My phone chirps, and sticky warmth floods my chest when I check it.
* * *
Landon: Come to the pool house.
Me: You are so bossy.
Landon: Be naked.
Me: In your dreams, sailor.
Landon: You’re always in my dreams.
* * *
“Ugh, you guys are going to give me a sugar coma.” Courtney rolls her eyes as I leap off the couch with a grin.
But I don’t care. I’m going to see Landon.
I throw on my boots and trudge across the crunchy lawn. It’s cold outside today, and it will give me the perfect excuse to wrap myself up in his warm body when I get to the pool house. My teeth are still chattering when I fling open the door and burst inside with a gust of cool air behind me.
“Brrr…” My mouth falls open.
There he is, in all his glory. Landon Blackwood’s magnificent body draped in a crisp white shirt and black trousers. It doesn’t matter if he’s in his football uniform or jeans and a hoodie. He always looks as hot as a billboard model in Times Square. But he knows I’m a sucker for him in these rule-the-empire outfits. It’s so not fair.
When he sees me, he smirks and lifts a white poster board, gripping it between his palms. There’s a message written in that artistic scrawl I’d recognize anywhere.
I hate everyone else.
Go to prom with me?
A laugh bursts from my lips, and I’m already nodding a resounding yes as I kick off my boots and make a beeline toward him. He tosses the sign aside just in time to catch me, hoisting me up so I can squeeze his hips between my thighs.
“So this is what you’ve been up to all day?” I pepper his warm cheeks with cold-lipped kisses.
“Not just this,” he murmurs.
I follow his gaze to the two shoeboxes on the floor next to the gray lounger. It’s his favorite piece of furniture, I think. We’ve broken it in many times since he’s claimed me as his own.
“What are those?” I ask.
His response is to carry me to the lounger. He gives me one last lingering kiss, digging his palms into my ass and thrusting his hips against me before he sets me down. I’m miffed when he reaches down to adjust himself, clearly having no intention of giving me the package I really want.
He kneels in front of me, reaching for my left foot, frowning when he feels how cold it is. After he warms it up in his palms, he opens the first box, revealing the most beautiful pair of shimmering red heels I’ve ever seen. They are expensive and rare. Something I know because I added them to my Pinterest board when I was looking at ideas for prom. Landon must have been doing some research too, but that’s no surprise. He doesn’t half-ass anything.
He slips the heel onto my foot and glances up at me. “Yeah, I don’t know if I thought this through. Every guy at BMA is going to be staring at your legs in these.”
“So let them stare.” I hold out my foot, examining it from every angle. “You’re the only one who will see them wrapped around your body that night.”
“That’s right,” he growls, leaning up for another drugging kiss.
Just when I think I have him where I want him, he pulls away again. I groan.
“Patience, little pineapple. You never learn.”
He produces a clear plastic container from his pocket, and I recognize the flower inside when he pops it open. It’s a plumeria. His eyes are smoldering when he reaches up and tucks it behind my left ear. I don’t miss the significance. In Hawaii, a flower is symbolic of romantic status. By placing the flower there, Landon is laying claim to me and letting the world know I’m his.
“Nothing has ever been truer.” I brush my fingers along his jaw.
“I’ll buy you one every day.” He leans in and kisses the shell of my ear. “So you never forget.”
“I won’t ever forget,” I assure him because I know he still needs that from me. Landon hasn’t had many people in his life who were there for the long haul, and I think a part of him is still worried I’m going to disappear too. But little does he know I have plans to prove him otherwise. I’ll prove it to him every day for as long as our hearts keep beating.
“I hope you mean that.” He reaches down for the other shoebox, and this time