you Monday, okay?” Adri tells him.
He nods and heads up the stairs.
Her eyes find mine, and she gestures with a tip of her head that I should follow, then turns for the driveway. I find her in the dark next to her car, and she pulls me into her arms. “You have time for a walk on the beach?”
“A quick one. I think I’ve got to square some things away with my little brother,” I tell her, my lips brushing her forehead as I speak.
“I think that’s a good idea.” She grins up at me. “And I can be quick.”
I tip my head back and let out a throaty groan when her hand comes to rest over the growing bulge in my jeans.
We kick off our shoes and I grab a blanket out of the backseat of the Lumina. There’s almost no moon, so we take the path slow. When we reach the beach, she takes my hand and we stroll just at the edge of the water.
“Do you ever think about how one tiny twist of fate changes everything?” she asks.
“Sounds more philosophical than my typical train of thought,” I say, letting my hand slide from the small of her back to her perfect, round ass, “which generally involves getting you naked.”
She smiles and strips off her light sweater. “I think about it a lot. It’s like our lives are on this path that’s totally out of our control, but totally meant to be. I think they call it predestination, where fate or God or something already has your life all sorted before you’re even born.”
“So you think we were meant to be?” I ask, stopping and turning her to face me.
“Don’t you?” she asks.
I kiss her slowly. Her tongue twists into mine, and I feel her tug at my soul. No one’s ever been able to touch me as deeply as this sweet, beautiful schoolteacher. “There’s no question you are my meant-to-be. I just wasn’t sure I was yours.”
She pulls the blanket out of my arm and spreads it on the sand. What little light there is catches her ivory skin when she lifts her top over her head and unfastens her bra, letting it drop to the sand. “You are the key to my soul. Electricity to my bulb. I was made for you, and you were made for me. I can’t think of anything more meant to be than that.”
An electric current sizzles under my skin as she puts into words everything I’ve been feeling. “I want to be someone who you could love.”
She traces a fingers along my lips. “You are.”
I pull her against me. “I love you, Adrianna Wilson. I think I’ve loved you since the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
Her smile is genuine, just like everything else about her. “I love you Robert Delgado, and I know I have since the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
At her use of my real last name, I tense, remembering all the reasons this is wrong. “Your father was right to try to keep us apart. You’re too good for me.”
She draws away and looks at me. “You’re better than you think.”
Wrong or not, when I look into her eyes, I know there’s no stopping this. “I don’t deserve your love, but I’m going to do everything in my power to earn it every single day for the rest of my life.”
We drop to our knees in the sand, and she weaves her fingers into my hair, pulling me to her in a deep kiss. She opens my fly as I lower her onto the blanket and pushes my jeans down over my hips, freeing the beast. As I sink myself deep into her slick heat, it’s like lighting a fuse. The fireworks that crackle under my skin leave no doubt she’s my meant-to-be. She opens up and gives me all of her, body and soul—an open book in every sense of the word. She trusts me with all of it and because of that, she makes me more. I love her thoroughly, trying to give her everything I know she needs from me, and as I watch her come apart underneath me, I know I’m home.
Afterward, we lie tangled together on the blanket, slick with sweat and totally sated, fighting to catch our breath.
I slip the ring off my pinky and roll it between my fingers. “I want you to wear this and know it’s my promise to do everything in my