“Ah, let them figure it out.”
“Hmm.” She pretended to consider. “That could be fun.”
I grinned. She made me feel like a kid who’d just found his favorite toy under the Christmas tree. “You’re trouble, you know that?”
“And you can’t resist it.” She kissed me, quick and playful, then snuggled closer.
“Isn’t that the truth.”
We stayed wrapped up in each other until the air turned cool against our skin and we had to move inside. In the cool night of my bedroom, we made love again. Slower this time and sweeter. After, we fell defenseless into sleep.
The pre-dawn lightfiltered through my bedroom window, painting the walls with a hushed glow. I blinked at the ceiling, the weight of Harper’s head on my shoulder, her hair soft against my skin. It was like waking from a dream that didn’t end, a warmth that filled my chest with an ache too deep to name. Her lips parted in sleep, a faint whisper of breath against my neck, and I couldn’t help but stare.
I lay there, hardly breathing, hardly daring to move. Harper shifted a little, burrowing deeper, her breath a slow and steady rhythm that calmed me even as my mind raced and whirled.
At how deeply I’d let her in, despite all the reasons not to.
How deeply I wanted to.
How I wouldn’t be able to stop even if I tried.
I remembered every word we’d spoken over dinner. Jarod and how unsure I was about everything. Her laugh, the way she touched my hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I thought about her on my deck, the easy domesticity of her passing me a bottle of beer, the heady, unfamiliar warmth of our conversation. The intense connection when we made love. The strength of it, the sheer, breathtaking magnitude. Nothing about last night had been casual or fleeting. My feelings had crossed a line I’d never expected. Exhilaration shot through me, sharp and almost painful in its intensity.
Love.
The word echoed in my mind, no matter how hard I tried to shut it out. It was foreign. It was immense. It was terrifying. But I knew it was there, even if I wasn’t ready to say it, even to myself.
The stillness of the morning hung around us, but I couldn’t find stillness in my mind. Everything was inmotion. Everything was changing. I thought of my parents’ marriage. The cold… boringness of it. How I’d promised myself I’d never have anything like that. I’d never wanted a relationship with this much heat and depth, not until Harper, not until I felt it with her and knew what I was missing.
I thought of Finn, his laughter as he dragged me down the beach, the happiness on Harper’s face when she watched us. I thought of the resort and the way she moved through it like it was an extension of her heart. I thought of Eli, the complicated knot of professional and personal ties that would make anything between us difficult, messy, maybe impossible.
But what I thought of most was the way this woman made me feel. Alive. Seen. More real than I’d ever been. The world had been carefully ordered before her, a blueprint written in clean lines and simple plans. Now it was a mess of colors and emotions, vibrant, unpredictable, terrifying. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I wasn’t sure what to make of myself.
I loved it. I hated it. I couldn’t get enough.
