I look through the peephole and my breath catches. It’s Nash.
I open the door and he takes my face in his hands, almost angrily, and crushes his lips against mine.
“What the hell have you done to me?” he murmurs against them. I don’t care what he’s saying and I don’t answer; I only care that he’s back. If only for a little while, he came back.
He kisses a trail across my cheek and jaw, down to my neck, and then he pulls me in tight to his body, holding me against him.
“I can’t leave you again. Not like that. Ask me to stay,” he says into my hair. “I’ll be whatever you need me to be, whoever you need me to be. I’m not perfect, but I’ll be perfect for you. Just give me a chance.”
I try to lean back, but he won’t let me go. “Nash,” I say, pushing against his chest.
Finally, he eases up enough that I can pull back and see his shadowed face. When I start to speak, he lays his finger over my lips. “I’ve sailed all over the world trying to get away from you, trying to get away from what you make me feel. All I’ve found is that there’s no ocean big enough to drown out thoughts of you, no place far enough to escape your pull. You find me. You always find me. When I was lost at sea, you found me. When I was lost in life, you found me. You found me and you saved me. And I know there’s nowhere I can go that will make me happy as long as I’m sailing away from you. The best part of me is you. The only part that matters is the one you have, the one you hold in the palm of your hand.”
“You’d stay? Here? For me?”
“I’d do anything for you.”
“But what about the boat? Cash told me you bought a yacht to charter.”
“I’ll sell it. I’ll give it up. I’d give it all up for you. Anything. Everything. Everything for us. If it means that I can keep you, that it will make you happy, then I’ll do it. Whatever it is. Just say the word.”
My heart is near bursting. I don’t have words at first. I find myself wondering almost confusedly if this is real or if I’ve dreamed the whole thing. The only thing I know is that if it’s a dream, I never want to wake up. Never.
“What if I don’t want you to?”
He goes completely still and says nothing for a few seconds. “What if you don’t want me to what?”
I know what he’s thinking. I can see by the stricken expression on his face. He thinks I’m getting ready to tell him I don’t want him.
“What if I don’t want you to sell the boat?” He says nothing, just watches me. Finally, I smile. It’s probably the happiest smile I think I’ve ever smiled in my life as I wind my arms around his neck and pull his head down to mine. I whisper into his ear, “What if I want to sail away with you?”
I hear him exhale right before he hugs me so tight, he nearly squeezes the breath from me.
“Damn, I love you, woman,” he whispers into my neck. If I thought I’d been deliriously happy a few seconds ago, I was wrong. Never in my life have a few words made me feel so dramatically, wildly, indelibly changed. In this one short space in time, my life has gone from uncertain and unfulfilled to overflowing with hope and love and a peace I’ve never known. His next words mirror exactly what I feel all the way to the deepest part of my soul. “You make me feel whole.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I admit.
“You were?” he asks, a smile in his voice.
“That and one other thing.”
“What’s that?” he asks. When I don’t respond, he straightens his head and looks down at me. “What’s that?” he repeats.
I reach up and stroke his stubbly jawline with the tips of my fingers. “That I love you. That I love this stubble. And these lips,” I say, moving my fingers over his full bottom lip. “And this face. And this hair,” I say when I tuck a few loose strands behind his ear. “And that you’re right. You are perfect for me. Already. You’re everything I didn’t know I needed, but everything I always knew I wanted.”
Reaching up to wind his fingers around my wrist, Nash turns his face into my palm. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy, proving to you that you made the right choice. I promise you won’t regret taking a chance on me.”
“I’m not taking a chance. I feel like I can’t breathe without you. I’m just doing what I need to do to survive. It’s as simple as that.”
“Then let me be your air,” he says quietly. This time, when his lips meet mine and he sweeps me up into his arms, I feel like he’s carrying me away to our future, to happiness, to wholeness. And I’m thrilled to go along for the ride.
FORTY-THREE
Nash
Four months later
The sun is streaming through the cabin window, turning Marissa’s sun-kissed skin to glistening gold. She’s on her stomach, facing away from me, her breathing deep and even. I could watch her sleep for a while longer. But not only would that be creepy as hell, I’ve got a raging hard-on that’s got her name written all over it.
I peel back the sheet, the only thing that’s covering her. The weather here in Fiji is balmy all the time, so we sleep in very little, which is perfectly fine with me. She stirs slightly and I press my lips to the center of her back and then drag my tongue down her spine and over to one butt cheek. I sink my teeth in and nip her lightly. She flinches and I hear her muffled gasp. I rub my lips back and forth over the spot, whispering as I do, “I love this ass.”
Marissa squirms beneath me, shifting just enough to flatten out and spread her legs a little more. Reaching down, I run my hand up the back of her thigh and then to the inside, sliding up toward the heat I can already feel coming from her. When I slip my finger inside her, she’s already wet and ready for me.
“What’s this? Were you dreaming about me again?”
Gently, I move my finger in and out, holding her down with the weight of my chest.
“Mmm,” is her only answer.
“It sure feels like you were,” I continue quietly. “Care to tell me the details? I’d be happy to try and make them feel real. Very, very real,” I say, driving another finger deep inside her.
“How ’bout I show you instead,” she says, wiggling her lower body to squirm out from under my chest.
I love it when she demonstrates things for me.
* * *
The sun is much higher in the sky by the time we make it ashore. Cash and Olivia are lounging by the hotel pool with Gavin and Ginger.