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More vibrantly and searingly than ever before. The fierce electricity between us, like kerosene meets jet fuel meets nuclear reactor core. It burns white-hot within seconds but only perpetuates more energy, until it feels like real fission. The rest of the world sees us standing a foot apart, but we know differently. One fire. One heart. One soul.
“Hey. Why are you so tense?”
Of course she knows that as fact. Probably a lot more too. Thankfully, every self-control trick I’ve learned since boyhood is present, ready to be my wingman. With their help, I keep the most important details well away from Kara’s mental reach.
“Not tense,” I readily reply. “Just excited. I want you to love everything.”
Her smile doles another agonizing but awesome gut punch. “I already do, Mr. Kane.”
I motion to our driver, an affable resort staff guy who looks like he’d get along well with Gio, that we’re ready to go. After helping Kara into the cart’s back seat, I jog around and get in next to her. Though my nerves still feel like triple-wrapped barbed wire, I savor the profound peace of resting my lips in my woman’s hair. The resort’s eucalyptus and mint products are a perfect blend with the cinnamon notes that are natural for her skin and an aphrodisiac for the rest of my days.
I don’t want these moments to end.
But they can’t end fast enough.
Since arriving yesterday, I’ve been mentally preparing for the hundred ways the next hour can go. Not the ending—the surest thing about all this, thank God—just every tiny detail leading up to it. The minutiae over which I’ve obsessed more than any lecture or lesson plan.
For all the fixating, I’ve deliberately stopped short at several parts of the visions. Held back from anticipating one specific factor. Kara’s reaction. I didn’t want to build expectations that wouldn’t become reality.
But after she emerged from our tent a few minutes back, more jaw-droppingly gorgeous than I ever could have imagined, more of my fantasies are escaping the mental border checks.
At the bottom of the hill, we take a mild turn off the main road and onto the nature trail that looks out toward the Channel Islands. Though there’s some haze over the ocean, the prominent rises of San Miguel, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz can clearly be seen. Between us and them, there are miles of azure waters that ripple like a vast liquid firmament. Depths both stunning and frightening, demanding that a man gaze at them with nothing less than his grandest dreams.
Since I’m already living mine, there’s a gigantic check mark for that box.
Not the best metaphor, since these moments belong to the limits of no boxes. Even the brackets of my chest feel too small for my heart as we reach a lone picnic table—fortunately still intact—positioned on a small rise toward the end of the greenbelt between a hiking trail and the beach. A white tablecloth is held down by arrangements of the wildflowers that I picked earlier in the afternoon and a pair of place settings is arranged, side by side, to allow clear views of the approaching sunset. The sky is already painted in watercolor-worthy hues of purple, orange, pink, and amber.
It’s one of the most perfect sights of my existence.
But it doesn’t take away half the breath that my woman does.
“Oh,wow,” she rasps before I get one foot out onto the ground. Somehow both ofhersare already there, and she’s rushing around the front of the cart with a stare rivaling the sky for wide-open beauty. “You’re really bucking for thatBest Boyfriend in the Universetrophy, aren’t you?”
“Andyoureally want a lesson about waiting to be properly escorted to dinner, it seems.” Unbelievably, I maintain the irked tone a good ten seconds longer than I expected—until the moment she windmills back with one arm, landing a chastising chuck to my right pectoral.
“You’re kidding, right? Because you seriously don’t mean I was supposed to wait on this.”
My pique is officially torpedoed. I don’t know what part of her debate has me more enchanted: the gutsy banter or the physicality she adds to it with that spirited stance into the wind. But I have no more time for this inner debate. Not when I can focus on savoring more of her gorgeousness. All of her energy and beauty, with the wind tugging at her hair. All of her light and life, with that dress molding to her figure.
The body in which she’s nurturing a creation from our love.
Another miracle on a very long list.
An amazing catalog, but one that’s out of order. A divergence I’m determined to fix, perhaps this very moment. It wasn’t on my list of possibilities, but I’m willing to flex. The light is golden, the cart driver is gone, and the sweet demon of my dreams is reaching a hand back to take mine…
No.
To yank on me with unignorable intention.
“Come on!” She uses her free fingers to pull off one shoe and then the other. “Let’s take a pre-dinner wade.”
I match her tug, ensuring she pays attention this time. “How about an after-dinner one? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“We’ll have dinnertime to talk. The tide’s coming in. Once the sun is all the way down, the water will get rougher.”
I cock my head. “When did you switch to Marine Science for a major?”
“Careful. I might start spouting whale mating trivia too.”
