Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
I stand, admiring, memorizing, promising myself that I’m never going to forget a second of this night.
Halfway across the room, she glances over her shoulder, arching a brow. “You coming?”
“Sure, the hell am,” I promise. “Be there in two minutes. Tops.” I snag water bottles, champagne, two glasses, and a tiny sleeve of overpriced cashews from the minibar, figuring we might need protein to keep our energy up.
By the time I get outside, Makena’s already lowered herself into the steaming water, her arms resting on the edges of the tub.
She smiles as I cross our private patio. It looks like we’re well hidden from our neighbors, though honestly, I’m too eager to get back to her side to care too much if we weren’t.
“Should we toast to the fact that you fit?” she teases.
“Hell yes, we should,” I say, twisting the cork. It comes off with a cheerful pop that echoes into the humid air. “It was touch and go there for a minute. I was sweating, woman, I won’t lie. If we hadn’t been able to bone, I would have been the saddest man in Big Dick Town.”
She laughs—a light, easy sound that makes me happy. “Same. But I believed in us. I knew we could do it. We’re fucking heroes.”
“Literally.” I hand her one glass before slipping into the tub beside her with the other. “To a perfect fit.”
She lifts her champagne. “To a perfect fit, and to many more to come.”
“Sounds perfect,” I murmur, clinking my glass to hers and holding her gaze over the rim as we drink.
“Mmm. Yummy,” she says, downing the small glass in one gulp.
Before I can tease her about taking things slow, she slides closer, straddling my lap, banishing any inclination to introduce “slow” into the equation. She settles over me like she belongs there.
Which, as far as I’m concerned, she does.
My hands find her hips. Her hands find my neck. And just like that, we’re kissing again—no big talk, no pressure, no pretending this isn’t exactly what we both want. My champagne sits untouched as the sun slides toward the horizon. Waves crash below us, seabirds call, and somewhere down there, a bunch of crustaceans could be about to hurl themselves onto the shore in one final act of glory.
But we won’t be there to see it.
We don’t leave the room for the rest of the night, too lost in each other to worry about finding anything else to do. We order room service, take another shower to wash the chlorine off, and finally make it to the bed, where Makena rides me like she was made to take every inch.
By the time we finally collapse into an exhausted tangle, I’m the happiest I can remember being in a damned long time.
But I don’t care if things aren’t always this easy, if there are still obstacles to clear and bridges to cross before we make things official.
I’m not going anywhere.
Not as long as this woman is tucked against me like she finally knows I’m safe to lean on.
Chapter
Seventeen
MAKENA
Iwake up to sunlight filtering through the curtains onto Parker’s bare back and the sound of seagulls having a turf war outside our balcony, and smile.
And smile and smile…
My body aches in the best way—that satisfied, well-used feeling that makes me want to stretch like a cat and purr.
Parker’s still asleep, his face half-buried in the pillow, one arm flung across the mattress. His hair sticks up in ten directions, and there’s a red mark on his shoulder where I might have gotten a little bitey during round three.
Or was it four?
My brain’s too sex-drunk for math. Or counting.
I slip out of bed as quietly as possible, snagging one of the plush hotel robes from the bathroom. All my clothes seem to have vanished into whatever dimension clothes disappear to during desperate hotel sex.
But that’s okay, a girl doesn’t need clothes to order room service.
Twenty minutes later, I greet the waiter at the door, tip generously, and wheel a cart loaded with half the breakfast menu into our suite. Parker’s still sprawled across the covers like he’s posing for the cover of a romance novel—The Naked Hockey Player with the Monster Cock who Murdered my Vagina by Makena DeWitt.
But it was a good murder.
Excellent, in fact.
So excellent, I’m still grinning as I singsong, “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.” I park the cart beside the bed. “I brought sustenance.”
Parker cracks one eye, then both, a slow smile spreading across his face that makes my chest tight. “You’re here,” he mumbles, his voice rough with sleep.
“Where else would I be?”
“I was afraid I dreamed you,” he says.
“You didn’t,” I assure him, heart squeezing again at his sweetness as I lift the first silver dome from its plate. “I am very real, and I ordered everything. Pancakes, eggs Benedict, fruit, bacon, fancy potatoes, and six different pastries.”