had been exhilarating. I’d never driven anything that moved that fast in my entire life, and I hadn’t even gotten close to maximum speed.
I’d also done a tandem skydive with Jax. I’d had to push myself to make that leap, but since Jax was qualified to do tandems, and I’d been doubling with him, it hadn’t felt completely terrifying.
We’d experienced a private parasailing trip, too, but that hadn’t been as frightening as jumping out of a plane.
We’d been on the go every day, nonstop. Jax had sought out so many new adventures for me in the last week that my head had never stopped spinning.
The only thing he hadn’t done was try to get me naked and sweaty. Oh, he was affectionate, and I couldn’t even count the number of mind-blowing kisses he’d laid on me over the last week. However, he never let things go too far.
Is he afraid of pushing me too fast?
If he was, he was giving me way too much time.
At this point, I was beyond primed, and completely ready to go. I had been since the first time he’d kissed me.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Jax said huskily as he handed me an elaborately wrapped gift.
I picked up the present from the table with surprise. “Jax, you’ve given me an outrageous amount of gifts today already.”
He’d had a pile of gifts waiting for me at the breakfast table. Those packages had contained everything from a new laptop computer, which I had really needed, to a gorgeous pair of white gold and diamond earrings.
The earrings were beautiful, and I was wearing them tonight, but they’d been a hard present to accept. I’d recognized the quality of those diamonds. I’d shuddered over the possible price tag. And then I’d reminded myself that Jax didn’t see the gift as extravagant at all, and the last thing I wanted to do was reject a gift so thoughtfully given. It was obvious he’d chosen them himself because they were exactly my style. So, I’d thanked him with tears in my eyes, and a kiss.
There wasn’t much else I could have done in that situation.
Jax was, in fact, a billionaire, and his normal and my normal were two different things.
What seemed like a crazy expensive gift to me wasn’t pricey to him, and really, all he’d wanted to do was please me.
His thoughtfulness had touched me more than the actual gift.
However, I was really hoping I’d have time to get used to his lifestyle before he presented me with another insanely expensive gift.
I pulled off the giftwrap, and exposed a red box about the size of my hand.
After I lifted the lid, I pulled out the necklace inside.
“It’s not an expensive gift,” Jax explained. “There’s a story behind it.”
The diamond-cut, white gold chain hadn’t come cheap, but as I fingered the pendant, I knew he was telling the truth.
It was a four-leaf clover, encased in acrylic to preserve it.
“Tell me the story.” I was intrigued, and eager to hear it.
“The pendant used to belong to a buddy of mine in the Navy. I replaced the black cord with a more feminine chain for you, but I wore that clover on every single date I’ve been on since I got out of the military. Jeremy said he found it in a field right before he went into the Navy, and wore it until he found the love of his life. He gave it to me, and made me promise I’d wear it when I went out with somebody new. He swore it would eventually lead me to the right woman.”
I kept stroking my thumb over the pendant as I said, “He was obviously happy with how it worked for him.”
Jax nodded. “His marriage was one of the few happy ones. He was crazy about his wife, and she loved him enough that she tolerated all of the bad parts of being married to a SEAL.”
“Do you think it worked for you?” I asked.
His expression was thoughtful as he said, “I used to think it didn’t. Obviously, none of my dates ever led me to the right woman, but now I’m beginning to wonder if it just worked in a different way. Maybe it weeded out all the wrong ones until I found you, Harlow. I want you to have that because my one-off dating days are over. I’ll never need that again as long as you’re with me.”
My heart was racing as our gazes locked. “What will you tell your Navy buddy?”