by Ember Leigh
“I can’t believe you think you know a damn thing about Nova,” Jimmy says. “What, you met her twelve hours ago and suddenly she’s the love of your life? Fucking childish bullshit right there.”
“What’s worse? Falling for someone over the course of a week or chasing them for months and not even fucking realizing they’re not into you?”
Jimmy swings, but Weston dodges. All hell breaks loose. Weston lunges and socks him in the face, while Keko and Elliot shout from behind, trying break up to the fight. Elliot tries to intervene while Keko goes to Jimmy’s side, but Jimmy pushes him off. Keko goes tumbling into the bushes. My jaw lives permanently on the ground. I will need a broom to scoop it up from the sidewalk. I cannot even comprehend what I’m witnessing.
Are they fighting for my honor? It seems so ridiculous, but then again, this whole day has been. What’s a little scuffle in the name of love to wrap things up?
Jimmy lands a punch or two, but Weston has him pinned to the sidewalk before long. Jimmy’s lip is bleeding. By now hotel staff are rushing to the scene, and unknown men are pulling Weston off Jimmy and restraining Jimmy as he tries to lunge for Weston again.
Weston’s hair is mussed but he still looks Vogue ready, which seems impossible after a fistfight. Weston is cornered by Elliot and Keko, while the hotel employees try to calm the scene.
“Jimmy, just go,” I tell him, my voice cracking.
“Wow. You’d think that traveling eight hundred miles might mean I’d get laid at the end of it,” Jimmy mutters, and then spits on the ground. Weston breaks through the Elliot-and-Keko barrier and rushes Jimmy again, pushing him backward into the sculpted bush. The perfectly trimmed foliage bends and gives way under their weight, ruining the clean lines of the bush. The employees haul Weston off again, shouting, “Don’t play in the bushes!”
And this time, Weston grabs my hand.
“Life’s too fucking short for bullshit like this,” Weston spits, and I let him lead me away.
Because he’s right.
Chapter 25
NOVA
We drink. Like, a lot.
Because not only did we help save Amelia and Rhys’s wedding, we lived through a lot of shit that should not have happened in one day. I still can’t believe those hogs sniffed Amelia’s dress. More than that, I can’t believe that was the least outrageous thing that happened.
The reception flies by in a blissed-out blur. I do not worry about Jimmy one bit, because he is not my burden to bear. He is his own damn man, and I am having my own damn fun.
And even though it seems like there is so much left to talk about and figure out between Weston and me…tonight is simply not the night. We are blowing off all the steam and stress of the wedding day like the jubilant revelers we are. All around us, face are smiling, glasses lifted, shouts ringing through the night air.
Weston and I finally leave the party around one a.m. We stumble back to my hut, where the rush-hum of the waves feels like a warm embrace.
But not as warm as Weston’s. That embrace feels like coming home. He backs me up against the door of my hut as soon as we’re inside, kissing me deeply. Thoroughly. So passionately that my panties are soaked before we’ve taken a step toward the bed.
“You kiss too goooood,” I groan once we break apart.
“No, you,” he says, bending down to gather the fabric of my dress. He pushes it up to my hips, and then makes quick work of his fly. “All I need to fucking do is look at your lips and I’m hard. You think that makes life easy for me?”
I dissolve into laughter, but it turns into a gasp when the hard ridge of his cock pushes against the damp crotch of my panties.
“I’ve had a fantasy of fucking you in this dress all night.” His teeth scrape at the hollow of my neck. “Please say I can make it come true.”
“Puh-leeeze make it come true.”
He fumbles for a condom, somehow rolling it over his cock while I’m still pinned to the door. Then he’s kissing me again, and nudging himself into me so gingerly, so lovingly, that tears are pressing at my eyes before he’s even fully inside.
“Why are you so great?” I wail, banging my head against the door.
He grunts, burying his face in my cleavage. Exactly where I wish his head would be all the time.
“Don’t even fucking start, Nova,” he warns me, flexing his hips as he claims more of the space inside me. “You’re the great one here.”
“You stole flowers to save Amelia’s wedding,” I remind him, my voice growing wispy as he buries himself inside of me. The stretching sensation is too good, too primal, for me to focus much longer on words.
“You took pictures and problem-solved like a boss,” he says.
“You protected my honor when Jimmy showed up,” I say, sinking my nails into his shoulder as he claims even more depth.
He grunts, hoisting me a little. “You protected your own honor.”
His words hit me like a gut punch and a sweet kiss at the same time. Because he’s right. And that’s just one more thing I love—yes, love—about Weston. He challenges me and appreciates me. He protects me and pushes me. He will stand up to me and stand up for me.
Now the tears are coming for real. Brought to you by the it was a good idea at the time mixture of cosmopolitans and red wine.
I bury my face in his neck. I want to drown on the scent there so that I never forget it. So that it becomes part of my own DNA. Because Weston is the type of man I never want to live without, and I’m pretty sure I’m not just being drunk about it.
“Oh, Weston,” I breathe as he claims the final inch of space inside me. He rocks himself in a slow circle, grinding up against my clit. All my emotions turn into a cyclone, and with the incredible wind speed of what’s happening inside my chest, I’m no longer able to hear the quiet whisper of rationality.
