Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“I’m scared.”
“Not as scared as I am.”
“What if I hurt you?” she asks quietly.
“I’ll forgive you.”
“Promise me,” she whispers. “Promise me, Mason.”
“I promise you, baby.”
She surges onto her toes, and the world fucking stops.
Sparks fly, fireworks boom, and the brassy note of a trumpet blares.
She fucking kisses me, and it’s soul-wrecking. Bone-crushing.
She’s ruining me with nothing but her luscious lips.
They’re pillowy, thick, and full, and so goddamn soft, like clouds of silky sweetness.
She tastes like sugar and honey and mine.
My arms wind around her, and I don’t know what I’m doing until I feel the glass against my skin, her back now flush against it, my need for her to be close taking over.
She arches into me, her tongue chasing and tangling with mine, the sweeps delicate but daring, long strokes and needy flicks. And when a low, whiny whimper slips from her mouth into mine, I have to grab on to the wall to steady myself.
My body is fucking shaking, an overwhelming sense of rightness I couldn’t explain if I tried consuming me, burning me alive from the inside out. I’m on fucking fire. It’s sensory overload and endless suspension. It’s an electric current that only she can charge, and it’s coursing through every fiber of my being.
It’s fucking us, and if I have any say in this world, it will never change, because… my god.
I get it now. This right here, this is why I exist.
It’s why my family bought a house decades ago in a little town called Oceanside and why a girl named Lolli became best friends with a boy named Parker. It’s why she fell in love with my cousin Nate. To lead them to Oceanside.
To lead her to me.
She might have had more than one purpose in life, but the reason for that is clear to me, and he’s sleeping but five feet away. But I was sent here with one purpose, and that is to love them both as if they’re mine.
In my eyes, they are.
I won’t let anything come between us.
I won’t love anyone the way I love them.
I couldn’t possibly.
I can only hope she feels the same and that she knows I love her son like he’s my own. He may not be my blood, but that doesn’t matter. He’s still mine, and if this changes things, if tonight means they’re becoming mine for real, he’s the only little one I want for us. It will be just us three forever. He will never have to wonder if the lack of blood we share leads to loving him differently. It doesn’t. It won’t.
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but how could I not?
I’ve waited for this moment for months, and it’s here.
The girl of my dreams is in my arms, her mouth pressed to mine, heart beating wildly and showing no signs of stopping.
I hope she doesn’t.
I hope she kisses me until her lips go numb and exhaustion sets in.
I hope her lips stay on mine until her knees give and I get to lift her in my arms, just to lay her in the bed we’re sharing.
And then I hope when she finally does fall asleep, I’ll be the one she sees in her dreams, the way I have no doubt she’ll be in mine.
She is the girl of my dreams.
Please let me become the man of hers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Payton
Before, March
“I wish you could have seen the sunset the other night. It was like being in the clouds.”
“I saw.”
Smiling, I look over at him, his brown eyes shining. “You did?”
Something in his face softens, and I turn toward him, reaching out to take his hand. “Of course I did. I was with you, baby. Always will be.”
“I wish there was time to take Deaton to the beach before heading home. He’s obsessed with the water. He is so going to be one of those beach boys when he grows up.”
He reaches out, his warm palm pressing against my cheek. “I look forward to seeing that.”
My heart aches, and I reach for him, running my hand through his dark hair. “I miss you.”
He smiles wide, and I blink slowly, the image of him starting to blur.
My eyes open, and I look over just as Mason kills the engine, finding we’re back at his beach house. “Hey, sleepyhead,” he whispers, nodding toward the back. “Little man slept as hard as you. He didn’t make a sound the entire drive.”
My mouth tips up at the corners, and I unbuckle, stretching my limbs. “That’s because we woke up at an ungodly hour to beat the traffic.”
“If you thought I was going to waste any of my last day sitting on the highway for hours, you were wrong, Pretty Little. We’re doing our last day right.”
He climbs out, and I follow, trailing his movement as he makes his way around the car. With every step he takes, my stomach flutters, feelings I haven’t felt in a long time and some entirely new ones, swirling low, low, and lower. Nerves I’m not accustomed to tickle along my spine, and I chew on the inside of my lip, my eyes lifting as he steps into my space.