"These are happy tears."
"Even so." His thumb caught another one. "Especially not over me."
I pressed my face back against his chest. "I like you happy too," I whispered into his skin.
He was quiet for a moment. His hand returned to my hair. His breathing changed, slower, like he was building toward something.
"I am happy," he said. "You came into my life and you made it wonderful. I don't know how to say that without sounding like a greeting card, but it's the truth."
His chest rose under my cheek.
"Before you, I had systems. Routines. A life that functioned. After you, I have a life that means something."
His voice went rough.
"I love you, Anna. I've loved you since the elevator. Since you put your hand on my face and your voice was the only thing that reached me in the dark." His fingers tightened gently in my hair. "I've loved you since then. I'll love you after this. I don't know how to be eloquent about it because I'm not an eloquent man. I just love you. That's all I have."
I lifted my head and looked at him. His eyes were wet, his face was bare. No walls. No ice. No granite.
"I love you too." My voice broke on the word. "I love you so much it scares me. I love you in a way I didn’t think I was capableof anymore. I love you and I’m terrified. But I don’t care because you’re worth being terrified for."
He pulled me up to him and kissed me. Salt, tears, both of us on each other's lips. The kiss was slow, unhurried, holding everything we'd just said without needing to repeat a word. When he pulled back, his eyes were still wet, but his mouth had found the real smile. The full one. I'd been waiting for it for months, and it was worth every single one.
A laugh broke out of me, tangled up with the tears still on my face. He laughed too, quiet and rough, our foreheads pressed together.
"Stop crying," he said, but his voice was thick and his own eyes were streaming.
"You stop crying first," I said, pouting.
"I’m not crying. It’s the salt air."
"You’re a terrible liar."
"I’m an excellent liar. Just not with you." He pressed his forehead against mine. "Never with you."
We lay there under the stars and surrounded by the waves. My head on his chest, his heartbeat under my ear, steady, slow and not counting anything.
After a while, his circles changed. His fingers tracing the curve of my waist, the dip of my hip, the bare skin of my thigh with deliberate strokes.
"Again?" I whispered.
His mouth found the spot below my ear. "If you’re amenable."
"That’s not a sexy word, Jace."
"Would you prefer eager? Desperate? Insatiable?"
"Insatiable works," I giggled.
His hand slid between my thighs and my breath caught. He smiled against my neck, slow and wicked, and the stars blurred above us as his fingers found me.
"Insatiable it is," he murmured.
The ocean kept its rhythm. The tent glowed with starlight. And somewhere outside, the night birds called across the water and went unanswered because neither of us was listening to anything but each other.
CHAPTER 24
Anna
