“Don’t wonder. Don’t ever wonder that.”
I take his hand and trace every finger of his, up and down and back again. These fingers, this hand—they hold so much of my past, my present, my future. Without these hands, I’d be lost.
The water at night is still warm, like a bath. I don’t let myself worry about things like sharks (Jonah swears he’s never seen one around the house once) or the lack of bathing suits. I’ll admit I was a bit nervous jumping buck-naked from the deck, but I figured, sometimes life is too short to worry so much. And goodness knows, I do my fair share of worrying.
“I love this place,” I tell him, and he chuckles. Thankfully, over the last day, with much teasing and kissing on my end, Jonah is acting a bit more like his old self.
“You say that about every place.”
“I guess that’s true. It’s the toddler traveler in me; every new place is exciting and interesting.”
His lips curve in a smirk. “Toddler traveler?”
I splash water at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Okay, toddler traveler—tell me the place you want to see the most.”
I think about this a moment, allowing myself to bob with the gentle waves that crash against the house’s pillars. “Rome.”
“You realize we’ve been to Rome, right?”
“I know. But you asked. As for places I’ve never been, maybe Paris. I used to imagine going there with you when we were . . . maybe thirteen? I thought you could be a prince, and I’d be a commoner that you fell in love with and we’d live in Versailles.”
He bursts out laughing. And then, gently as one of his feet stokes my leg, “If anything, you’re the princess and I’m the commoner.”
Yeah, right. “Your turn.” I nudge him with my foot. “Where do you want to go?”
“Nepal.”
“Why Nepal?”
“Why not?”
“It’s not very romantic,” I offer.
“Travel isn’t always about romance,” he says, brushing aside a wet strand of my hair. “Sometimes it’s about growth.”
“And in Nepal you think you’d find growth?”
“I do.”
“We should go then.”
His dimple deepens and my limbs go weak. “Alright,” he says. “We’ll go to Nepal.”
“And Paris.”
He grins. “And Paris.”
“And Rome.”
He pulls me closer until our bodies are flush against one another. “Oh, most certainly
Rome.” Our lips brush lightly. “And every other single place we want to go. We’ll have almost two hundred years to hit them all.”
I want him so much right now it’s painful.
“So you like this place,” he murmurs in my ear before our lips meet again. He holds us up, strong swimmer he is.
“No,” I sigh against his mouth. “I love it.”
His lips travel to my neck. “Because it’s beautiful?”
I can feel how much he wants me, too. I reach down and graze my fingers against the length of him; he gasps, and I can’t help but thrill that my touch can do that to him. “Because I’m here with you.”
Our mouths come together, over and over; his fingers slide across my belly, lower and lower, until I’m the one to gasp into his mouth. I’m having trouble staying afloat, but this time, it’s not because I’m drowning in sorrow, it’s because I’m literally so weak in the knees I can’t keep kicking and thinking at the same time. We need to get up on the deck. Now.
“Uh, yeah. Excuse me?”
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
We break apart and find a guy standing on the deck, leaning over the railing. He’s holding a pizza box, practically leering. I can’t believe we forgot we ordered pizza earlier.
“I tried knocking; when nobody answered, I came around the side. You two look like you’ve worked up an appetite, huh?
Dying. Absolutely dying of mortification right now. Also, why is the universe so conspired against me seducing Jonah?
Jonah laughs under his breath and presses his forehead against mine for a brief second. “Yeah. Just. Can you wait for us at the front of the house?”
I’m uneasy with the guy’s blatant staring, but Jonah makes it so he loses interest and wanders away. But our magical moment has already slipped through our fingers.
In the busy week following our return from Tahiti, the one thing I never got around to doing is calling or seeing Kellan. This was both purposeful and indirect. On one hand, I barely had any free time for myself, what with a trio of quick missions and lengthy Council sessions; I rationalized that any contact with him needs to be meaningful. A one-minute phone call wouldn’t suffice, nor mere minutes in his presence. On the other hand, I’d just decided, yet again, that I’m definitely, absolutely going to marry Jonah.