Page 48 of Keeping My Girl

She gives me an unsteady nod.

On the way back, I see the surfer who crashed into her coming out of the water. “She had the right of way, dickhead!” I call out to him.

“Sorry, man! Didn’t see her!” he calls back with his hands up in apology.

Muttering curses under my breath, I try to calm myself down. He’s lucky we’re on a public beach with witnesses. He might be losing a limb…or two if we were somewhere private. Hell, if I had my gun right now, I’d shoot the bastard right between the eyes. Looking up at the parking lot, I start to wonder if I can get a gun from one of the guards and make it back here in time.

“It’s fine, Nico. I’m fine,” Selina says, grabbing my face in her hands and forcing me to look at her. “Don’t worry. I’m not hurt.”

I stare into her blue and green eyes as my anger slowly begins to recede. “That guy would be dead right now if you were hurt,” I confess to her fervently.

My words seem to affect her, but I can’t read the expression on her face. “Just forget about him,” she whispers before lowering her hands. And, fuck, if I don’t miss her touch already. “I had fun. Even when I thought I was dying,” she says with a grin.

I grimace at her words and then a dark chuckle erupts deep inside my chest. “You really are a little daredevil,” I tell her. “First with the car and now with this.” I’m starting to think she might enjoy the thrill a little too much. Fuck, I feel as if I aged ten years between today and the day she learned how to drive.

A sly grin slides onto her pretty face. Then she surprises the hell out of me by saying, “Give me, like, five minutes, and then we can go out again.”

“You want to…go out again?” I ask, completely positive that I didn’t hear her right somehow.

“Yeah, we still have a few hours before the sun sets,” she says. “We always used to stay until sunset, remember?”

I nod slowly. Of course I remember. We would watch the sunset on the beach together after we spent hours surfing. Those days were some of the most magical moments of my life.

“Okay,” I tell her. “We’ll keep going if you feel up to it.”

“I do,” she says with a smile that lights up my whole fucking world.

I keep forgetting how strong my girl is. She’s been through hell twice and back and fucking survived. Not many can say that.

We spend the rest of the afternoon riding wave after wave until we’re both too tired to go back in the water. And when we watch the sun setting across the ocean, it feels like my life is finally complete and full of something other than despair, tragedy…and longing.

It’s when we’re climbing back in the van that I get an eerie feeling, like she’s going to disappear again. The thought of her being ripped from my arms again has my chest aching and my stomach tying up in knots. I try to shake off the feeling, because I know if anyone tries to take her from me again, I will hunt them down and kill them with my own fucking bare hands.

Selina and I deserve some happiness in our lives. And I’m only happy when I’m with her. I just hope someday she feels the same way.

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