I wake up hours later with sunlight sneaking through the curtains and warmth at my back. I sink into Millen’s arms which are wrapped around me, closing my eyes and relishing how comfortable I am, physically and emotionally, in this moment.
After the revelations of last night, the last place I thought I’d want to be was in his bed but I think it was inevitable. I always knew I’d be touching him, wanting to kiss him and do a hell of a lot more than that too.
As if he reads my mind, his breath fans across my neck as he places a barely there kiss against the skin. My breath catches, and the arm around my waist tenses.
I run my hand down the length of his arm and lace my fingers with his, giving a reassuring squeeze so he knows I’m okay and we stay there like that for a long time. Neither of us push for anything more than what we’re doing as I slowly drift back to sleep.
I’m woken up again by a gentle tug on my hand. Rolling me onto my back, Millen leans over me and braces an arm on the bed. He lowers his head and softly presses his mouth to my lips.
I open for him, groaning at the first touch of his tongue to mine. I glide my hand around his shoulder and pull him farther over me so his body covers me, parting my legs so his hips fit inside.
He lifts his soft, sexy eyes to mine. “Best feeling in the world is waking up next to you. Only done it twice and I swear they’re two of the best mornings I’ve ever had.”
“You’ve already got me here. No need to sweet talk me,” I say with a wry smile.
“I’ve got you here but do I have you?”
“For the next forty-eight hours, I’m all yours,” I say, running my hands up his neck to glide through his unruly bedhead.
His eyes flash, a muscle ticking in his jaw as I scan his face.
“Millen, don’t think. That’s the only way that we’re going to get through this. Don’t think. Don’t try and work out why and how, or worry about what’s going to happen after we leave this bed. The only way…” I swallow, my throat tightening as I don’t follow my own advice, “. . . the only way we’ll get through this is to live in the now. This moment, this time in our lives, and how I feel when you touch me. I want to commit everything we do while we’re here to memory so that neither one of us have a single regret when we leave.”
He furrows his brows and opens his mouth but I beat him to it.
“That also means not wasting a single second of the time we have left with each other.”
“We should—”
I cut him off with my mouth, jerking his head down as I lift mine up, crashing our lips together. I know that if we talk right now, all the niggling doubts and thoughts of self-preservation that kept me awake last night will come back with a vengeance.
Holding him to me, I devour his mouth, moaning as the realization of just how right this feels rolls over me. Needing more, I plant a foot in the bed and flip him over, his fingers biting into my skin when I grind down on his cock.
“Too many clothes,” he groans, delving his hands inside my pajamas and gripping my ass, pressing my pelvis hard against him.
I drag my lips over his jaw and down to his ear. “Feel free to do something about that then.” I nip his throat and he shudders.
He makes short work of my shorts and underwear, throwing them somewhere on the floor. Then my back hits the mattress and his mouth is on mine, and this time it’s hungry…
We spend the rest of the day out on the lake in the family’s jet boat, setting anchor and alternating between swimming and lying about. It’s a nice escape from the truth of the situation I not only found myself in, but chose to stay in and—after last night and today—can admit to firmly entrenching myself in.
Millen then takes me to his favorite Italian restaurant in town that he always visits when he’s in the area and even still, I begin to believe that this could be what our lives would be like together. I’ve all but forgotten about the people left back at home—Lana, his mom, Harris being my boss, and Drew’s broken heart—when the universe decides it is time for a reminder. Time for reality to hit us square in the face with a closed fist.
His hand is in mine across the table and we’re in our own little world when I spot a group of women coming toward us.
“Millen Ross, is that you?” a shrill voice asks.
He snaps his head up and jerks his hand out of mine faster than I can blink. “Melanie…”
“We got the invitation in the mail. I can’t wait to see the great Millen Ross finally walk down the aisle,” she says, all but ignoring my presence. My heart races, my cheeks heating as mortification threatens to overwhelm me.
How could I have been so stupid to think that we wouldn’t run into someone he knows? Someone who apparently is invited to his wedding and therefore knows he shouldn’t be sitting in a restaurant, holding hands with a woman that’s not his fiancée.
I feel sick, my stomach rolling as my dinner threatens an encore performance. I feel dirty and it’s more than obvious that we’re both guilty as hell of everything she’s no doubt assuming. While the cat’s away, the mouse has definitely been playing.
