Page 98 of Kiss and Tell
“I don’t want this date to be on the dock where things ended.”
“That makes sense.” There’s a delicious tickling in my chest.
“I want it where everything began.” His voice has grown soft and low like it had that night forever ago. Like that night, he slips one hand around my waist to draw me closer. He slides his other hand beneath my jaw and gently nudges my chin up. “Here, at Moon Rock, where you were wise enough to name what I couldn’t see yet.”
This kiss feels even more perfect than our first real one had nine years ago, and this time no one stumbles up the trail to interrupt it.
The contours of Sawyer’s body have changed as he’s grown into it, but while it’s still new to me, he feels like home. His lips are sure, and I slide my arms up his chest and around his neck, drawing him even closer, losing myself entirely as he deepens the kiss.
He breaks away and leans his forehead against mine.
I give a soft sigh. “I don’t know if I fell in love with you again after three days in May, or if I never fell out of love in the first place.”
“Just so you know, Tabitha Winters, you are not my backup plan. Being with you and your people today only made me love you more.” I give an involuntary shiver at hearing the word “love.” He presses me closer. “Yes. Love. I love you. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted since I was twenty, but I didn’t have the brains or guts to see it. But I see you now.”
“I thought you didn’t like my family or my town. Or it made everything too real, and suddenly you understood about the bubble. And you finally agreed with me at the worst possible time.”
“Worst time?”
I pull back to meet his eyes. “Yeah. After I figured out that I never got over you, and I don’t want to.” For the first time since I stepped into the clearing, I sense tension in him, a nervous energy I feel as distinctly as an electric current.
That old Sawyer magic weaves around me even more tightly, and it coaxes the words from me, the ones I sense he needs. “I love you too, Sawyer. And a word on logistics,” I say, as his arms tighten around me.
A small puff of laugh stirs my hair. “Yeah?”
I free one arm enough to wave at the clearing. “Good call on location.”
I hear a smile in his voice when he answers. “We could have done this two months ago if you wouldn’t have bailed. It’s the perfect venue.”
I freeze. “‘Venue’ is a wedding word.”
“It is. I figure ours should be the first one we host at Oak Crest.”
I stay still, trying to figure out how that makes me feel. “Three hours ago, I thought we were through. That’s a big U-turn.”
“And? Can you honestly say there’s a chance in hell either of us is ever going to marry anyone else?”
A firework explodes in a shower of golden sparks to punctuate his question.
I laugh and press another kiss against his lips. “That should freak me out completely, but it doesn’t. ‘First’ is probably ambitious. We’ve got to figure out this long-distance thing, and—”
“Why?”
“Why?” I pull back slightly to see if he’s serious. “Don’t you think long-distance will be hard? Remember how Ben transferred universities when he and Natalie only lived three hours apart because they hated it?”
He shrugs. “I don’t see what the big deal is. The lease I’m signing next week in Brooklyn is a pretty short commute to the Secaucus site.”
“What?!”
He grins. “Doesthatfreak you out?”
I gape at him, then fling myself on him and press kisses all over his face. “Not.” Kiss. “At.” Kiss. “All.” But I pull back for a second. “Wait, how many pets do you have?”
“None?” He’s thrown by the question.
I give him another kiss, one of relief that quickly turns to one of joy and promise.
When I let him come up for air, he rests his forehead against mine. “So you’re saying there’s a chance?”
