Page 70 of All I've Waited For

She smiled up at him, her grin dazzling in the sunlight. “It is what I want.”

“Good. Me too.” He tipped her chin and kissed her.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to wait for a pronouncement or something?” Evan parked the boat off the back and he and Madison climbed aboard the motor yacht. The women hugged and Evan slapped Derek on the back. “Congrats, man.”

“I just found out.”

His friend grinned. “I know. Mad and I have been avoiding you all week so we didn’t spoil the surprise. You have no idea how hard it was.”

Derek punched Evan in the shoulder. “Just glad you’re here.”

Spencer stepped toward them, and with the sky and waves as their witnesses, he spoke the words Derek had only dreamed of hearing as Ashley’s groom. Before Derek knew it, he was reciting his vows, and then Ashley was slipping a simple white gold band on his left hand.

“It’s my great honor to pronounce you man and wife,” the pastor said. “Derek, go ahead and kiss your bride.”

Derek’s chest swelled. His bride. How far they’d come, and how far they’d go.

But as for the going, they’d do it together.

With all the care he could manage, Derek took his beloved’s face in his hands and melded her lips with his own. She tasted of sun and sea and the one thing he’d feared never to find.

A forever kind of love.