Jackson runs his hands across my hips, my stomach, my breasts, down to the crease in my thighs. The man worships me.
“Stunning.” He slides his hand under my shirt, lightly teasing the cup of my bra. “Ravishing.” He plants a kiss across my jaw. “Breathtaking,”
I pull him back to my mouth as he whispers the final word on my lips. “Beautiful.”
I grind myself into him further, teasing him with every movement.
“You’re not bad looking yourself,” I tell him wickedly.
Jackson throws his head back with a laugh, and I let my head fall forward, resting on his shirt.
“Come on, let’s get back to the party.” Jackson tells me, stepping back and readjusting himself in his jeans. “I’ll ravish you when we get home.”
“Promise?” I tease, tugging at his waistband.
“That’s a promise, pretty girl.” Jackson claims my mouth in a final searing kiss, and I have half a mind to abandon the party and take him right here. But I don’t need to. I can wait. I know we’ve got a whole lifetime ahead of us.
EPILOGUE
JACKSON
8 months later
“Areyou excited for the plane, Olive?” Anya asks the giggling girl in my arms.
Olive babbles incoherently, wiggling impatiently until I let her fall into her favorite aunt’s arms.
“She slept most of the way here, except when she kept trying to press the call help button,” Rosie says, collapsing on the patio chair beside me. The sun is setting and it’s nearly Olive’s bedtime, but we can’t keep her away when she knows there’s people around. She’s loved being in Wellington with the family, and she loved it even more when Anya and Danny arrived laden with birthday gifts and toys.
Rosie kicks her feet up onto my lap and I cup her ankle with my palm. Her pale skin has tanned in the Southern sun and she’s taken to wearing the purple jandals I bought her everywhere she goes.
It’s warm and balmy, the coolest breeze of autumn in the air, but we’ve both loved it here. We flew over back inDecember so my girls could experience their first warm Christmas, and we used the opportunity to explore my home country. It’s been years since I spent more than a few weeks here, so spending the last two months driving, sailing and hiking both islands has been as much for my benefit as Rosie’s. I told her she’d get to go traveling.
“You can sit with us on the way home, Olive Oil,” Anya tells my daughter. “I need to stock up on all my Olive cuddles.”
I chuckle. “It’s only been two months. And you’ve had a photo every day.”
“It’s not the same,” Anya insists, swaying Olive in her arms.
“She’s loved the sun,” Rosie says.
“It is miserable in London,” Danny says, “Dark and wet and cold.”
“I’m sorry your birthday’s in the winter,” Anya says to Olive seriously. “Auntie and Uncle should have gotten married in September, so you would be a summer baby.”
Rosie groans as Danny and I laugh, causing Olive to peel into giggles too.
“Sheisa summer baby,” Rosie insists. “In the Southern Hemisphere.”
“What’s so funny out here?” Mum says as she pulls open the sliding door behind Rosie. Mum spent the first few months of Olive’s life living in a flat down the road from our house. She suggested it casually, not wanting to intrude on our settling in as parents, but it only took a few weeks before we were both relieved every time she came to help. She never stayed longer than necessary, only coming to take Olive for a walk so we could rest, or dropping off some home-cooked meals. When I had to go on a press tour forsix weeks, she came back and stayed in the guest room so Rosie wouldn’t be alone.
For a girl who’s been alone in her own family, she’s loved having her new one around.
“I’ve already had my new neighbor, complaining about all my new plants.” Mum says perching on the arm of the chair by Rosie’s head.
“Oh, is that all he’s talking to you about?” Rosie asks, wiggling her eyebrows.
Mum waves her off with a laugh, “Don’t you start.”
