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He pulls away enough to look at me. The waves crash below us, and the sun behind his head is nearly blinding when I stare into his eyes. His blue rivals the sky.
“Yes,” he says simply.
Huge monarch butterflies launch through my stomach.
“And…would thatNbe for…Nora?”
His jaws flex before a lazy grin hits his mouth. That hand of his slides up my bent knee and down the top of my thigh—aprofessional skier on a treacherous slope. He studies my lips and I think I’ll remember this moment and the way the sun feels and the wavesbreak and the look of utter affection I see in Derek’s eyes for the rest of my life.
“Yes,” he says. “I got it for you.”
Stunned doesn’t begin to describe me. “But…when?”
He drops his head again and breathes against the skin of my neck and ear. “The week after we broke up. Or more specifically—the day after you saw me kiss that woman outside my apartment.”
“Why? Especially after the way I hurt you? Why would you get my initial?”
“Because regardless of how it ended, I needed a way to prove it existed.” He says the words just above my mouth. “I was scared of forgetting what we had. The tattoo was a way to admit to myself that you were important to me and would always be a part of me no matter how much time passed.”
I don’t know what to say. How to express that my heart feels simultaneously heavy and light. And he doesn’t make me find the words either.
Derek’s thumb traces up my jaw to tease the corner of my lips before his head lowers, mouth finally covering mine. My body exhales.
I hear the faint clicking of Alec’s camera a few times before it stops completely. Alec whispers loudly to Kamaya that they should give us some privacy.
Probably because this is not a sweet kiss. Not like the accidental brush of lips we exchanged in Derek’s kitchen. From the second his mouth covers mine, it’s consuming. It’s years and years of longing, and missing, and needing.
I wrap my arms around his neck and tug more of his body weight onto me because I want him there. Need him there. His hand moves to cradle the back of my neck so he can tilt my face for a better angle.When he lightly licks my bottom lip asking for permission, it undoes me. I open my mouth, and his tongue sweeps over mine, sending white-hot desire striking through my core. I run my hands down his hard back, reveling in the gritty texture of sand mixed with sweat. I take his bottom lip between my teeth and then suck it into my mouth. Derek groans and I’m desperate for more of that sound. I want all of it. I want to see the man unravel completely and know that I’m the one who did that to him.
Except I don’t get more because a second later, Kamaya is somewhere nearby clearing her throat. “Um. So sorry, you two. But I feel obligated to tell you that you’re garnering a bit more attention than you’d probably like.”
Derek tears his mouth away and looks up toward the top of the beach where sure enough, there’s a few people cupping their hands over their brows to give them a sun-shielded view of us. “Shit. I’m sorry, Nora. That was…”
“Incredible,” I say, touching his face so he knows I don’t regret it.
I don’t regret one second of it.
I live for this moment every night when Nora steps out of the bathroom from brushing her teeth, because she’s sleepy and relaxed and the smile she gives me when she sees me on the couch is just so…intimate. It’s this little brief second where no time has passed at all and we’re still just two young people madly in love with their whole lives ahead of them.
And I don’t know…maybe we are still those people.
The door opens and there she is in little black sleep shorts and an oversized sweatshirt and that sleepy smile on her lips. God—she’s so gorgeous. Sexy and curvy and freckled.
I kissed that woman this morning—Ikissed her and she kissed me right back. Nothing about it was fake. Nothing about it for show. If there’s one thing I know for certain, Nora is not a good actress, and an even worse liar…so what I saw in her eyes, felt in her kiss, it was real. It was one of the signs the guys told me to look for, and I foundit.
Was it maybe not the best place to have a kiss that passionate? Most likely. But I don’t regret it one bit. We were lying there on thebeach and the sand was in her hair and the sun was golden on her skin and I couldn’t help it. I wanted her. Still want her. Will likely spend forever wanting her.
But not just in a physical sense. I want her as my best friend, my favorite person to talk to, the one who I walk with through every good and bad season. I want so much more with her than just that kiss on the beach.
The problem arises if Nora doesn’t want this too. Because 20/20 crystal-clear lines or not, it’s going to be difficult returning to a normal business relationship after all this. Make no mistake, though, if that’s what she wants I’ll do it. Because I’ve decided that living a life where Nora is nothing but a platonic work friend is worlds better than a life without her in it at all.
I think she’s sorting through all these potential implications and pros and cons too. Because after that beach incident and the truth bomb I dropped about myNtattoo, Nora didn’t come back with me to the room. Or she did, but only long enough to change her clothes and pack a tote bag with a few books, and then she made an awkward excuse about wanting to go read by the ocean and live her best unplugged life. In other words, she was feeling off-kilter and avoiding me to regroup.
It was a good separation for the day. It gave me time to process my feelings while working out in the resort gym. To replay every damn word I said out there and decide if it was worth it to tell the truth. I don’t regret it. If anything, I feel relieved. Part of me is still worried that Nora is going to bolt. That maybe she’ll go out on a coffee run and then text me that she went to the airport instead and couldn’t do this anymore. But even if that happens, I won’t regret having told her the truth and kissing her like I did.
It helps, though, that Nora did come back this evening. Shewalked through the door, smiled a soft smile, and then went to get a shower.
And now here we are, me drinking hot chamomile tea and mentally falling all over myself at the sight of Nora leaving the bathroom. Except when she twists back to turn off the light, she winces.
