“You want… more?”
“I wanteverything.” Henry dropped his forehead to mine with a tenderness that took my breath away. “Since losing Mum and Dad, everyone else has just let me lock myself away and be angry. Not you, though. You fought back, Phoebe, and it lit a fire in me I’m afraid to put out. So, yeah, I want everything, and I want it with you.”
Emotion rose in my throat like a tsunami, threatening to make me bawl like a baby right there in front of him. In front of everyone, friends and strangers alike.
“But I live so far away from you, and?—”
“It’s three and a half hours from my home to yours. I’ve already checked.”
“That’s a lot of time to spend travelling back and forth just for me.”
“Just for you?” He smirked that smirk again. “You have no idea what you do to me, do you?”
“I…” didn’t know what to say to that, but my body responded, my arms curling tighter around him.
“I’d drive ten, twelve, fifteen hours to see you every day if I had to, or haven’t you figured it out yet? That grumpy arsehole you stumbled into that day would now travel the world if it meant he got to see you again and again and again and again at the end of it.”
Reed Easton could never.
It all felt too good to be true.
The bow on our story tied too perfectly for it to feel real.
“It only has to make sense to us, Phoebe. Remember that,” he said softly.
“And if my life is too much for you?”
“There isn’t a single thing you could conjure up that’s going to get in the way of me loving you.”
I froze in his grip once more, the hitch of surprise in my intake of breath unmissable.
Loving…
Pulling back hurt to do so, but I had to see those eyes of his clearly, and my lips parted when I realised all that stared back at me was a look of contentment and happiness I’d not seen in Henry in all the hours we’d spent tangled up together under the Greek moonlight. His unwavering certainty floored me, making me wonder ifI’dbeen the one to suffer a head injury recently.
His hands flexed around my body, and he pulled my hips flush against his, the flimsy, fabric barrier the only thing between us and forever now.
“You know I do, right?” he said in that intimate voice I knew in my heart he reserved only for me. “It may have been infatuation that led me to you so quickly, but it’s loving you that’s making me stay.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I didn’t care who saw them as my smile broke free, and the first tears spilled down my cheeks. “When did you get so good at this?”
“About fourteen days ago.” He smiled again, stealing my breath. “Maybe ten. Rumour has it I was a bit of an arse for the first four.”
“Well, you’re more than making up for it now,” I said with a nervous laugh that had me leaning forward to finally kiss him with a love I hadn’t quite managed to say out loud yet, but one I knew he felt with every sweep of my tongue, every flex of my fingers against his neck, and every soft breath and moan I shared with him.
I kissed my enemy in paradise who had become my forever in reality, and I thanked every bad thing, every heartache, and every misfortune that had put me on that plane and led to meeting his man who had turned my life upside down for the better without even trying.
I’d have stayed there forever, too, trapped in the most epic happily ever after I could have dared to dream if it hadn’t been for the shrieking applause from our friends that soon had me laughing against Henry’s soft mouth and pulling away until our foreheads came together again.
“How about you get on this side of the barrier so there’s nothing standing in our way?” he said.
“Does that mean I have to let you go?”
“Only for a second. Only ever for a second.” Henry lifted the fabric barrier with a slight groan of pain he tried to swallow.
I slid under it as quickly as possible so I could press myself to him again, only carefully this time so as not to hurt his already-bruised body—a body I intended to inspect every inch of once we were finally alone again.
The cheering only grew, and we turned to see our friends in front of us, as well as an older man I didn’t recognise. He hadhis hand on Andy’s shoulder, his fatherly smile aimed in Henry’s direction while Bailey and Rhea cheered and wolf whistled, and Jace and Andy clapped.
