by Bella Andre
The enormous epiphanies were still hitting her one after another just as Adam turned and saw her standing there, watching him dance with the little girls. A few moments later, they wiggled down and ran off, hand in hand, leaving her face-to-face with the man who had reached deeper and deeper into her heart from the first day they'd met.
She loved him.
Kerry Dromoland loved Adam Sullivan with every breath, every heartbeat. And she would love him from now until eternity, if they were lucky enough to have that much time together.
All week, everything she'd been feeling, everything she'd been wanting, the things her mother had said to her--they'd all been swirling around and around inside of her. And then yesterday...
Yesterday there hadn't been anything in the world that mattered but Adam.
Only Adam.
Always Adam.
"Kerry."
His voice was warm and full of so much love it floored her, but she was already heading for him. She was nearly in his arms again when the tinkle of silverware on glass chimed out over the beach.
Max Sullivan's amplified voice sounded. "Claudia and I couldn't be happier that all of you were able to come from near and far to celebrate Rafe and Brooke's wedding."
Adam stepped down from the gazebo and took Kerry's hand in his. "Let's go enjoy dinner. And then after, we'll talk."
"Promise?"
This time she was the one needing to know for sure that she wouldn't miss her chance with him. Her chance to tell him everything that was now burning a hole inside of her. She wanted to tell him she loved him, had the words right there on the tip of her tongue, when he reached out to stroke her cheek.
"Everything, Kerry. That's what I'm promising you."
With no time to say anything more, he simply put his hand on the small of her back and walked with her to their seats.
*
Ninety minutes later, Kerry was dying. Literally about to burst.
The dinner was wonderful, and the toasts were all beautiful and funny and heart-wrenching. But the truth was that she hardly noticed any of it, because all she wanted was for it to be over already so that she could get Adam alone and they could talk.
Fortunately, though, she wasn't so twisted up that she missed when Rafe and Brooke turned to focus their attention on her. "We want to take a moment to thank Kerry Dromoland for doing such an amazing job of putting our wedding together. We're just so glad she could be here with us tonight, especially because there are an awful lot of us and we're a lot to take in."
Everyone laughed at that, and Kerry managed a smile as she mouthed, Thank you.
Rafe continued to speak into the microphone, saying, "I know it must feel like we've already been toasting each other all night long, but does anyone else want to chime in before we let you loose on the bonfire?"
"I do."
An entire beach full of Sullivans looked at Kerry in surprise. Only Adam didn't look surprised. Probably because he'd always been able to read what she was feeling on her face, seeing all the things she'd always been able to hide from everyone else.
What she was about to do was the most unprofessional thing in the entire world. But she didn't care if she got a reputation for being the worst wedding planner on the planet after this. She couldn't hold in what she was feeling anymore.
Kerry stood up beneath the fairy lights and the moon and took the microphone from a grinning Brooke. "I've been putting on weddings practically my whole life." She hadn't planned a word of this, but that didn't matter. Not when every word she spoke into the mic was coming straight from her heart. "I thought I knew what love was, because I watched it every day. But it turned out that I didn't really know anything. I didn't know what love really was until I met..."
She stopped, put the mic down, and turned to Adam.
"Until I met you."
Tears were falling down her cheeks, and Adam was right there, brushing the streaks of emotion away.
"I never knew, either," he said, "not until you."
"I want everyone to know how much I love you, Adam." Her throat was clogged with tears and emotion. He hadn't wanted to keep their relationship secret from anyone anymore, and she'd been wrong to try to keep his family--and him--in the dark. "I know I probably ruined everything every step of the way--"
His kiss stole the rest of the words from her lips...and gave her everything she'd ever wanted.
Love.
Adam was all there was for Kerry as they stood on the beach, surrounded by his family, the water lapping against the shore and the stars shining down over them. His arms around her, his mouth on hers, the way he just kept telling her he loved her with a kiss that swept all the way through her soul.
When they finally came up for air, she was shocked to realize that all of the Sullivans were applauding like crazy. Absolutely losing their minds over her declaration of love for a man they all adored.
But she knew that no one would ever adore Adam more than she did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"I've been wanting to dance with you again for weeks."
Adam drew Kerry close, loving the feel of her heart beating against his as they danced to the music filtering down to their private spot on the beach.
"So have I," she told him, "but I have so many things I need to tell you, too. Things I've never told anyone else. Things I never wanted to own up to about myself, not until I almost lost you."
"You never even came close to losing me." And it was true. "You're the partner I never knew I needed, Kerry. The other half that actually makes me complete. You and I, we're good alone. But together? Together we're unstoppable. That's why I would have worked forever to win your heart. And I would have waited forever for you, too."
