Wherever It Leads(104)

I’m getting better about it, but I can’t help it. I pull my sunglasses off my nose and peer up at her.

“How’s your drink?” she grins.

“Did you walk around the entire boat like that?”

“Like what?” She looks down at herself, running a finger dampened with the sweat from the glass down her stomach. “Like this?”

“Yes, like this.” I pull her onto my lap, catching her lips with mine. I remind her she’s mine, that regardless of how much she taunts me, plays with me, regardless of who she lets see her in a f*cking string bikini, at the end of the day, and every hour in between, she’s my girl.

“I like it when you’re all pissy,” she giggles, bringing the glass to her lips. She toys with the straw with her tongue, making my cock harden.

“You’re going to get f*cked.”

“What’s new?” she sighs, but ends it with a laugh. “How much more do I have to do to get you to lay me out right here again?”

“Well, being that lunch is just about to be served, that’s not happening. No one is seeing what’s left of you behind that scrap of fabric.”

She sweeps her lips against mine and settles back against me. We watch the boat float along the waves, the beach of the island just in sight.

“It’s been a great couple of weeks,” she breathes. “I’m so glad I came with you.”

“I wouldn’t have come without you.” I kiss her shoulder, her skin hot against my mouth. She smells all vanilla-y and I want to lick her, suck her, eat her like a f*cking dessert. “And you’ll never come without me again.”

She laughs at my innuendo. “They always said you know when you know, you know?” she grins.

“What? You lost me.”

“People. They say that. That when you meet The One, you know it.”

“I knew it when I saw you.”

“Did you?”

I nod, kissing her shoulder again. “I didn’t know I knew it, but I did. I know it now.”

She laughs, the sound music to my ears. It always will be. It’s the sound of fulfilling my goal, of making her happy. It’s all I want, really, at the end of the day.

“I knew it, too. Maybe not that first day. That day I just wanted to f*ck you.”

“Language, Brynne.”

“Yes, it’s language,” she winks. “But in Vegas, I knew. You were just so kind and smart and sexy.”

“You just want me for my body, don’t you?”

Her fingers dip down my chest and over my abs. I flex them under her touch, just so she sees how ripped I am. I didn’t do a hundred pushups this morning for nothing.

“No, not just for your body. But it doesn’t hurt.” She settles against me again, her hair draping over my shoulder. I draw little obscure pictures on her stomach and listen to her little breaths. “How long are we staying at sea?”

“As long as you want.”

“When do you have to go back to work? You said a couple of weeks when we left.”

I shrug. “I hired Duke full time at Nzou. He can handle most of the shit. I check in every morning while you’re asleep. So as long as nothing catastrophic happens, I could stay here forever.”

“I don’t know about forever.”

“I could stay wherever you are forever.”

“Now that I could do,” she grins. She locks her hand with mine and rests them on her stomach. We feel the anchor being pulled up and we will be starting our departure for the next island. “Where do we go now?”

“Such a loaded question.”

“I know,” she laughs nervously. “You can take that to mean either thing—where are we going in this boat or, you know, where are we going in life?”

I think about it before responding. I know what I want to say, to the last part of that specifically. I want to go into the rest of my life with her by my side. I can’t see it any other way. I won’t have it any other way.

I wait until she almost gets antsy before answering. “You got one thing right.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s where we are going in life.” I watch her face light up and it makes me stupidly happy. “Me and you, Brynne. Wherever one of us goes, the other has to go too.”

She kisses me gently, her hand playing in my hair. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Her eyes shine almost as brightly as the smile on her face. I take a deep breath before tossing my next words into the world. “I’d like to try that.”

Her brows pull together. “Try what?”

“Try . . . forever.”

“Fent!” She scrambles into a sitting position, a hand clutching her heart. “Are you serious?”

I nod slowly. I hope this is a good reaction, but I can’t tell. My hand shakes slightly as I brush a strand of hair out of her face. “I’m completely serious. I know we haven’t known each other a long time and you’ve been pissed for a lot of what we have—”

“Fent. Shut up,” she giggles, pressing her lips against mine. When she pulls back, she locks our hands together. “I love you. Of course I’d like to try forever with you. But I have to admit one thing.”

“What’s that, rudo?”