I breathed out a laugh. “I was such a fool to risk losing this.”
“Is this your way of telling me you’re staying?” He frowned. “Or are you still trying to convince me to go back to Charlottesville?Because you know, I was thinking that we can video chat every day, and—”
I pressed my finger to his lip. “I’m trying to tell you I’m staying.”
His eyes narrowed, like he still didn’t quite believe me. “For how long? A week? A month?”
“For as long as you’ll have me. Let’s have an adventure.”
“You’re staying…” He rubbed his jaw where stubble had begun to shade his features, still eyeing me warily. “You’re not just second-guessing because you’re afraid to lose me? Or…” He sighed. “I don’t want you to choose to be with me out of fear.”
“I’m not here because I’m afraid. I’m staying because I believe in the future.Ourfuture. I believe in us.”
His lips threatened to burst out in that gorgeous smile. “Oh, thank God.” He pulled me to him, and his kiss held everything about Bas that I loved.
And I was home.
I breathed in the deliciousness of Basil—coffee, sage, rosemary. And time. We had so much time.
With great reluctance, I pushed him away and scolded him. “You know your uncle won’t let me stay here with you.”
His eyebrow shot up conspiratorially. “What should we do about that?”
“We could change my name to Chelsea Stavros.”
“Do you mean it?”
I waggled my eyebrows in response. I was starting to understand why people wanted to get married. I wanted to secure forever with this man.
“Tell me, Chelsea.”
“I do.” And I pushed him into the room. Our room.
“Feta late than never,” he said, and I burst out laughing, out of relief and love. It was so endearing picturing him waiting to break that joke out.
His lips fell back on mine, and every other thought fell away as I maneuvered him toward the bed, breaking the kiss only to shed my clothes. His hands worshipped me like I was a goddess—Athena or Aphrodite. And here he was, my Adonis. I dipped my fingers into his waistline and slid the fabric down to release the mythological beast.
“It’s a good thing you can’t read my mind.” I laughed.
His mouth broke contact with my throat long enough for him to say, “That bad?”
“So bad.”
“You’re making me nervous.” His hands slid around my back. “Tell me.”
“I was thinking how much I wanted you to enter my temple.”
His chest rumbled with amusement, but as he knocked me onto my back, he confessed, “I’d devote my life to that religion.”
My body was always ready for him, and as he moved in me, consumed me, brought me to the edge of ecstasy, and made me commune with the gods, he proved again how perfectly we fit together. How right he’d been about us all along.
As we lay together afterward, he whispered, “I can’t wait to show you our whole new world.”
I laughed. “Don’t you dare start singing.”
“Whatever you want, λατρε?α μου.” He wrapped his arms around me tight. “What do you want to do first?”
I rolled into him, my head on his strong shoulder, and gazed into his gorgeous eyes. He wore that mischievous grin, and he looked at me like I was already his whole world. And my God, he was mine. And I knew exactly what I wanted to do first.