She stopped dancing, but didn't let go of him. "That's what I couldn't understand." Her eyes were so big, so full of emotion as she said, "Even now, I'm sure it's going to take me a while to really, truly believe that you love me as much as you do."
"So much, sweetheart."
She smiled then, such a bright and beautiful smile that she nearly turned night into day with it. "I love you that much, too."
"I know you do. Your love runs deep, so deep and strong that I've always been astonished by it."
"I could never understand how my father..." She took a shaky breath, but pushed ahead. "How he could have left the way he did, how he could have left at all if he loved me. I know I told you I had dealt with it, that I wasn't letting it ruin my life, but now I can see that wasn't entirely true. Because a part of me couldn't believe that I would ever be enough to make the people I loved stay. After he left, I think I spent pretty much my whole life trying to be prepared for everything, to make sure I could avoid every possible crisis. But avoiding all those potential falls meant I could never let myself appreciate the amazing things all around me. Most of all, you."
"Did you just call me amazing?" he teased, wanting to see her smile again even as she got everything off her chest.
Her laughter made him happy. So happy that he wondered how he'd managed to live thirty-four years without hearing it. "Beyond amazing, Adam, enormous ego and all."
Now he was the one turning serious. "My ego and I made a lot of assumptions about you and me, thinking that just because I was one hundred percent ready to be in love, you must be one hundred percent ready to love me back. I'm sorry for barging into your heart like a bull in a china shop."
"You once told me that two people don't have to be completely the same or look at everything the same way, for a relationship to work. These past weeks with you have been exciting and frustrating and happy and crazy-making. And the truth is that I can't wait for seven more decades just like these with you. Everything might not always be calm and easy, we may get messy and raw sometimes, but I know that as long as I'm with you, they'll always be wonderful, too. So, if you ask me, barging like a bull into my china shop sounds just perfect. I don't want to change one single thing about you, Adam, and I couldn't stand it if you tried to b
e someone you aren't."
A violin was playing a romantic melody, one that floated across the still lake water to them, as she said, "Marry me, Adam. Be mine forever."
He kissed her soft then hard, teasingly then deeply, over and over again.
"Is that a yes?" she asked.
"Not just a yes," he told her, grinning like a fool. "It's a hell yes to marrying you and having picnics with our kids under the oak tree of our rambling old house during the day and making love beneath the stained-glass windows upstairs every night." He kissed her again. "And that's me saying yes to holding hands as we rock together on the front porch." Another kiss, one filled with pure love. "But you should know that I'll never stop making you blush by kissing you in front of the whole world and asking you to dance at the most inappropriate times."
"Promise?"
"You want to know how long I'm promising you, Kerry?" He brought his lips to hers and whispered, "Forever."
*
Back at the inn, they stripped each other so fast that the door was barely shut and locked behind them when Adam came over her on the big bed, deliciously hard and heavy as he kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed her some more, until her head was spinning even faster than it already had been back on the beach.
Every part of her wanted every part of him as he began to run those drugging kisses down over her cheek, her jaw, her neck, her shoulders.
"What are you going to plan for our wedding?" he asked her between kisses.
"Wedding?" It was hard to think straight with his tongue swirling lazily over the tip of her breast.
His laughter vibrated against her sensitive skin as he moved to tease her other breast. "You just asked me to marry you, remember?"
"Yes." He slid his hand down over her stomach, then between her thighs. "Yes."
His laughter turned to a growl of satisfaction. "Maybe you're thinking of the honeymoon, then?" he said as he began to run nipping little kisses down over her rib cage. "Somewhere hot and sunny where I can keep you naked for a week."
She was barely able to think, let alone speak, as he dipped his tongue into her belly button. But somehow she managed, "Two weeks."
He rewarded her excellent suggestion with another breathtakingly hot kiss, one that had her arching her hips to get closer to his mouth. Spending one night a week with Adam had been incredible. But knowing he would be hers forever? Knowing she'd be laughing, and teasing, and loving him every single night--not to mention anytime they could get away from work during the day?
Her body exploded in a kaleidoscope of pleasure, one that she was desperate to share with him. And thank God, he could read her mind just as he always did, because even as ecstasy took her over, he did, too, in one gorgeous thrust.
She couldn't hold him tightly enough, couldn't wrap herself around him closely enough. And this time, when he whispered that he loved her against her mouth between kisses, she whispered it right back, over and over and over again, until she knew he'd never, ever forget just how much she loved him.
Or that all she ever needed was him.
