Page 42 of Owen

Calm settles in my bones, knowing she made plans to enable her to see me tonight.

“What happens at midnight?”

“I turn into an ogre.”

I shake my head at her stupidity.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” Then she kisses me again.

11

OWEN

“Where the hell are we?” I look out of the car windscreen, into the dark as Jade parks her hired Jeep Wrangler.

“Welcome to Aphrodite’s Rock.” She unbuckles her seatbelt, jumps out of the car, and motions for me to get out too before I’ve even blinked.

Fuck me, this woman moves fast.

Fast jets and fast driving. I held on for dear life as she tore along the cliff-topped roads on the way here.

I mean, I enjoy driving fast and we have incredible countryside roads in Castleview Cove to do exactly that. But at night, in the dark, on a road you don’t know, it’s scary, and Jade just gave a whole new meaning to living life in the fast lane.

She scares the shit out of me in so many ways. Which freaks me out, but I’m also here for it too.

“What are you waiting for?” Her voice is muffled as she shouts from outside of the car because I still haven’t moved. Then she turns on her heels and starts running away.

“Shit,” I hiss, unclipping my seatbelt, and leap out of the jeep as her silhouette disappears into the darkness.

Pulling my phone out of my shorts pocket, I tap the flashlight on and call out her name as I slam the car door closed. The warm salty air hits my nostrils, the faint sound of breaking waves radiating in the distance.

“I’m over here.” Her phone light flickers in the black of night as she swings it through the air.

I jog toward her, and the ground changes as I hit pebbles, kicking them up around my legs and into my sneakers.

“You’re so slow,” she teases.

“I didn’t realize it was a competition.” Slightly out of breath, I grab her waist, pulling her into my arms to tickle her sides.

“I’m not ticklish.” She doesn’t react to my wiggling fingers.

“What? How is that even possible? That’s surely not a thing?”

“It is and I’m not.” She elevates herself to her tiptoes and smacks a kiss to my lips. “Clothes off. We’re going for a swim.” She moves back, quickly places her phone on the pebbled beach, then removes her dress, followed by her gold sandals.

“No way. There could be sharks.” My voice goes a little squeaky. I love surfing and swimming, and as a hardened Scot, I’m thick-skinned and can tolerate the bracing temperature of the North Sea in the winter surf, but sharks? Nope, not doing that, never.

“There won’t be any sharks.” She pulls a white stone out of her bra before whipping it off. She’s standing there in only her lace panties, and my brain disconnects from my spinal cord momentarily.

I realized she pulled something out of her bra, and my curiosity pulls me back to reality. “What’s that?” I point at the white stone.

Holding it up between her fingers, she shows me a shiny white pebble, barely an inch in size. In the dark, I can just makeout a tiny pillar box with a red poppy on the front of it. “My lucky charm. I wear it in my bra, next to my heart most days, and always when I fly.” She looks melancholy. “My dad gave it to me.” Her eyes drop to the stone as she rubs the pad of her thumb over it. “He said it would bring me good luck.” When she looks up, her mouth is tilted up to the side. “It has.”

I gulp so loud I’m surprised she doesn’t hear it over the waves crashing against the rocks that line the edge of the beach as it suddenly dawns on me that I want to keep her close tomyheart. Forever. Because she feels like my very own good luck charm.

Standing almost completely naked on the beach, she meticulously places her stone on top of her clothes. My head in a spin, I use my torch to look around the beach, to check no one else is around.

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