through hers, and without breaking their kiss, in one long thrust he made her his—just as she made him hers.
“I swear,” he said in a raw voice as he stilled above her, “I’m going to make you the happiest woman alive.” On all fronts, from the hot sex they’d keep having, to doing everything he could to help her heal from her mother’s death, to the amazing future he couldn’t wait for. “You’ll never regret loving me.”
“How could I ever regret loving you?” Emotion throbbed in her voice. “For the first time in so long, I’m happy. Truly happy. And you’re the reason why.”
They found each other’s lips in the same moment, passion and love driving them higher and higher, flying together, soaring in each other’s arms.
They were still catching their breath when Zara said, “You know that park ranger outfit you mentioned earlier?” She smiled the kind of soft, post-great-orgasm smile he hoped to see a million times more. “I sure would love to see it.”
“Wait here.”
She put her glasses back on as he walked into his bedroom closet. Fortunately, it didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. He’d considered throwing the uniform out several times over the years, but something had always held him back. Now he knew what it was—he’d been waiting to wear it again for Zara.
Five minutes later, though he felt like a bit of an idiot, he walked back out. When Zara saw him, her eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open.
“Oh. My. God.” She started to laugh so hard that she actually started snorting. “You must have been so scrawny back then.” She lifted her glasses to wipe away her tears of laughter.
She was right—the uniform was several sizes too small. His quadriceps were hugely straining the fabric across the legs. As for the long-sleeved, button-up shirt, while he’d managed to get his arms into it, there wasn’t a chance of doing up the buttons. He hadn’t even bothered with the regulation tie.
“I look like a bad parody of an exotic dancer.”
“I know I sound like a broken record after our night in Camden, but you’ve got to dance again for me now.”
There wasn’t another soul he would consider doing this for. But he’d do anything to see Zara’s eyes light up this way.
“I’ll provide the music by whistling,” she offered.
She couldn’t be serious, could she? “Your whistling is the opposite of music.”
But she clearly didn’t care what he thought of the atonal wheezing from her lips. Not only that, but he was almost certain she was trying to whistle Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard.
The sooner he started dancing, the sooner he’d be done with it. Rory opened with a few bicep pumps and rolls of his hips. Fifteen seconds into his routine, the seam at his shoulder ripped open. Then, as if the dam had been about to burst all along, the rest of the seams tore—the center back of the shirt, the inseam of the pants, and the back seam between his glutes.
Zara was unable to keep whistling around her extreme fit of the giggles. “You look like an apocalyptic zombie stripper!”
He lifted his arms and zombied toward the bed, saying in a bad Transylvanian accent, “I vant to eat your brains.”
Both of them were laughing as they rolled together onto the bed. And as their lips met, Rory knew he could search the whole world over and never find anyone as right for him as Zara. For so long, she’d been right under his nose, but it wasn’t until she’d let her walls fall—and he did too—that they both realized what had been right there all along.
Not only magic…but true love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Zara woke to the sound of the waves crashing on the shore outside Rory’s bedroom window. The sun was starting to rise. And Rory was fast asleep beside her.
More accurately, he was sleeping beneath her. She’d never instinctively wrapped her arms and legs around a lover and held on for dear life all night long. Not until Rory.
It had been an absolutely perfect night. Emotional and deep. Sexy and funny.
And most of all, happy.
She hadn’t felt this happy since before her mother passed away. She’d felt pleased and proud and excited. But never full to the brim with joy.
Miraculously, at some point last night, Rory had managed to blow away the dark clouds that had hovered on the edge of her consciousness these past fifteen years. Clouds she’d assumed would always