“I can’t. It’s who I am, Tori. Who you’ve made me.”
He moves us across the floor with ease and grace. He twirls me through the crowd, and the girl who has never believed in fairy tales feels like a princess. He dips me slightly bringing his lips to my throat. When he pulls me back, we are so close, we feel like one person.
I look into his eyes and I realize we have what he was telling me about all those months ago. This between us is epic. Just as epic as Jax and Zoey. It is unwavering and unfaltering. This is the kind of love that can’t be rejected, replaced or even broken.
“I love you, Zane,” I say as I rest my cheek against his shoulder.
“Move in with me,” he says.
I almost laugh until I see his face. He’s not joking. “Zane, I don’t think you should just blurt that out without thought.”
He gives me that sexy as sin smile that makes the world spin. “Haven’t you figured me out by now?” he tilts his head. “I know this isn’t the time or the place, but I don’t want what we’ve had the last couple of weeks to end once tonight is done. I want to go to bed and wake up with you every night and every day. I want to come home to find you there or wait for you to come home. I want my home to beourhome.”
I swallow hard because I absolutely have figured him out. He’s not just blurting something out in the heat of the moment. He’s not doing this out of fear things may end badly tonight. He’s asking me because he means it. He wants this.
But what surprises me the most? I want to. I want to move forward with him. Another step toward our future that is being written in the sand and the sea.
No, not the sea. The river. The one that runs right through the city that is as much a part of him as is his heart. The city that I haven’t thought once about leaving in the last few weeks.
“Yes,” I tell him with a smile.
A little shock flits across his perfect face. Then a smile so wide I’m not sure how it doesn’t split. “Yeah?”
I nod as my smile stretches wider as well. “I didn’t want to go back to New York after this.”
“Thank God,” he breathes with a laugh. “I thought I was going to have to break my promise to Zoey.”
“What promise?” I tilt my head curiously.
“The one where I wouldn’t leave her because if you didn’t want to be in River City, I was just going to have to move to New York.”
My heart starts beating staccato. He was going to leave River City? For me? I couldn’t stop the tears that form in my eyes if I wanted to. And, for once in my life, I don’t want to. I want him to see how much it means to me because I know how big of a decision that would’ve been for him. “I don’t want you to leave Zoey. I want to be in River City. With you. Bastian already offered me a job weeks ago.”
“He what? You’re serious?” I nod my response. “Fuck, Baby, if I’d known that, I would’ve asked you weeks ago. I didn’t think you’d leave New York, but the more I thought – and talked with Jax – the more I knew I’d do whatever I had to just to be with you.”
“How would that have worked anyway?” I tease him. “Catch a plane twice a day?”
“I was going to ask for a trade.”
Fuck. Me.
“You were what?”
“I mean it Tori. I don’t want this long-distance thing anymore. I know with my job, we will be apart sometimes, but I want to be with you.”
“You really do love me, don’t you?”
A deep, rumbling chuckle vibrates his chest as we continue to move over the dance floor. Our conversation hasn’t interrupted our movements once. “You’re only now figuring that out?”
I bring his lips to mine in a searing but loving kiss. Showing him how muchI love him. The room around us seems to disappear. It feels like there is no one else but he and I.
I get absolutely lost in the moment. So, lost that I forget where we are and why we’re here.
Until a throat clearing beside us reminds me. “We’ve got to go, Zee,” he tells him then turns to me. “But we’re not far.”
Zane’s grip tightens for a moment. Tension lines his face and sets his shoulders. Then it’s gone. “Just because you may not see us, doesn’t mean we can’t see you. Okay?”
I nod. I’m not worried. Not like they think anyway. I’m more worried about this fight, but I know I have to clear my head. Focus so that I make it through this fight in one piece.
