She melts against me, and it feels spectacular. This is a welcome home the likes of which men climb mountains for. I’m not sure what I did to deserve it, but as she draws her nose down my neck, inhaling me in the way that only she can, I know I’ll take it.
Every day.
She lets her arms fall from me, places her hands on my chest, and looks in my eyes. Her gaze is curious, quizzical. “Did you get my email?”
I nod. “About an hour and a half ago, when I landed. There was no Wi-Fi on the seventeen-hour flight.”
Her brow furrows. “Wait. What? You only got my email an hour ago and you’re here?” She points to the ground, as if she needs to make sure I know where we are.
But I know. Hell, do I ever know where I am and where I want to be.
“I was already on my way,” I say, running a hand up her bare arm. I’m a starving man. I’ve gone too long without touching her. I need contact. Need to feel her skin. She shivers as my fingers reach her shoulder. “I thought you were in Texas. I was sure you’d taken the job there, and I was about to buy a ticket all the way from Bali to Austin.”
“You were?” she whispers.
“I was. I was going to find you wherever you were.”
“In Texas?”
“You say that like it’s the height of insanity.”
She shakes her head as if she’s shaking off water. “I’m just surprised.”
“Joy, if you’d gone to Mount Everest I’d have purchased a ticket there. If you were in the Arctic Circle, that’s where I’d have traveled to.”
A grin crosses her lips and seems intent on staying there. “How’d you wind up here, then?”
I brush my fingers back down to her wrist. “I figured it would be wiser to call a friend before I bought a ticket, so I rang Christian and he told me you’d decided to stay, so I came back.”
“Because of me?” Her voice wobbles.
I thread my fingers through hers, clasping tight. She squeezes back. “Yes. Because of you. It’s all because of you. You were right on the train, and I wasn’t ready to hear it then. I had to fly five thousand miles and run another twenty-six before I was whacked with the it’s-so-damn-obvious stick.”
“Did it hurt?” she asks playfully, and that pitch-perfect dry sense of humor is part and parcel of why I’d fly five thousand miles again and again to see her.
“It felt good. Sometimes a man needs to be whacked with the sheer obviousness of his life. It was so crystal clear, and now I have a new list. Do you want to hear it?”
“I do.”
I let go of her hand, take out a sheet of paper from my pocket, unfold it, and clear my throat.
Five things I want to do . . .
1. Be with you.
2. Love you every day.
3. Give you heaps and heaps of screaming orgasms whenever you want.
4. Wander the world with you, or just explore Paris together. Whatever the world is to you, I want to be by your side.
5. Drink champagne on your rooftop as we say good-bye to the crazy idea that we weren’t meant to last, because we are.
P.S. This list also includes the ongoing, always and forevermore invitation to visit chocolate shops, bakeries, and any market you wish whenever you wish, as well as more orgasms.
P.P.S. Have I mentioned orgasms?
She throws her arms around my neck once more. “I do believe you can have it all.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Are you saying you want to have your cake and eat it, too?”
“Cake is always a good idea.”
“So is falling in love. So is staying in love. So is staying together. What do you say we do that?”
She quirks up her lips, and her bright green eyes twinkle with mischief. When she answers me, she’s not speaking the language she knows best. “I’d say you have yourself a deal.”
I cup her cheeks, hold her face, and kiss her. Like that, we make the world disappear. It’s us, kissing on the street, coming back together.
Coming home.
She’s who I always want to return to. Every night.
When at last we pull apart, she’s breathless and flushed. It’s a look I like seeing on her. It’s a look I want to make sure she always wears.
She nibbles on one corner of her lips and glances at her watch. “Elise is waiting for me. I should go tell her you’re having me for dinner.”
I laugh. “She already knows.”
“What?”
“I might have been impulsive in surprising you. But I’m not stupid. I called my mate, he called your friend, and they made sure you’d be home when I was arriving.”
“You clever man,” she says appreciatively as she unlocks the pink door. “I guess she’s not waiting for me at the café on the corner.”
“No, I don’t think she is.”
“So, seventeen hours on a plane,” she muses as she tugs me to the staircase. “You must be exhausted.”
“Yes. I want to go to sleep straight away,” I say drily, since nothing could be further from the truth. I slept soundly on the plane. “Any chance I could crash here?”
She laughs. “Yes, feel free to crash on my couch. I’ll be quiet.”
“You’ve never been quiet,” I say, and I smack her ass as she heads up the steps.
“You’re the one to blame for all my noise.”
“I’d like to always be the one to blame for that.”
Soon, we’re up all those damn stairs. The door bangs shut, and our hands grab at each other. I can’t stop kissing her, can’t stop touching her.
“I don’t know how I thought I could do without you,” I say.
“Don’t then.”
I push up her skirt, tug down her knickers, and press her hard to the wall. In seconds, my jeans are undone, and I push in
