Page 50 of Finding Elodie
“I should’ve taken a picture for you,” Mustang said regretfully.
“No need. It’ll be burned in my memory forever,” Elodie told him.
They stared at each other for a beat, then Mustang lowered his head. He couldn’t help it. Couldn’t have stopped himself from kissing her right that moment if his life depended on it. A whole host of terrorists could’ve stormed down the beach right then and he wouldn’t have done a damn thing about it. All his attention was centered on the woman in his arms.
The kiss was short, because Mustang knew if he lingered, he really would take Elodie to the sand and have his wicked way with her.
Elodie put a hand on his chest and looked up at him with big eyes. “Your place or mine?”
Mustang let out a huge sigh of relief.
He wanted this woman. Badly. But he hadn’t wanted to overstep his bounds by suggesting she come home with him.
“Mine,” he said firmly, then grabbed her hand and turned and headed for the parking lot.
He heard Elodie giggle behind him and couldn’t help but smile. It seemed as if they were on the same page as far as intimacy went, and he couldn’t wait another second to make Elodie his.
And she was.
His.
She might not fully understand what going home with him meant, but he did.
This was meant to be. They were meant to be. He’d hated having to leave her on the Asaka Express but now that he’d found her, he was keeping her.
“In a hurry?” she quipped as she stumbled after him.
Deciding walking was taking too long, and not wanting her to trip and hurt herself, Mustang turned and practically shoved their shoes at her chest. He’d been carrying both pairs of flip-flops as they walked in the sand. Surprised, Elodie grabbed hold of the shoes and let out a small shriek when he bent down and picked her up with one arm behind her back and the other under her knees.
She immediately wound an arm around his neck. “At least you didn’t throw me over your shoulder,” she said with a laugh.
“I thought about it,” Mustang admitted.
She laughed harder. “Well, for the record, this is much more comfortable.”
“Noted,” Mustang told her.
He loved the feel of her in his arms. She wasn’t light, but she wasn’t too heavy for him to carry. He’d trained to haul his teammates around fully loaded down with gear. So she was light compared to Midas, who was four inches taller than Mustang.
When they arrived at his truck, Mustang lowered her legs and, after they’d put their shoes back on, he framed her face with his hands. “Be sure,” he told her.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” Elodie told him. “I’ve second-guessed every decision I’ve ever made. Should I go to a four-year university, should I go to culinary school, should I work with this chef or that one, should I take that damn job in New York or the one on the Asaka Express? Should I go to Hawaii or somewhere else? But this is one decision I don’t have to think twice about. I want you, Scott.”
Mustang was a SEAL, he couldn’t turn that off…and he made a mental note about New York, but he pushed it to the back of his mind. First things first. Making Elodie his once and for all.
He kissed her hard on the lips, then opened the truck door for her.
She smiled as she got settled. When he went around and climbed behind the wheel and started the engine, she said quietly, “I kinda expected more than just a quick kiss.”
“I’m on the edge here,” Mustang told her as he headed out of the parking lot. “If I’d done more, we might be lying in the bed of my pickup right this second, your dress shoved over your hips and my head between your legs.”
“Damn,” Elodie whispered.
For a moment, Mustang thought he’d gone too far. That he’d been too blunt. But when he glanced over at Elodie, he saw she was fanning herself with her hand and smiling at him. She wasn’t upset with what he’d said; if he wasn’t mistaken, she was turned way the hell on.
“How do you want this to go?” he asked.
“Want what to go?”
