fucking sorry I hurt you. But our love is the truth, Alena. How many times does Fate have to prove it?”
The lump in my throat makes it hard to breathe, to talk. “Loch, I?—”
“And yes,” he swears, “I want to kiss you, but if I do, I’m not stopping until the day I die. You’ll be mine again because I’ll always be yours. No chances. No lies. No secrets. Just Fate and our love because it’s all we fucking need. Please come back to me, Alena.”
Our feet. The world. The music. It all stops as I search his eyes, welling with tears. They match mine.
“Kiss him!” my dad shouts, and I laugh, locked to Loch.
His name. His love. His life. Nodding, I whisper, “Kiss me.”
“Like anyone can fucking stop me,” he growls before granting my wish.
He holds me so close, I cry into our kiss, my happy tears salting our lips, his tongue seeking mine, his inhale claiming my exhale.
When it’s love, it only takes a moment to reunite because forever awaits.
Shrilling whistles and claps explode.
It’s obvious as hell when Loch takes my hand that we’re going back to his room. They assume we’ll fuck the night away, but first, he needs to know something about me.
No more secrets.
It makes me gently nudge him to sit on a plush Grecian blue chair by the balcony doors of his lavish white-marble suite, open to the night ocean beyond.
“I need to tell you something,” I say, straddling him, wanting to look him in the eyes for this.
There’s a moment of silence, my heart racing, before he grabs my hips, urging me. “I have more to tell you.”
