“Landon, the room. Someone’s going to come back.” Anxiety was reaching a critical level here, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the knowledge that we were trespassing, the thought of spending two weeks without him, or that little unspoken L word in my heart. One thing I did know? I had ten thousand emotions all warring for supremacy.
He put one hand on my hip and cradled my face with the other. “Rachel, the room is ours. I know you’re scared. I know this break is going to be a little test. But I also know that I love you—there’s no one else I want in my life, my heart, my bed. We’re going to be okay.”
I blinked up at him, trying to quiet my slamming heart, to draw a breath through lungs that had forgotten how to work, to process everything he said, and went with the first item because the rest was just too much. “The room is ours?”
“Yes.” He smiled and kissed me lightly. “I got it for us when I realized we’d have an overnight here. The ship doesn’t leave until the morning.”
All of those conflicting emotions felt like a rising tsunami in my chest—barely visible on the surface but powerfully deep and capable of so much damage if I didn’t get myself under control. I took in the details surrounding us as a distraction. The pretty linens, sturdy furniture, the glass area of the floor to see into the water. “This must have cost you a fortune.” He’d made plans for us…not just for tonight, but for a possible future. Even before, when we’d agreed to the apartment in L.A., I’d always been the one to push the plan.
“Yeah, I’m not exactly hurting for it,” he said with a small laugh. “We’ve been with Pax, Leah, Penna, and an entire boat full of people for the last seven weeks. I just wanted to have you to myself for a night. Leah packed you a bag and everything.”
That wave of emotion grew bigger, monstrous, until it threatened to swamp me. He’d had a bag packed. Another plan. He wanted me to meet his parents, to see myself in his future. Maybe…just maybe he wasn’t going to walk away this time. Maybe we could really have everything we’d missed out on before. Maybe this was real.
My throat closed as the wave broke over me, washing away what puny defenses I had left against him. All of my emotions, the fear, the mistrust, the excitement, and even the love flowed over me and then stripped me raw—left me vulnerable in ways I hadn’t been since the last time I’d given my heart to him.
It was too much and yet not enough all in the same moment, because I needed the very words, the promises I was terrified to depend upon again. I needed them with a force that terrified me—the same way I needed him.
The lump in my throat made it almost impossible to breathe, and my nose burned, like my body knew it couldn’t contain this hot mess of emotion any longer without combusting.
Oh, hell no. Don’t you do it. Don’t you dare do it!
Then I started crying, and not just dainty, pretty tears. Oh, no, these were gut-wrenching sobs with the most unattractive noises ever.
“Rach. Baby…” Landon pulled me into his arms, holding me against his chest as I sobbed.
“No,” I said, pushing back to stand on my own. “Don’t. Be. Nice. To me.” Oh, great, now I was hyperventilating, too. “I’m like…psycho over here, petrified that we’ll get home and you’ll leave me, and then you go and do this super-sweet thing. And it’s perfect!” I shouted, like he’d done something wrong.
“Oh God, Rach.” He reached for me, and I retreated until I was standing on the perfect deck that overlooked the perfect water in perfect Fiji that my perfect boyfriend had set up for us.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried, unable to stop. “It’s so nice, and just…everything, and here I am losing my shit because I’m so scared of losing you.”
“You’re not going to lose me,” he promised, grasping my upper arms. “We’re never going down that road again.”
“It’s just that all of this… I’ve tried so hard to block you out, to keep my walls up, but it’s like you Trojan horsed me, because you’ve always been there. I never stood a chance. I’ve hated you so much because it was the only thing to keep me from admitting how very much I loved you.” Holy shit, why couldn’t I stop crying? Every word was yelled, ungraceful and ugly, yet raw and so very real.
“Baby.” His eyes went soft and filled with so much joy, so much love, that I started crying even harder.
“Because I am so in love with you, and I want us to work, Landon. I need us to work, because we’re the only thing that makes sense to me.”
And that sounded like a seal barking. Great.
He laughed. “God, I love you.”
“And I love you!” I shouted. “Now, if I could just stop…crying!” I sucked in another stuttered breath that sounded something like a donkey braying. “Make it stop. Seriously!”
He kissed me, swinging me up into his arms. “I can make it stop.”
Then he jumped off the deck into the water, carrying me with him. I took a deep breath just before the Pacific washed over us in a surprising wave of warmth. His lips were on mine as we sank to the bottom of the shallow lagoon.
My legs slid from his arms to wrap around his hips, my breath held in that perfect moment where the world stopped and there was only us.
Once my lungs burned, we kicked for the surface.
I sputtered with my first breath. “Seriously?”
He grinned, more beautiful than I had ever seen him. “Hey, it stopped.”
I kicked back and splashed him, sending water all over his gorgeous face.
“You can’t be mad,” he said, swimming toward me.
“And why is that?” My sundress billowed around me, caught in the ebb and flow of the water.
“Because you love me.” He pulled me to him as he treaded water.
“I do,” I admitted, my voice steady and sure—like the storm had passed over me and all that remained was love and the freedom that came with it. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Everything,” he answered, then kissed me. He tasted like salt water and Landon, and I gave myself over to him, trusting him to keep me afloat. His arms held me tenderly, but his mouth was open, carnal, and a hot contrast to the water around us.
My arms around his neck, I returned his kiss with abandon, letting go of every worry and fear that had held me back. As if the waters had baptized us, I forgave him of every past transgression and gave us a clean slate—a place to start over fresh.
We kissed hungrily, our bodies moving with each other until I was ready to challenge any public indecency laws Fiji might have. I wanted him—needed him—more than I needed air, more than I needed my next heartbeat.
His hand moved to my ass, my dress long having abandoned any pretense of cover, and he played with the edge of my bikini bottoms. As his fingers swept under the fabric, he skimmed my center, close enough to bring the barely banked fire of my constant craving for him to life, but too far for me to do anything but rock back into his hands and whimper for more.
“I need you,” he said, his voice carrying a desperate edge.