“I just love you,” I blurt, precisely as he’s pulled himself out and drilled back inside me.
My confession turns into a moan, which turns into breathy pants as he fucks me senseless. He doesn’t say I love you back, because he is either, A.) not as drunk as me, or B.) a sane adult who doesn’t fall in love after four days. Luckily, the force of his passion distracts me from my embarrassing gaffe.
He fucks me too good to care right now. I squeal and clench and ride the waves of pleasure as the door goes thud-thud-thud into the night. I can’t care. He clearly doesn’t care. This is just too fucking raw and right.
I come twice—first when he grinds up against my clit for the umpteenth time, and then again when he takes big handfuls of my breasts, tweaks my nipples, and drills into me so hard that I see stars. Weston can play me like a goddamn fiddle, and he knows it.
Yet another thing I love about him.
By the time my toes touch the floor, I am pure liquid. I somehow stumble and flop over to the bed, where I immediately splay out and prepare to fall asleep. Weston just chuckles as he undresses.
“So I take it you came,” he says unnecessarily.
I groan something and raise my hand, and then it flops back to the bed. Because I have no energy left.
And I pass out. Hard.
When I finally come to, I feel like Sleeping Beauty waking up after her eternal sleep. The sun is shining. I hear birds. I look around, and I am somehow magically in PJ shorts and a tank top after a one-hundred-year rest.
And Weston is there, head propped on his arm, looking over at me with so much tenderness in his gaze that I feel the tears coming back. Which means they weren’t entirely drunk tears the night before.
Not a good sign.
“Good morning,” he says, dragging his fingertips over my forearm.
I stretch and yawn, relishing the early moments of this day. Relishing all the different ways perfection has manifested inside this hut over the week. “How long have you been up?”
“A couple hours?”
I jolt, reaching for my phone. It’s almost eleven. “Oh my god. How did I sleep this long?”
/> “You needed it.” He grins, twisting to reach for something on his nightstand. Then he tosses his sketchbook onto the bed between us. “I needed it too.”
My gaze washes over the page, where he’s drawn…me. Or at least the coolest representation of me I’ve ever seen. Something part comic book hero and part live figure study. Think the music video for “Take On Me” combined with anime. And it’s good.
“Did you just do this?”
“Yeah. It’s an idea I had knocking around. And sketching it out gave me more ideas. So…thanks.”
“How long did this take you?”
“A half hour.”
I blink rapidly. “This is phenomenal.”
“I kind of see a comic book set up. There would be different frames on your adventures battling the wedding gremlins. Jimmy would show up, possibly with tentacles.”
I grin, envisioning it right alongside him. “You’d be in it too.”
“Sure.”
“Princess Nova and Sir Weston.” I hand the notebook back to him.
“Are those our comic book hero names?”
“Why not?”
He looks pleased by this. I scoot closer to him, and he stores the notebook again so he can welcome me into his arms. I nuzzle into his warm embrace. Even in the light of day, sober as a bird, it still feels like home.
Which reminds me of my embarrassing admission the night before.
I could leave it lying there and never address it until the end of time. But much like when Weston caught me masturbating while imagining him, I’m not sure I’d be able to live without facing it head on.
I sigh, running my thumb back and forth over the ridge of his abs. “So…about last night.”
“Oh, you mean how you totally passed out after I fucked you against the door?”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Actually, a little before that.”
“What was it?”
I can’t tell if he’s playing coy or really didn’t hear me say the words, which makes this even more awkward. But today marks our last full day on the island, so it’s now or never.
“What I…said to you.”
He’s quiet.
“Are you going to make me repeat it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I said that I loved you!”
I can hear the smile in his voice as he responds. “Actually, you said you just love me.”
“Ugghh, so you do remember!” I bury my face in his side and sigh exasperatedly. “Well, whatever. Just don’t hold it against me, okay?”
“Why would I hold that against you?”
“Because…I don’t know.” I’m at a loss for words suddenly, and the tears have returned, making my throat clamp shut. Weston is my island lover, but he is also so much more. And he could be so much more, still. But suddenly, the truth finds its way to my lips, and it all comes tumbling out. “I don’t know how to do stuff like this. I’m not well-versed in lovers. And the truth is, I don’t want you to be my lover.”
“Ouch.”
I sit up, looking down at him through tear-blurred eyes. This was a lot more heaviness than I planned on, especially before brushing my teeth. “That’s not what I mean. I’m saying…” I pause, trying to find some other way to say the truth without baring my soul. There is none. “I don’t want this to end.”
His face softens, and he looks up at me, lazily swiping his thumb back and forth over my wrist. “I don’t either.”
“So…what should we do?” I tuck some hair behind my ear, feeling out the words in my head before I say them. “Let’s…keep seeing each other.”
His brows draw together. “But there’s no way we can do that.”
My throat closes off again. “Why not?”
“Because you’re flying to New York tomorrow, and I’m going to Ohio.”
“They’re not that far away.”
“No, but in two weeks, I’m flying to Thailand. And that is pretty far away.”
