Page 45 of The Other Plan

“But nothing. What we felt was powerful and real, and I’ve never experienced it again. So that tells me it’s special. I loved you. I did. Maybe I was young, and maybe we didn’t know each other long, but to hell if you’re gonna tell me my feelings for you weren’t real. They were. And I still have feelings for you after all these years. That means something, Jenna. We’d be crazy not to take this chance to be together again.”

“We would be crazy to take it! Do you really want to go through that again if we don’t work out?”

“And what if we do?”

I waited for her to push back, but instead, she stared into my eyes, sucking her lip between her teeth... the lip I wanted to kiss.

As I bobbed beside the woman I had loved more than life itself, I knew I couldn’t let her get away again. Not this time. “You know what. Time may have passed, and we may be different people now, but there’s one thing that I know hasn’t changed.”

“And what is that?”

“This.” I slipped my hands along her face and leaned over, pressing my lips against hers and reigniting the ember between us that had never gone out. As our lips touched, it burst into a flame that nearly incinerated me from the inside out.

Jenna leaned into me, sinking deeper into my kiss as her lips responded to mine. Ten years may have passed since I’d kissed her, but it felt like time had stood still for a decade. Every feeling I’d ever felt for her burst out and flooded inside me again, just like they had the first time I’d kissed her.

The tether that had bound us once before wound around us, pulling us back together and connecting us in a way that I’d never experienced before or after her.

Slipping my hand behind her head, I deepened our kiss. She moaned into my mouth, sliding her arms around my neck as she leaned against me, returning my passion and matching it with her own—a passion I’d missed more than I knew until I tasted it on my tongue again.

A gust of wind blew across the water and lifted her hair as I held her against me, trying to kiss away the heartbreak that had nearly destroyed us both.

As I softened our kiss, I brushed my lips against hers, then pressed our foreheads together. The lapping of the waves against the boards echoed along with our soft pants as we sat breathing together.

“That is what hasn’t changed,” I whispered.

Jenna sat silently while I held my breath, awaiting her response.

A jet ski came flying toward us. Their sudden appearance startled us, and like a spooked wild animal, Jenna jumped out of my embrace.

“Whoa. We shouldn’t have done that.”

I leaned toward her. “Hey, don’t freak out on me now.”

She grabbed her paddle and pushed her board away from me. “Carter. I... I just can’t.”

Without looking back, she climbed onto her feet and dug her paddle into the water. I sat watching her go, the beautiful colors of the sky causing her to become a dark silhouette as she paddled toward shore.

I reached up and touched my lips, closing my eyes for a beat while I let myself remember the taste of her kiss.

A kiss I wanted more of.

And a kiss I knew she wanted again too.

Refusing to give up on this connection between us, I resolved right there to find a way to win her back. Hopping to my feet, I dug my paddle into the water and went after her. I’d let her get away once, and I wasn’t making that mistake again.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

JENNA

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I rode along quietly in the car, replaying that kiss in my mind.

That amazing, life-altering, incredible kiss.

The one I never should have let happen again.

The very same one I wanted to do again... and again... and again.