She laughs. “You are so, so obsessed with me.”
“Be absolutely sure I am. Completely, utterly obsessed.”Reaching behind me, I take a massive, wrapped present out of one of the bags and hand it to her.
“No way,” she squeals, seeing the pink wrapping paper covered in cupcakes. “It’s the same wrapping paper from our eighteenth birthday. How did you even find this?”
“Tracked it down a few weeks ago. I don’t know. Something about that birthday night felt important. Transformative, somehow. So does this one.” I shrug. “I liked the symmetry.”
Sophie studies me thoughtfully. “That night, you rubbed frosting off my face and then sucked the frosting off your finger and I almost spontaneously combusted. I probably should have known then that I would never be able to resist you. All that cocky hotness covering the gooiest center and softest heart of all.”
Lifting her hand, I kiss every one of her fingers, then do the same on the other hand. “We were always going to end up here, Soph. We were always going to be an us. We’re inevitable. Irresistible.” I grin at her. “Irresistibly us.”
Sophie grins back. “I love every inch of you,” she says, turning her attention to the present and tearing the wrapping paper to shreds in the way that never fails to make me laugh. And then she freezes, her breath hitching as she stares down at it. “Tyler,” she whispers, breath catching. “Oh, my god.”
I watch her take in the giant frame, divided into twenty-eight sections. In each section is a picture of us, starting from the month we were born, all the way to last week. And in every picture, I’m looking at her. Twenty-eight pictures for twenty-seven years of friendship, my head turned her way in every single one.
“How did you find all these?” she asks incredulously, her eyes moving over the frame.
“My mom gave me that one a couple of months ago.” I point to a picture of us at age thirteen, sitting on the Sullivans’ living room couch, a giant bowl of popcorn between us and the DVD cover forWhen Harry Met Sallyon the coffee tablejust inside the frame. Her head is thrown back in laughter, and my eyes are fixed on her, looking at her like she hung the moon. “I wondered if there were more like that, so I did a deep dive though all my pictures, then my parents’ and your parents’ too. Maddy found the one of us from the Bahamas trip we all took when we were seventeen and we made that ill-advised parasailing decision, and Cam had the one from my first year in the league when you basically stormed the field after my first playoff win. Amelia came in clutch with the one of us byMake Way for Ducklingsfrom when we all went to visit the Wyles a few years ago, and Grandma had the one from Christmas the year we were sixteen.”
Putting a finger under her chin, I lift her head until she’s looking at me, her eyes drenched in emotion, the love that lives there enough to sustain me for the rest of my days. “I was always looking at you, Soph. Even when I didn’t know it or understand why. You’ve been my best friend for my entire life, my favorite, most important person, and I know with absolute certainty that you were always, always, always meant to be mine.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
SOPHIE
Tyler’s words swirl around my head and burrow deep into my heart where I know they will live for the rest of my days. Setting the picture frame aside, I sit up on my knees, scooting forward to straddle him, taking his face in my hands. “I love you,” I say quietly. When I lean forward and press a kiss to his forehead, his breath hitches, his arms coming up to wrap around my waist, holding tight. “I love you so much. Thank you for coming, for giving this to me. For bringing birthday night here and for being willing to give up your entire life for me.”
“Soph,” he murmurs, taking my lips in a kiss that is full of passion and intensity and a promise so deep it makes my eyes burn. “The way I love you.” He pauses, shaking his head like he’s trying to come up with the words. “It’s enormous and wild and it fills up every single part of me. There is none of me that isn’t yours, and there isn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do for you. My girl,” he says, one hand coming up to push my curls behind my ear, trailing his fingers down my jaw. “My love.” He kisses one corner of my lips, then the other. “Mine.”
His lips brush over mine once, twice, three times, before hetilts his head, slanting our mouths together. I grip his shoulders, melting into him when his tongue slides into my mouth, brushing and tangling with mine as he cups my face in his palm. His free arm wraps around my back, securing my body to his, and when my hips rock over him, he groans, deepening the kiss. The way he takes my mouth is confident and possessive. A kind of claiming. And I am eager to be claimed by him.
Mouths fused together, in a fuck-hot feat of athletic strength I’ll never, ever get enough of, Tyler stands with me in his arms. My legs around his waist and his hands gripping my ass, stroking, kneading, as his tongue slides against mine in the most erotic caress, he walks me into the bedroom, laying me on the mattress and climbing over me, his mouth never leaving mine. We move together, our bodies rocking, searching, seeking, as his hand slides under my T-shirt, skating up my ribs.
“God, Sophie,” Tyler murmurs against my lips as his fingers tease my nipple, plucking and rolling it until I’m writhing under him, my hips rocking up into his. “I want you. I need you. I just…please,” he practically moans, his lips skating over my jaw. “Fucking please.”
“Have me,” I say, bringing his mouth back to mine, rolling my hips up to meet him when he grinds down over me, his hand sliding back down to grip my hip, his fingertips fire branding my skin. “Tonight, tomorrow, and every single day after. Have me, Tyler, because I’m yours.”
“Say it again,” he murmurs, sliding my shirt up, urging me to lift my arms above my head until he can pull it all the way off and toss it away. “Tell me you’re mine.” Sitting back on his heels, his eyes rake over my naked body, and I feel his hungry gaze like a caress. “You have to be mine because fuck, Sophie, look at you.” Tyler nudges my legs apart, his eyes moving straight to where I’m sure my underwear is soaked through, and I have never been more exposed or felt more powerful in my life.
“I’m yours,” I say, skating my hands up my torso andwatching as his eyes flash and darken as he follows the movement. “I’ll always be yours.”
“Damn right, you will be.” Dropping a hand down, he runs a finger over my soaked underwear, pressing gentle pressure to my clit. He smiles when a gasp falls from my throat, my hips lifting off the bed to search out more of his touch. “Jesus Christ, look at you,” he says reverently, bending to kiss me, working his way down my body, warm lips kissing a path along my jaw, down my neck, over my collarbone. Lips closing over one nipple, then the other, roughing his tongue over the tender peaks. His big hands roam my body, touching every inch of bare skin tenderly, reverently, as if he’s claiming it all for his own.
And god, I want to give it to him.
Moving lower, Tyler presses wet, open-mouthed kisses to my stomach, his hands sliding up my sides and back down again, moving around my back, down to my ass, touching every part of me he can reach. He moans against my skin, his face pressed into my belly, and my fingers tangle in his hair, wanting him to go faster, move lower, before I lose my goddamn mind.
“Patience, Soph,” Tyler mutters against my skin. “I want to take my time with you.”
“Do you have to?” I practically gasp, as his fingers play along my waistband, dipping beneath to sweep along my hipbone in a maddening rhythm. Arousal pools between my legs, and my body vibrates with need even though he’s barely even touched me. At the rate he’s going, I’ll burst into flames long before we get to the good part.
“Oh, I have to,” Tyler says with a smirk before sliding lower, dragging his nose over the center of my underwear.
“Holy shit.” My body bows up as I suck in a sharp breath.
“God, the way you smell,” he mumbles. “I can’t get enough.” He does it again, one hand curling into the waistband to pull it out and let it snap back against my hip, and the whole thing is a little playful and a lot dirty and absolutely scorching hot.
And when he finally slides my underwear over my hips,yanking them down my legs and off, and then brings them to his nose, inhaling deeply and groaning, his eyes dropping closed, I have ascended to another plane of existence. Or non-existence.
