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He cupped both my cheeks then. “Can you forgive me? If I make you happy every day of your life, for the rest of my life. Can you forgive me?”
“I mean, I forgave you before I kissed you. It’s done. Okay? We figure out where we want to go from here. I’m not sure how to do this. I’ve never done it. The happiest I ever was in my life was when I found myself locked in your house. I don’t know how to do this relationship thing.”
He laughed. “Happiest I ever was, too. Well, first things first, we leave your beautiful office…are you hungry? I could feed you. I never got to take you out, not on a real date. Or I could take youhome, and I could feed you there. Or you could come to my hotel room, and I could order room service.”
I didn’t blame him for not understanding how difficult food remained, but we would eventually need to go over my diet. In the meantime, we didn’t have to discuss it, not right then. “How about no food? How about my apartment? You and me, wrapped up in each other.”
He nodded fast. “Okay. We’ll eat later.”
Or he would eat, and I would move the food around on my plate with a fork to try to make it look like I ate something. Whichever.
I followed him back onto the street. Getting home was a blur, but then we were inside, and his mouth was on mine again. There was a desperation in how Michael kissed me that hadn’t been there before. I was sure that I matched it. Had I ever wanted him this badly? Maybe. I practically crawled up his body. It was hard to think, I just knew I had to have him right then. We weren’t even going to make it to the bedroom.
Instead, he kissed me against the wall that led to my bedroom, not needing air, it seemed. He pushed me hard against it, his hips bumping into my bundle of nerves and making me cry out for him. The last time I saw him, he’d still been pretending his arm was okay. It seemed fine now, I thought as he used it to grip my hips and grind against me. He was hard and I could feel it everywhere. I shivered in anticipation and my body started to throb with need.
He tugged at my shirt, removing it and then my sports bra in rapid succession.Looks like I’m going to get a different kind of cardio.The thought made me smile, and even though he couldn’t have known what I was thinking, he smiled right back at me against my lips. Michael squeezed one breast and then the other, his clever fingers toying with my nipple. I tugged athis shirt, which made him stop, but I wanted more of his skin against mine.My chest to his, my heart to his.
We stared at each other for a long moment before we both managed to get out of our own pants. It was easier, faster, and then we were both naked. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he pushed inside of me, fast. Once. Twice. Then we were moving together. My nails raked his back as I cried out. It had been a year since I felt him filling me, and I wanted it. So much.
“You’re mine, Bridget,” he said in my ear, his body thrusting into mine. “All mine.”
I believed him.
17
The boat surged toward land, bringing us back from the trip I’d planned for so long. I leaned against the railing to watch the dock getting closer. Michael stood at the end of it, watching as we approached. It had nearly broken him this morning to put me on the scuba boat and stay on land while I traveled away from him. I could see it in the slope of his eyebrows and the way his mouth sort of pinched. But he did it, and he didn’t even make me explain to him why he couldn’t come.
This was my journey. I learned to scuba dive, I planned the trip to celebrate the new skill, and while I was glad of his companionship for most of the trip, I didn’t want him to dive with me.
A few minutes later, I stepped off the boat and into his arms. After he kissed me and did a quick look to make sure I was okay, he spoke. “How was it? Did you like it?”
My skin felt sticky against his, probably from a combination of salt water and sunblock, despite me removing my wet suit. The water was so warm, the guide had said we might not evenneed wet suits, but I learned in one and didn’t want to go down without it.
“I liked it.” I smiled up at him. “It was beautiful down there.” I closed my eyes, remembering the neon-colored fish swimming through the gorgeous coral in the crystal-clear blue water…I even fed an eel.
He put his arm around me as we walked off the dock together. The taxi waiting for us was probably one of his guys, or at least someone he’d vetted. Michael did like to control our circumstances. I couldn’t blame him. When things got out of control, people got poisoned, after all. I leaned against him. “I’m hearing abutin your voice, Bridget.”
“I didn’tloveit. Is that terrible? Don’t people love scuba diving? Don’t they love it so much that they can’t stop talking about it? I mean, to the point that you’re like, yeah, I get it, you went scuba diving. Please stop talking about it.”
He kissed the top of my head. “You wanted to try it. You got certified. You were scared, but you did it anyway, and then you took a trip to really give it a go. If you don’t love it, that is totally fine. You gave it a more than fair shot. Tell you something? I don’t like it. I mean, not at all. Makes me claustrophobic.”
I laughed. “I bet you didn’t get certified to go look at fish. I bet there was some really scary reason you had to be licensed. I bet you have three different kinds of licenses, in fact, and could go down with the Coast Guard and rescue people, if you had to.”
He kissed me again, but I noticed he wasn’t disagreeing with my assessment. “So maybe we just go to the hotel? We’ll sit, and we’ll eat the food that is safe for you there, and then we make love a lot, and we can sleep in for the next four days?” He waggled his eyebrows at me, as if trying to convince me of the validity of his plan.
I grinned at him. “Okay. But just because I didn’t love this doesn’t mean I’m not finishing my to- do list. I’m going to run amarathon, then jump out of a plane…” I’d added that one the day before. “... and learn to fly a helicopter.”
Every time I said the last one, he frowned.Why didn’t I just learn to fly a plane?He’d love that. He knew how to fly a plane. Ultimately, it seemed his biggest problem with the idea was he had never flown a helicopter himself.
So I was totally doing it. If I could, I’d beat him to it.
“I know.” He kissed me as we got into the taxi. “I love you.”
I loved when he said that. I couldn’t get enough of it. “I love you, too.”
Nightmares had changeda bit in our year apart. Not mine, Michael’s. He woke up at least once a night from them. I think what made them so scary to me was how silently they struck him. He didn’t even wake me when it happened. I wouldn’t even know he struggled with them if I didn’t wake up one night randomly because I had to go to the bathroom.
Since then, I woke up when he did because I’d become attuned to it. Apparently, the nightmares came on vacation with us. The three weeks since we got back together remained blissful. Not just on the beach with beautiful sunsets and tropical drinks—for him, not me—but at home, where we both had been working since he moved into my apartment. No fights, no stress, just heavenly happiness.