Melanie finally moves her eyes to me, her gaze full of judgement as she looks me up and down. “Having dinner with an old friend while your bride-to-be lives it up in Vegas?” she asks, the insinuation crystal clear.
“Yes, and you’re being rude to my friend, something I don’t appreciate.” He looks angry, his jaw tight and his shoulders tense.
“Right,” she says slowly, drawing the word out. “Oh well, we’ll leave you to it. See you in a few weeks then.” With a final scathing glance my way, she waves her manicured fingers in the air and spins on her heels back toward the maître’ d. “I think we will eat out on the patio after all,” she says before walking to the doors leading to the deck.
My eyes are glued to my clenched hands on the table in front of me, my chest tightening as the walls start to close in on me.
“Kenz…”
I lean toward him. “Can we please go?” I beg, having had enough embarrassment in the past five minutes to last a lifetime.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes apologetic.
“I know you didn’t mean for it to happen but you must’ve known it was a possibility. It’ll be best for everyone if we just leave, okay?”
“Okay.” His tone is flat, but there’s no missing the change in his mood. He lifts his hand, calling over the waitress and asking for the check when she arrives.
Once she’s left, I move my chair back and get to my feet.
“I might go wait by the car,” I say, not wanting to make any more of a scene.
Millen stands with me. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I’ll see you outside,” is all I say, my throat closing up.
His brows furrow as he studies my face. I beg him with my eyes to let me go. He reaches out for my hand but I instinctively flinch, not wanting anyone to see us touching. How could a wonderful day turn into such a shit night?
Five minutes later, Millen wordlessly opens my car door, closing it behind me once I’m safely seated inside. When he slides in beside me, the air in the car becomes stifling, the tension thick as he starts the engine and pulls out of the parking lot.
Arriving back at the house, I go to open my door but he shoots his hand out and gives my knee a gentle squeeze. I stay there, rooted in place as he exits the car and rounds the hood, holding my door open for me a few seconds later with his arm outstretched.
I tangle my fingers with his and let him help me out, not stopping him when he presses me against the side of the vehicle. He wraps his arms around my back, burying his face in my hair as we just stand there, neither of us saying a word. The tension slowly leaches out of my body, his warmth filling the places left behind. When I melt into him, he exhales loudly, as if he’d been holding his breath waiting for me to give in.
“Let’s get you inside and I’ll make the last thirty minutes of our night disappear.” Without giving me the chance to argue, he gently pulls me up the stairs behind him, not stopping until we’re standing in the living room. “Give me one minute.” He gives me a quick brush on the lips before walking through the dining room into the kitchen, turning only a floor lamp on, giving the room a soft glow.
I sit on the large leather couch at a loss for words, not sure whether to be angry, sad, embarrassed, frustrated, resigned, or a combination of all of the above.
Walking back into the room, he hands me a half full glass of red before moving over to the mantle. He puts his own wine down and puts his cell phone into the docking station, touching a few buttons before taking a drink and turning my way.
He stands in front of me and holds his arm out, his slate grey eyes molten and soft. I look up and take him in, the man who has taken me through a whirlwind of emotions in just the past two days, let alone the last four months. Even after all of that, I can say without an ounce of doubt that I would do it all over again if it meant being right here, right now with him.
“Dance with me,” he says, his voice soft and low and all kinds of right.
How can I say no to that? Putting my hand in his, I let him pull me up. I loop my arms around his neck, resting my head on his shoulder just as “Happier” by Ed Sheeran starts playing over the speakers.
“I’m going to make it work, Kenz,” he whispers into my ear. “Tonight, I had plans, and those plans are not getting screwed by anyone. I won’t let anyone make you feel any less amazing than I think you are, like you make me believe I can be.”
“Millen…”
“I want to stay right here, like this, with you.” His words are just what I need in that moment, pushing the what ifs and if onlys out of my mind. Ed sings of being happier with me and loving me forever and it’s as if Millen is pouring out his soul through the song.
It’s just the two of us standing alone in our own little bubble, one that nothing and no one can penetrate as we sway from side to side in each other’s arms.
He moves his hands between us and cups my cheeks. “I can’t change the past but I’d love the chance to shape our future. You came into my life for a reason, Kenzie Sharp, and if I have any say in the matter, that’s exactly where you’re gonna stay.”
Lacing my hands behind his head, I lift up and pull his mouth down onto mine, letting my lips and my body say the words that escape me.
Because in this moment, here with him, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.