First Comes Love - Ashlee Price Page 0,38

a sad, sweet kiss, slow and painstaking. Shit, I don’t ever want this night to end.

“My dad cheated on my mom too,” she says quietly now, eyes back on the horizon. “I don’t think she ever got over it, even now.”

“Mine either,” I say, my arms around her again.

And we lean there, her and me, cool waters around us, breeze playing with the droplets on our skin. And we say nothing because we don’t have to.

I don’t know how long we stand there, except that at some point, an orange-yellow stain starts to form on the bridge of the horizon.

“Thank you.” She whirls around to smile nervously at me, eyes glistening. “For everything. This place is gorgeous.”

“No.” I kiss her. “Thank you.” I kiss her again. “Let’s stay…” I kiss her again. “This has been the best…”

And then our kisses can’t stop and it’s good, too, because my mind is stupid and ridiculous, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think I was going to say: Let’s stay a week. Let’s never go back.

Chapter 18

Harley

Four days.

As my eyes flutter open, I mouth the words to myself, like some crazy secret: “Four days.”

Four days of breakfast in bed, dinner in the restaurant, dessert in bed or the pool, and, one night, a surprise visit to a grotto where Greyson had set everything up for a romantic candlelit dinner, just us two.

Four days that felt like four seconds, like four weeks. But now, this morning, the dream has to end. Time to go back to reality.

His strong arms around me make me so safe and cozy that I almost want to drift off back to sleep. But I don’t let myself. I want to savor this moment, enjoy it for as long as I can. After all, in just a few hours, we’ll be back on a plane, on our way back home. Home, where…

I close my eyes firmly. Let’s not think about that.

But now my mind is buzzing and I shift, try to move Greyson’s arm off me so I can get up. But even in his sleep, his arm repositions itself around me, holding me more firmly.

When I move his arm the next time, he kisses the back of my neck. “Morning.”

I turn to kiss him on the cheek. “Morning.”

I slink around so that we’re lying down facing each other, nose tip to nose tip. His coal-brown eyes can’t decide between being open or closed. Either way, they look happy, a bit dazed—probably how I look too.

“So,” I say.

“So,” he says.

It’s become our thing, our saying, stupidly enough. When we want to leave, stay, or just escape for a quickie, it always starts the same.

“So.” “So…”

This time, I don’t realize why I said it until I continue, “About today—”

He frowns. We’ve done a good job at not mentioning it, until now. Now, there’s no more escaping it.

“You’re right.” He shifts his position so he’s more upright. “We should get going. I hate being late for a plane, even if we are taking a friend’s jet.”

“Oh.” I grin. “We are?”

He grins, too. “It’s an old family friend’s. Though he parks it at the airport, and we still have to go through security and all that.”

I sigh, mock-scandalized. “Whatever is the point of being a multimillionaire if you still have to go through security like a peasant?”

He chuckles, kisses me on the corner of my mouth.

I steal a kiss, then roll out of bed before he can catch the expression on my face. The thought I haven’t dared voice, even to myself: What if we delayed going back? What if…

Forget it, Harley.

“So eager to leave?” Greyson jokes from behind me.

There’s something in his voice that makes me turn his way, but by the time I peer at him he’s already got his gorgeously broad back to me, pulling on his t-shirt.

The next hour or so is a flurry of packing, dressing, kissing, and nibbling on the final breakfast pancakes and sausages the staff brought us.

“I’m going to miss you,” I tell Maria, clasping both her hands warmly.

“And we are going to miss you too!” she says, with enough enthusiasm that she actually seems like she means it, isn’t just getting paid to. “You and Mr. Storm are quite the couple.”

“Oh.” I laugh. “We aren’t… It’s not…” Seeing her forehead crinkle with confusion, I force a smile. Just end the conversation. “Thanks.”

Luckily, Greyson’s in the bathroom, shaving and doing who-knows-what-else man stuff.

Maria leaves soon after, with a final hug goodbye, and then it’s