My gaze drops to the bed as his meaning settles like uncomfortable boulders around me. Whatever excitement and perfection we were able to find here, it was never destined to last. It was only meant for Aruba.
Tears are welling up again, so I turn and scoot off the bed.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“Just brushing my teeth.” I need a minute to regroup, and staring at myself while I excise my sadness via tooth cleaning seems like just the ticket. Weston leans against the bathroom doorframe while I’m angrily applying toothpaste.
“What?” I ask, careful not to look at him in the mirror, lest I break into tears.
“You should come with me.”
I falter, my gaze sliding to meet his in the mirror. “To Ohio?”
“Sure. But also to Thailand.” He shrugs. “Let’s make the trip together.”
The toothbrush tumbles out of my hands and hits the floor, sending a white spray against the wall. I curse, hurrying to rinse it off. Once I’ve got my toothbrush back in hand with a new squirt of paste, I find his gaze waiting for mine in the mirror.
“You want me to go to Thailand with you?”
“It makes the most sense.”
I laugh, but its humorless. I hadn’t heard an ounce of sense in that suggestion, but part of me is still warmed by it. Because he wants to go on adventure with me. “I don’t have a job waiting for me in Thailand.”
“You’ll find something.”
“Says who?”
He expels a terse sigh, uncrossing his arms. “I don’t know. The fucking universe? You’ve gotta take the leap to find out.”
“Yeah, but if I take the leap and fall into the ravine? There are real life consequences.”
He doesn’t say anything as he heads back into the main bedroom. I finish my brushing my teeth, finger comb my hair, and take a hard look at myself.
I feel both on top of the world and like everything is in shambles. How can two extremes be true at once?
Weston is looking at his phone as I come back into the bedroom. “Rhys just messaged me. Brunch is almost over and he’s asking where we are.”
I frown. “Shit. I forgot. We should go to that.”
Weston sits down, his broad, sculpted back facing me as he types out a message on his phone. I hunt for my clothes, unsure where I fall on the scale between heartbreak and frustration.
“What if we tried long distance?” I blurt. The idea has been knocking around in the back of my head as a last, desperate resort. And here I am. Using it already.
The silence that settles between us is consuming. It’s deafening. It’s telling me everything that he isn’t saying: That’s a ridiculous idea, and it will never work.
“Nova,” he finally begins, twisting to look at me. “Let’s enjoy our last day together.”
“I fully plan on it.” I tug my tank top off before rummaging for a bra and sundress, trying not to let the subtext of his response completely derail me before I even make it out of my hut. “I just wish we had more days to enjoy together after this.”
I try not to let the sadness get me down as I ready myself for the last dregs of the last brunch on the last full day on Aruba. Weston washes up in the bathroom, using his own toothbrush that has been living in my bathroom for the past two days, because somewhere along the line we became a married couple, and then we head out into the brilliant Sunday morning. He scoops my hand into his, bringing my knuckles to his lips.
But the smile that graces my face is sad. I feel like a ghost as I drift through brunch, greeting and chatting with Amelia’s and Rhys’s families. I’m here, but I’m not really. Because all I can think about is that I have less than twenty-four hours left with Weston before we part ways for the rest of our lives.
We manage to scoop up the last plates of the brunch buffet before the servers clear the food. Somewhere between my first mimosa and inhaling an entire plate of eggs, I remember the business card Edward pressed into my hand yesterday.
I le
an into Weston. “Should we go find that guy from the resort?”
“Let’s do it.” He’s carrying something morose with him today like I am. His gaze lingers on me extra long each time. He’s got my hand in his nearly permanently, to the point that my hand is sweating. But I don’t want to give this up. I don’t want to give him up. And our predicament seems just as impossible as Romeo and Juliet themselves.
Except it’s not our families keeping us apart. It’s the gig economy.
Romeo and Juliet, the twenty-first century edition.
Once we finish eating and say our goodbyes to the family members who are headed to the airport, Weston and I beeline for the resort lobby. It isn’t long before we’re directed toward an office door labeled MR. DE VRIES. Edward opens the door with a big smile on his face, his blue eyes sparkling as he gestures for us to come inside.
The air is cool and leather scented. Two big arm chairs face his enormous desk. We sink into them, exchanging a curious look.
“I’m so glad you stopped by. Perfect timing, too, I was just about to go get a massage.”
“That’s the life,” I say with a laugh.
“It really is. It’s one of the hundred or so reasons why I love working at a resort.” He flashes me a grin that reminds me of a car salesman. “So, listen, I won’t keep you held up here. I trust you both had an amazing night.”
“Stellar,” I confirm.
“Outrageously good,” Weston adds.
“One for the books,” I tack on. I’m watching Weston to see if he’ll add another one, and he almost does—but Edward butts in.
“That’s great. Listen, you two work really well together. That was probably the first thing I noticed. But more than that, it seems the two of you work really well with the resort itself.”
“Are you talking about the flowers we stole?” I ask.
Edward pauses. “No. What I mean is your adaptability. Going with the flow. There were a series of hiccups in the”—he checks some papers on his desk—“Bradford/Baker wedding yesterday, but you helped find solutions. You really went above and beyond your role as a photographer.”