Wilder

He reached for me, but I backed away, knowing what those hands, those lips, could do to me. He took risks for a living, of course he was ready to jump headfirst. “Maybe I do skip to the last page. It’s safer to know how it ends.”

He was merciless, backing me against the wall and threading his fingers through my hair as he lowered his lips to hover above mine. “Well then, maybe it’s time you realized that the best part isn’t the end. It’s what happens in between.”

“We’d better get going,” I said, chickening out. Heat rushed my cheeks.

His thumbs caressed my cheekbones. “As long as you know that I’m going to keep asking. I’ll try to wait another few minutes before giving another run at the gauntlet. You’re worth it.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead.

I melted, sagging against the wall, relieved and annoyed with myself at the same time.

“You coming?” he asked, offering me his outstretched hand.

“I wish,” I muttered, thinking that we were wasting a perfectly empty house. He was right. My head might be holding my heart back to the best of its ability, but my body was fully on the Paxton-train.

“I heard that,” he said as he walked me to the Jeep.

The sun caressed my skin, warming it through the open top as we drove off the property and back onto the main road.

He squeezed my knee, then moved his hand up my leg until it rested under the fabric of my dress. Maybe it was that no one had touched me there in years, but it felt incredible. “I like you in dresses,” he said, tossing me a grin. “Easy access.”

“Neanderthal,” I joked.

“Only for you,” he replied, and I actually believed him.

“No other girls?” I asked, needing to hear the words.

“Not since we boarded. You thinking of turning that maybe into a yes?” He glanced at me quickly, trying to keep his attention on the road.

“Maybe,” I said softly, but he heard me.

“Making progress. I’ll take it.”

“Where are we headed anyway?”

He picked up my hand and kissed the back of it. “You’ll see.”

“You know, normally that would drive me insane.”

He glanced over in mock surprise. “No. Not you, Miss Control Freak. No way.”

I thought about my file folder back on board, the itinerary I kept meticulously noted and scheduled, and then I laughed. “Of everything I planned for this trip, I can tell you this is not how I pictured things going.”

“Disappointed?” he asked as we turned down another road that led to the bluest water I’d ever seen.

I reached over and ran my fingers through his hair as we wound down the hillside. He leaned in to my touch, and everything in me, body and soul, seemed to wake up and stretch, to take notice of how perfect this moment was. “It’s even better.”

He turned into a parking lot, parked in the first spot he saw, and killed the engine. Then he twisted, and before I could think, his mouth was on mine, taking me in the kind of kiss fairy tales were made of. And his tongue—okay, maybe it was a dirty fairy tale—moved against mine in ways that screamed sex, and passion, and warm nights. Warm nights like this one.

He pulled away before I was ready, then kissed me lightly. “I’ve been dying for that since I saw you in this dress.”

“Me, too,” I admitted. I looked through the windshield and found a gorgeous beach dotted with umbrellas to our left, and bare except for a few swimmers directly in front of us. The sun glinted off the water, which met the sand with gentle waves. “Is this…?”

“Kalafatis Beach,” he answered. “I remembered you said that you wanted to see it, right?”

I’d thought the moment was perfect before, but this…there were no words for this. Paxton helped me down from the Jeep, and we walked onto the beach. “It’s exactly like I imagined it. Just like their pictures.” I couldn’t look enough, memorize enough, take in enough detail from the pebbled sand under my shoes to the various colors in the water where the blues faded to greens.

“Whose pictures?” he asked.

“My parents’. This is where they got engaged.” I pulled my wallet from the bag I’d brought and tugged the worn picture free from the credit-card slot I’d jammed it into. In the photo, my father had lifted my mother above his head, her hair falling to one side so their smiles were revealed, love tangible in every line of their bodies, their eyes. I held it out so Paxton could see, trying to match it with the shoreline.

“That’s incredible. My mother grew up here.”

“Talk about coincidence,” I joked.

“Or fate,” he said, taking the picture from my fingers. He walked us down the beach a ways, stopping toward the middle and tilting his head, his narrowed eyes examining the space. “There,” he said, pointing directly in front of us as he held up the picture. “They were standing there.”

Waves of emotion washed over me in rhythm with the water. “I’ve always loved that picture,” I said, looking at it matched with our surroundings. “My parents have this amazing marriage, and every time I look at this picture I feel how much they love each other. Like I can touch love itself, feel that kind of happiness. It gave me faith that one day I would be able to let someone love me like that.” I caught him staring at me. I shook my head. “Insane, I know. I just wanted to be here once, to stand where they stood.” I wanted to see if I could let go of fear and touch love.