Page 79 of Forever Fighting
His thumb drags back and forth along my cheek and his soulful eyes dance about my face. “I don’t want to mess this up. This feels like the most important week of my life, and I want to get it right.”
My heart gives a floppy thump, and something inside me shifts. It says,What the fuck are you doing, you idiot, and why are you holding back from this incredible man?
I don’t have an answer. It’s right. I’m just not ready yet. Maybe that’s crazy, but so is blindly jumping into something when if I hadn’t caught the train home that day, I’d likely still be engaged to another man. Instead of being married to this one. Oy.
I don’t answer him with words. Instead, I tilt up and kiss him. I hold his face in my hands, feeling my ring shift against his cheek. It’s been the most chaotic almost three weeks of my life. It scares me. Everything has changed with us, and it’ll never go back to how it used to be.
There is fear with that uncertainty.
But also… that voice is back. The one whispering how nothing has ever felt more right than Roman. Despite the madness in my head and my heart, I know I don’t want to let go of this because I’m afraid and have been burned.
Roman won’t burn me.
He’s the guy who burns down the world for you.
I just have to hope I won’t need him to.
25
ROMAN
Braelyn is hunting for sea creatures. We’re on the stretch of beach on the other side of the grassy area from our suite. It’s a long stretch of not a whole lot except sand and ocean, with a few ships offshore dotting the cloudy horizon. An attendant asked if we wanted chairs and umbrellas set up for us, but we declined.
I have an obvious love-hate relationship with the ocean.
I spent my life sailing on it with my brother, and now I live above it, but I haven’t been back in it since that day. No, we’re not counting me diving in to save the kid. That was different. Even being on the beach right now isn’t my favorite, but watching Braelyn’s happy smile and excited movements as she chases tiny crabs and unearths shells from the sand is making it tolerable.
I told her I didn’t want to mess this up, that this was the most important week of my life and she kissed me. But that’s okay because she’s mine. She is. In Braelyn language, her kissing me is her way of saying okay without overthinking it. So even though I wanted to take a walk on the path and maybe get an ice cream or something, I allowed her to take me down here.
I’ve never been the sort of guy who would have thought I’d ever be pussy-whipped, but this girl has me, and she clearly knows it because here we are.
“Come on, little guy.” She holds out her hands, hoping he’ll crawl into them. “I won’t hurt you.”
“But I will. I will legit take that crab and cook the fuck out of him.”
Braelyn throws me a menacing glare from where I’m standing ten feet from the water while she’s got her toes in the wake. She drops her chin back to the crab and starts to give chase as it scurries back into the sand. “No, wait! Don’t go. He didn’t mean it.”
“I did. You should save yourself.”
“You’re evil.”
“You know you ate crab two nights ago at dinner, right? And at breakfast in Vegas.”
She peers up at me. “Crap. I totally did. Do you think it was his friend?”
“Absolutely. His best friend. Since birth. You’re a crab killer. A destroyer of crab lives and legacies. Worse than the birds that eat them.”
She flips me off. “Thank you for that daytime drama take on it.” She stands, no longer caring about the crabs in the sand. “Do you remember when Nash dared me to dive naked into the ocean by your grandparents’ place on the Vineyard?”
“You mean the summer he made us watchJawsand wanted to recreate the opening scene?”
“Yes.” She laughs at my scowl. “He told me there wouldn’t actually be a great white waiting for us.”
“He just wanted to see you naked.”
She purses her lips. “Now that I think about it, maybe.”
“Definitely.”
