“Up we go, princess.” Jock lifted her, kissing her cheek before settling her onto his shoulders.
Daphne gazed dreamily at him. “I can’t believe I get to marry that man soon. Sometimes I wake up and pinch myself to make sure this is all real.”
Jules spotted Grant coming through the crowd with Wells and Levi, and her pulse quickened. “I know the feeling.” Her eyes connected with Grant’s, and that familiar zing of electricity burned a path between them. He looked rugged and handsome with his hair pushed back from his face, and his big body appeared even broader in his thick brown jacket.
“I want to know that feeling,” Bellamy said exasperatedly. “Is your father still wearing the Santa suit at the Christmas tree lighting?”
“Yeah,” Jules answered, watching the guys approach. Levi kept looking over his shoulder at Tara, who trailed behind them with Joey. Tara was taking pictures for the event, and Joey had stuck to her like glue. Tara had made Joey a plastic PRESS badge, and Joey wore it proudly.
Bellamy wiggled her shoulders. “Good! I know what I’m going to ask him for. One single, hot, smart male, please.”
“Ugh,” Keira said. “Most guys are a pain in the butt.”
“Not my guy,” Jules said as Grant reached for her.
“Hey, babe. I just got a text from Fitz. They’ll be passing by any minute.” He kissed her and said, “I hope we don’t have plans the day of the Christmas tree lighting.”
“I have to work until four. Why?” Jules asked.
“Because I just got wrangled into helping set up for the event,” Grant said. “It looks like I’ll be there all day.”
“Sounds like someone has come a long way from the guy who refused to leave the dune shack,” Keira teased.
“The earplug helps him with the noise,” Jules explained.
“Maybe so, but I think it has more to do with you,” Keira said.
“Damn right it does,” Grant said.
Bellamy linked her arm with Jules and said, “Thank you for working your magic. You’re the best friend a girl could ever want.”
Jules leaned her head on Bellamy’s shoulder and said, “Anything for you, Belly, but this ended up also being for me.”
“Who knew our little sister had a magic touch with guys?” Leni teased.
“Only one guy,” Jules corrected her.
Wells put his arm around Leni and said, “I’ll show you a magic touch.”
Leni shrugged him off and rolled her eyes.
“Smile, you guys!” Tara called out to them as she took their picture.
“Will you take one of me and my dad?” Joey ran to Levi, and he lifted her into his arms. They looked adorable with matching leather jackets. Levi’s sported Dark Knights motorcycle club patches, and Joey’s had a DARK KNIGHTS DAUGHTER patch on the back. Levi called it his hands-off warning. “Guess what, Dad? I’m going to be a biker and a photographer when I grow up!”
“A photographer, huh? I can definitely get behind that,” Levi said.
“I bet he can,” Leni said under her breath.
Sutton stalked over to the girls and groaned. “I hate my boss.”
“Sleep with him. It’ll fix everything,” Leni said.
“I wouldn’t give him the honor.” Sutton looked at Tara, Levi, and Joey and lowered her voice. “Do you think Mouse has a hidden shrine to Levi? She must have thousands of pictures of him by now.”
“Sutton.” Jules scowled.
“What? Look at them,” Sutton insisted. Levi had one hand on Tara’s lower back, pointing out the boats with the other hand, and Joey had her arm wrapped around the back of Levi’s leg. “They’re like the perfect little family.”
“She’s Joey’s aunt. Don’t make it weird,” Jules said.
The “Baby Shark” song blared from the harbor, drawing their attention to Jules’s parents’ boat. Hadley yelled, “Baby Shark! Down!”
Everyone whooped and cheered for the Steeles’ boat.
Jock put Hadley down, and she began doing the “Baby Shark” dance. Daphne, Jules, Bellamy, Tara, and Joey joined in, and Leni and Sutton took a few steps back.
Wells pushed them forward and said, “If you don’t want to do the dance, you can come play with my megalodon.”
“More like a tadpole.” Leni snort-laughed.
“Come on, you guys! Do it for Hadley!” Jules urged, and after a few eye rolls and grumbles, the rest of them joined in. Jules made up her own words about her and Grant, and Grant did all the wrong hand motions. But they laughed and kissed, and they were dancing together, which made it the most perfect dance of all.
As her parents’ boat made its way around and eventually out of the harbor, they stood on the hillside watching more dazzlingly decorated boats sail past. Grant gathered Jules in his arms, swaying to their own private beat, whispering I love you between kisses. When they were close like that, everything else failed to exist, and the thrum of desire beat between them, getting stronger, and growing hotter, by the second. Shouts rang out, and she put her hand up to cover his right ear, but he took her hand in his and brought it to his lips, kissing her palm.
He lowered his face beside hers and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Do you feel that, baby? Our magnetic pull? Or is it just me?”
“I feel it. It’s us.”
He gazed deeply into her eyes. “I finally understand how my dad felt all those years ago, why he held on to every minute he could get with us, and why he couldn’t let my mom go. I don’t know how he survived it, living in a different house, being apart in the evenings, and not waking up together. They had a decade and five children together when they separated. We’ve only been together for a matter of weeks, and already I can’t imagine a single day without you. You changed my world, Pix.” He pressed his lips to her cheek, speaking into her ear, and said, “I couldn’t love you more than I do right now.” He kissed her lips. “I was wrong. I love you more already.”
“Grant.” She fisted her hands in the back of his jacket.
Everyone else was cheering the Silvers’ and the Remingtons’ boats as they went by, but Jules was too swept up in Grant to look away.
“You’re going to miss your pixie-Christmas boat, baby.”
Jules loved her family and friends, but the need to be close to him, to bask in their love, was too strong to deny. “Don’t take this as unappreciative of all your hard work, but the only thing I want to see is you lying above me, looking at me the way you are right now.”
THEY STUMBLED INTO the bungalow fifteen minutes later and didn’t even bother to turn on the lights, stripping off their coats and shirts on the way to the bedroom. Crash darted off the bed and out of the room as Jules undressed between urgent kisses. Grant sat down to take off his prosthesis and boxer briefs, and she crawled onto the mattress behind him, running her hands down his chest, kissing his shoulders. When he was done, he turned, and she lowered herself to her back. His fingers traced a line from between her breasts all the way down to her sex, his dark eyes lustfully following the same path. The way he looked at her like she was all he saw and all he wanted every single time they were together completely unraveled her.