It isn’t like last time—he didn’t enter me with his fingers first, so there’s nothing to prepare me. The only help he offers now is the way he kisses me—ravenously, without giving me time to think. He devours me with his lips and with his hands, and it all helps distract me from the way my body stretches around him as he pushes his sex inside of me.

“Oh my God,” Mike groans, struggling to keep his composure as he enters me, and I wrap my legs behind him, slowly pulling him the rest of the way inside my body.

When he’s sunken fully inside me, I pulse around him, and his cock throbs in answer. Mike rests his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, and I plant soft kisses against his closed lips. When he opens his eyes, there is so much love in them, I almost start crying again.

“You undo me, Hailey,” he says, and a tear slips out of the corner of my eye.

“I love you,” I tell him, and he wipes my tear away, smiling. It’s the first time I’ve told him in person, and the words feel healing—freeing.

“I love you too,” he says, kissing me as he begins moving inside me again. His kiss isn’t fire or torture or teasing—it’s love. I feel it in my chest, in the way my heart beats against his while he makes me remember how perfectly we fit together.

It’s like he was made for me. Just for me.

Mike makes love to me until I shatter around him, and then he releases inside me and tells me over and over again how much he loves me, how much he missed me, how much he needs me. I say it all back, and I mean every word.

I love him. I missed him. I need him.

It’s still dark outside when he tugs me against his chest and wraps his arms around me. I smile contentedly as I play the little spoon to his big spoon, and eventually, my eyelids grow heavy.

“Get some sleep,” Mike orders when my body jerks to fight off sleep for the fifth or sixth time.

“I don’t want to,” I argue, my groggy voice betraying me.

Mike hugs me tighter, his breathing steady against my back. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“But you’re leaving soon. I don’t want to waste the time we have.”

“This isn’t wasting it,” he says, linking his fingers with mine and hugging our arms tight against my body.

“We should talk,” I counter, feeling a peacefulness I shouldn’t. Danica’s threat is still looming over us. But right now, it feels so far away.

“What do you want to talk about?” Mike rubs his thumb over my hand, since his hands can never be still, and I smile against our pillow.

“I don’t know . . .”

“Good talk, baby. Now get some sleep.”

I chuckle and try to think. “Uh, how was your flight?”

“Long.”

“Was it worth it?” I ask, and within seconds, I get my answer in the form of a growing erection that Mike presses against my ass.

“I suggest you talk about something else unless you seriously don’t want to get any sleep.”

I let out a soft chuckle and nibble my bottom lip, tempted. “Sorry.”

Mike’s hand lifts to my mouth, and even though he’s behind me and can’t see me, he frees my lip from my teeth. “Liar.”

I laugh, and he snuggles me closer. The hard length pressing against my body is starting to direct my thoughts to a very dirty place, so I force myself to change the subject. “Where was your favorite place on tour?”

“Probably the market in Seoul,” Mike answers after thinking about it for a while. “The food was amazing and the vendors were really friendly. It was kind of like Chinatown in New York, but so much better.”

I have no basis for comparison, since I’ve never been to Chinatown . . . or New York . . . “That sounds really cool.”

Mike rubs his thumb over my hand again. “Bali was really beautiful though. We made a stop at this one beach . . . It was a private little cove surrounded by massive rocks covered in the greenest plants you’ve ever seen. The sand was like powder, it was so soft. And the water was as warm as bathwater.”

“It sounds gorgeous,” I say, wishing I could have seen it with him.

“I’ll take you there someday,” Mike promises with his chin resting on my shoulder. “There are tons of resorts all over the island. Even those kinds with the little wooden huts that sit out on the water. We can spend our honeymoon in one of them.”

Mike stiffens at the same time I do—right when he says the word honeymoon. We’re quiet for a while, and his thumb starts drumming against my hand.

“Are you planning on proposing to me?” I tease, butterflies soaring wildly inside my stomach.

“Maybe in Australia . . .” Mike answers. “In the Capella Sunflower Fields in Queensland.”

“Did you go there?” I ask, and all of Mike’s fingers begin twitching, drumming against the top of my hand. He shakes his head.

I swallow, realizing what he’s not telling me. He didn’t go there—he looked it up.

“Would I get to hug a koala afterward?” I ask to lighten the conversation, and he shakes his head again.

“Nope. We’d hug one before.”

“Why before?”

“It’d guarantee a yes,” he says, and my whole body relaxes with a laugh.

“You think I’m that easy?”

“Okay,” Mike dramatically relents. “Two koalas.”

I laugh again and elbow him playfully, and he sighs contentedly as he pulls me tighter against his body. Every inch of me is squeezed against every inch of him, and I close my eyes and smile against the pillow.