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We laugh in surprise as another firework goes up, and then another. It seems like someone’s having a party on the river tonight, and we get to have a front row seat as a bonus.
“This is amazing,” Candace laughs.
“It’s a sign,” I say, grinning at her. “A good luck charm.”
“For what?”
I reach across the table and take her hand. “For us. First, we bump into each other completely by chance in a train station on the wrong side of the world. Then we get rewarded for spending the week together by a free firework display on an exclusive yacht.”
“Spending the week together?” she asks, smiling teasingly. “It’s only been two days.”
“Well, I hope you weren’t too attached to your plans for the rest of the trip,” I say with a grin. “Because whether you like it or not, I’m going to be with you until your flight home.”
“I do like it,” she says, squeezing my hand back. “I like that idea a lot.”
“Then, it’s settled,” I say. We both smile as the waiter brings out our main courses, his face reflecting the same wonder we both felt as he notices the fireworks.
The evening seems to go on forever, and yet also to be over in the single space of an instant. I want to sit here, on this deck, with Candace for eternity. I want to eat good food with her, drink good wine, watch the fireworks and talk about everything and nothing at all. To smile and laugh together, with nothing more pressing weighing on our shoulders than the lateness of the hour.
But it is late, and ultimately, it’s time for us to leave. The Tempest might be a very exclusive club, but even I don’t have the power to make it stay open for forty-eight hours straight. It has to close for the night, and the workers have to go home. And so do we – or at least, to our hotels.
I call a cab, and it’s only when we pull up outside Candace’s hotel that the heaviness begins to settle in. I don’t want to leave her here. I want to keep her with me – but I know it has to be this way.
“Walk me up to my door?” Candace suggests as I get out of the cab to say a proper goodnight.
“I can’t,” I say, bending to kiss her. “If I do, I’ll come inside.”
“Would that be so terrible?”
I find myself laughing at the eager look on her face.
“Yes, it would,” I say. “Because if I end up going inside your hotel room, then I’m going to see the bed, and I’ll have no choice but to throw you down on it and have my wicked way with you. And I promised you that we would wait and make it special tomorrow. So, no trying to seduce me into breaking my word.”
“I wouldn’t hold it against you,” she says slyly, gripping onto my hands as if to lead me upstairs right now.
I kiss her again, shaking my head with a reluctant grin. “Begone, temptress,” I tell her. “I gave you my word, and that’s important to me. I don’t go back on my promises. I need you to know that – and I’m not going to start this whole thing off by showing you the opposite.”
“Alright,” she says, and sighs. “I wish I didn’t have to go to sleep at all. Then we could stay together all night and it would be the morning before long.”
One last kiss and I reluctantly step back. “If you do sleep, tomorrow will be here quicker,” I say. “Goodnight, Candace. Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, Sean,” she says, with one last wistful sigh, and she turns to go.
I lean against the cab and watch her until she’s inside. Partly because I want to make sure that she gets in safely – and partly because, after the sound of my name on her lips, I don’t think I can move for a second or two without making it very obvious to any passers-by just how much she turns me on.
I don’t know how I’m going to sleep either – because I want it to be tomorrow just as much, if not more than she does.
Chapter Sixteen
Candace
I close the hotel room door behind me and sigh again, groaning at the thought that I have to wait a whole night to see him again. It feels like it’s just too long. It’s not fair.
I hug my arms across my chest as I lay back on the bed, still fully dressed. I should get ready for bed, take off my makeup, get some rest. But I can’t stop thinking about Sean. I don’t want to stop thinking about Sean.
About his strong arms, and the way it feels when he wraps them around me. About the gentle words, he speaks right into my ear. The way his fingers and tongue brought me to a kind of ecstasy I have never known, so intense and powerful. How handsome he is, how charming. How he makes me feel like I’m the only person in the world that matters.
