“I can’t tell if you love me or want to murder me,” she mused.
“Both,” I answered honestly, and I kissed her before she could laugh again, rolling my hips to silence her tease.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, making me stop as she framed my face in her hands. Her eyes welled with tears as they flicked between mine. “I’m so sorry, Jamie.”
“I thought I lost you,” I confessed, the words strangling me.
B just smiled. “Silly boy. Don’t you know by now that you never could?”
I dropped my forehead to hers. “Even now, even with you under me, with you in my arms… it doesn’t feel real. It’s like a dream.”
“Or a nightmare, since it’s us,” she teased.
I looked at her then. “I mean it. Jokes aside, B… I let you go. I thought it was really over. I thought… and then I saw your book, and now I’m here, and I just… fuck,” I cursed, shaking my head. “I can’t lose you again. I can’t—”
“You won’t,” she promised, holding my face in her hands as she searched my eyes. “This is real, Jamie. It’s me and you now.”
“Forever.”
“Forever,” she echoed, and then my lips claimed hers, slow and on the wings of a shaky exhale.
Every kiss came slower than the first, our lips warm and smooth against each other as we carefully undressed. I pushed up on my knees long enough to strip my shirt overhead, to help her out of her plaid pajama shorts and tank top. I marveled at her body with every layer shed, remembering what it looked like nine years ago, and counting every lucky star in the galaxy that I got to appreciate it all these years later.
“Marry me,” I whispered against her lips when we were both undressed, slipping between her thighs as I made the request.
She gasped at the feel of me, of my shaft sliding into her wetness, stopping just at the brink of entry. “Yes.”
“Tomorrow. No, today.”
She laughed, tucking her hips so that the crown of me slipped just a centimeter more inside her. It took all my restraint to focus on her answer instead of on how badly I wanted to be buried inside her.
“Today. Tomorrow. And every day after,” she whispered, kissing me long and hard. Then, her nails dragged down my back, over my ass, digging into the flesh. “Now, fuck me, Jamie Shaw. Remind me what it’s like to be yours.”
I groaned, my hands slipping under her shoulders and holding on tight as I flexed and filled her. She arched and moaned with the connection, opening for me even more as I withdrew and pumped in again.
“More,” she begged, and I hissed, pushing back onto my knees and hiking her ankles up on my shoulders. I wrapped my hands around her thighs, flexing into her and finding more depth just like she’d asked.
Her hands fisted in the sheets, back arching, tits bouncing as I picked up my pace.
She came within seconds, and I wasn’t even a little ashamed when I did, too.
“Fuck,” I cursed, falling down onto her. Her legs went limp, and she chuckled, kissing my slick shoulder as her fingertips drew lines on my back.
“Again?” she asked.
“Again,” I echoed, and then I was kissing her, flipping us until she was on top as we slipped into round two.
IF YOU DIDN’T PICK up on it from reading her book, B is a little bit of a masochist.
I blame that fact for why she couldn’t write a real epilogue to save her life. That tiny, barely a page, torturous thing she gave you and called an epilogue was just cruel, which is exactly why I wanted to write to tell you what happened in-between.
I wasn’t kidding about wanting to get married that day. However, I found it impossible to leave B’s bed once I had her naked, and we spent — quite literally — all day and night making up for lost time.
We were both sore and exhausted and blissfully sated by the time we finally fell asleep late that night. The next morning, in the early purple light of dawn, I woke B with gentle kisses over her left ring finger knuckle.
Her eyes fluttered open.
“Marry me,” I whispered.
She nodded, and then after one more round — because how could we not — we started planning.
I was content to just go to the courthouse that day and demand they waive the three-day waiting period so we could be married by the time the sun set that evening. But B talked me out of it, using her bewitching kisses to convince me we should do a proper celebration and ceremony.
So, we applied for our license, waited the three days, and then jumped on a plane to California.
California was our place. It was where we were young and reckless together, where we finally caved in and submitted to our true feelings — even if it wasn’t the best timing. It was also where we surfed our first real waves together, where we realized that no matter what happened, we’d always be there for each other, someway, somehow.
“Do you think we’re crazy?” I asked my sister, Sylvia, on the evening of the wedding as she fixed my bow tie.
She smiled. “Absolutely.” Her eyes found mine. “But I also think you’re meant for each other.”
“Mom and Dad didn’t even seem surprised when I told them.”
“None of us were.” Sylvia finished up my tie and then grabbed the lapels of my tux. “We all already knew it would be you two in the end. We were just waiting for you dummies to figure it out.”
The ceremony was small and intimate — just my parents, my sisters, B’s mom and Wayne, and of course, Jenna.
It was golden hour on the west coast, the sun slowly making its descent over the water as my father clapped my shoulder from where he stood beside me. My eyes were on the sand around my shoes, my heart racing out of my chest. And then he bent to whisper, “Here she comes.”
With a steadying breath, I lifted my gaze, and there she was.
B walked barefoot through the sand toward me with golden rays of light illuminating her hair like a halo. She wore a white, lacy dress that was shorter in the front and longer, flowier in the back. It showed off those immaculate legs of hers, and the lace tapered her waist, the slim spaghetti straps highlighting her sleek collarbone, elegant neck, and lean arms.
I mapped those freckles on her cheeks as she flushed and walked slowly toward me. They were more pronounced after surfing for a few days, her sun-kissed skin a warm brown, but it was her smile that I couldn’t stop staring at.
She smiled like it was the happiest day of her entire life, like she’d been just waiting and counting down the time to this very moment.
And I felt the same.
I didn’t realize how tight my chest was, how constricted my throat was, how my nerves were making me tremble until my stare crawled up, up, up to meet her eyes.
Her metallic, stormy gray eyes.
As soon as our gaze met, I was hit with flash after flash of memories.
I saw the first time we met, how she looked up at me from where she’d fallen down with one lone curl hanging over her eyes. I saw her tired eyes that night on the beach before I left for college. I saw her laughing in a cat café and surfing the barrel of a wave. I saw her crying at the loss of her father, saw her laughing as we watched a movie from afar when she was in Pittsburgh, saw betrayal and hurt when she saw me with Angel for the first time.