He’s home.
He meets me halfway across the room, barrelling into my arms and holding me as tightly as I hold him. My hand slides into his hair, and I probably squeeze him too hard, but I can’t make myself let go. He smells so fucking good.He’s here.
I don’t know how I’ll handle it when he goes on a real deployment, but that’s a problem for the future. Right now he’s home, and I don’t want to ever let him go.
I barely hear the receding footsteps of Riley leaving the room. All I can focus on is the feel of Lake surrounding me.
He lifts his head, and my mouth is on his in an instant. He opens for me, and my insides melt at the first touch of his tongue against mine.
“I missed you,” Lake breathes out, eyes closed and swaying into me.
“God, I missedyou.” So fucking much. More than I thought I would. I’ve never had an issue being away from past partners. None of them were Lake, none of them werethis.
He cradles my hand, eyes darting over my face like he’s trying to remember it or memorise it. “I wanted to surprise you,” he whispers. “Surprise?”
I’m not generally a fan of surprises, but I’ll make an exception for this. He can surprise me like this any day he’d like to.
I kiss him again because I have to, because it’s been too long since I could do this any time that I want to. He moans and presses hard against me. And then he buries his head in my shoulder, twining his arms around my neck and lifting up on his toes to get closer.
Fisting the back of his shirt helps to calm my rapidly beating heart.
He’s home.
I don’t know how long we stand like that. Forever. Time is irrelevant.
The timer goes off, phone vibrating in my pocket, and I’m forced to let go to turn it off. It’s cold where Lake is no longer touching me.
“What’s that?” Lake asks, peering down.
“Dinner.”
He holds my hand walking into the kitchen, like he’s as reluctant to let go as I am.
Unfortunately, he has to so I can get the casserole out. He doesn’t go far, leaning his hip against the counter. “I was worried I wouldn’t get back in time,” he admits.
So was I. I know it wouldn’t have been intentional and is vastly different than being left at the altar deliberately. We would have simply just postponed it. I was worried all the same.
“There’s a lot to get done for the wedding in just a week,” he says with a lopsided grin. “Good thing I like a challenge.”
“All that’s left is confirming the menu.” We’d picked out the food together before he’d left, but I’d needed to make a few changes due to seasonal shortages, and I didn’t want to confirm without Lake.
“Wait, really?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
His grin turns into a large, genuine smile. “You did wedding stuff for me,” he says as though I just solved world hunger for him.
“It’s not a big deal.” I turn away to get the bowls so he can’t see the flush on my cheeks. I love that it’s made him happy, but he doesn’t need toacknowledgeit.
He comes up behind me, placing his hands on my hips. “It is a big deal. Thank you.”
“I didn’t want you to have to worry about it when you got back.” I wanted to make sure that if he came home the day before, that we’d still be able to walk down that aisle.
“Have I told you lately how much I love you?” He rests his forehead against the middle of my back.
“Don’t think so.”
“I do. So much. I thought about you every day. What you’d be doing at different times. What you might be thinking. When you’d be asleep. What you’d be dreaming of. If you were thinking about me.”
