This is real.
This issoreal.
But Stone isn’t. He doesn’t know who he is, and it’s wrong of me to allow this lie between us.
I pull back slightly, breaking the kiss. My lips are swollen and want more. All of me wants more.
Stone presses his head to mine. “What’s wrong? Not enough tongue for you?”
I burst into laughter. “No, no.” My chest cracks as we stare at one another.My God.Who is this man who can wreck me so easily?
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
“If it’s anything other thanThat was the best kiss of my life, you can keep it.”
A sad smile pushes through my face. “It was an amazing kiss. But it’s something else.”
Stone starts swaying again. “Whatever it is, lay it on me.”
“The thing is ...” I falter for a moment under his warm gaze, his soft touch. He’s holding me now, but in a second, he’ll drop me like I’m made of fire, and I will be. I will have burned straight through his skin. “The thing is—”
Just as I have the nerve to tell him the truth, the door bursts open and there’s Brittany with Jet behind her, recording.
My sister points to us and shouts, “Found you!”
Chapter 23
Stone
I am lost. Completely, utterly lost for this woman. It makes no sense. It’s not normal to fall for someone you’ve only known a week.
But something happened to me when I lost my memory. Something broke.
Or maybe something cracked open—and what poured out was the part of me I never let anyone see.
And I want Coco. She fills me in a way that’s impossible to explain. How she moves. How she laughs. How she’s always got her hair up—everything about her has worked a spell on me, and I’ve been blown apart.
It feels like I’ve always known her. Like she’s always been part of me. It’s unexplainable.
I’m falling for her, and I’m terrified the man I used to be would never have deserved her.
What’s worse, I’m afraid the man I was before—the one drowning in his own pain—would’ve shoved her aside. A person can’t carry around what I was without hurting those nearest to him, and I don’t even know specifics, just what I felt when we visited her parents.
I never, ever want to hurt Coco.
I love her with everything that’s inside me.
It’s been over a week since the party at her parents’ house. We haven’t kissed since then, and I’m dying to. I want to slide my hands up her cheeks and drink her in—taste her, feel her, make her moan.
But I’m trying to play it cool. It’s going about as well as a fire in a paper factory. I send her maybe twenty texts a day, asking how she’s doing at work, showing her pictures of what the resort’s got going on. It’s moving quickly, as if the earth itself is helping us.
Hell, it probably is.
Today I’ve left the construction site early. Coco had some errands to run, and I want to surprise her with a nice dinner.
I get to the cottage (yes, I’m still staying here—no, I don’t want to leave) by midafternoon, trusting the site to the guys.
Hercules runs in and goes straight for his bowl. I finally grabbed the poor guy some feed to supplement his diet. I drop the groceries on the table and spot a small velvet box.