EPILOGUE
Drake Sullivan enjoyed Rafe and Brooke's wedding. Not only because he got to spend time with his family, but also because the laughter all around him was a much-needed infusion. He'd tried to paint last night and had ended up with something that could have been done far better by a child. Which he'd just confirmed when Chase and Chloe's little daughter, Emma, gave him a drawing she'd been working on at her seat during the reception. He could see the budding artist in her, from the way she watched everyone and everything around her so carefully--and from her extremely long attention span as she'd worked on her drawing with her tongue between her teeth.
She'd drawn the lake with the dock jutting out into it and the mountains rising up behind it. Her drawing was confident and, honestly, pretty damned brilliant. "This is great, Emma. Can I keep it?"
She beamed up at him. "I made it for you, Mr. Drake. You have to keep it." She gave his legs a quick hug before running off to play with her cousins, who were calling her name from down the beach.
"Looks like you have a little admirer." Drake's sister, Suzanne, was smiling as she walked up to him. He showed her the drawing, and her eyebrows went up. "Wow, that's really good."
"Better by a mile than anything I've done recently, that's for sure."
His sister put her hand on his arm. "Your muse still messing with you?"
Drake had never believed in a muse before. Painting had always been there for him, a natural extension of himself. At least, it had been there until the past six months or so. "I'm thinking of heading out of the city for a while when I get back."
"Montauk?" she guessed.
Drake nodded. He had a little cabin on the water there that he didn't use nearly enough. But maybe if he got away from the noise, the activity of New York City for a little while, and surrounded himself with water and sand like this, he'd get back what he was starting to feel he'd lost.
"Maybe I'll come visit," she said, but he knew better. His brilliant sister could rarely pull herself away from her computers long enough to get out to the far tip of the Hamptons.
Still, he wanted her to know she was welcome, so he said, "Come anytime, Suz."
Their brothers, Alec and Harrison, walked up to them just then. Despite their physical similarity--both of them tall and muscular, with dark eyes and hair--the luxury airline mogul and the university academic couldn't be more different.
"Everyone, including Dad, is placing bets on who's next," Alec said.
Not following, Drake asked, "Next?"
Harrison clarified, "They're betting on which one of us is going to go down in the flames of love like Adam just did."
With his painting going badly enough that he was going to have to cancel an important exhibition soon if he didn't snap out of it, Drake couldn't help but feel as though he had more than enough trouble on his hands without bringing a woman into it. But his siblings? Sure, he could see one of them falling crazy in love out of the blue.
"Who's in the lead?" he asked.
The last thing Drake expected was for Alec to grin and say, "You."
THE END
For news on upcoming stories about The Sullivans, click here to sign up for Bella Andre's New Release Newsletter.
Watch for Drake Sullivan's book (New York Sullivans, Book 1) this winter! Suzanne, Alec, and Harrison will all be getting their own stories soon, too.
TEMPT ME LIKE THIS, the second book in Bella's series about The Morrisons, is rock star Drew Morrison's story. It will be released August 12, 2015!
Bella is thrilled to announce two new contemporary romance series!
CAPE COD KISSES, the first book in Bella's new Love on Rockwell Island series written with NYT bestselling author Melissa Foster, will be released May 6, 2015! Sink your toes into the sandy beaches at the heart of Cape Cod Bay, where family comes first, good friends are around every corner, and true love is waiting beneath the stars.
BREATHLESS IN LOVE, the first book in Bella's new Maverick Billionaires series written with NYT bestselling author Jennifer Skully, will be released June 10, 2015! The Maverick Billionaires are five sexy, gorgeous, self-made men from the wrong side of town, who survived hell together, and now they're taking on the world.
For more information about TEMPT ME LIKE THIS, CAPE COD KISSES, and BREATHLESS IN LOVE, please sign up for Bella's New Release Newsletter (https://bellaandre.link/NewsletterSignup) and visit https://www.BellaAndre.com/collections.
*
The following books in Bella's New York Times & USA Today bestselling series about The Sullivans are out now!
THE LOOK OF LOVE
(Chase & Chloe)
FROM THIS MOMENT ON
(Marcus & Nicola)
CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE
(Gabe & Megan)
I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU
(Sophie & Jake)
IF YOU WERE MINE
(Zach & Heather)
LE
T ME BE THE ONE
(Ryan & Vicki)
COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER
(Smith & Valentina)
ALWAYS ON MY MIND
(Lori & Grayson)
KISSING UNDER THE MISTLETOE
(Mary & Jack Sullivan)
ONE PERFECT NIGHT
(A novella guest starring Mia Sullivan and Rafe Sullivan)
THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT
(Rafe & Brooke, The Seattle Sullivans)
IT MUST BE YOUR LOVE
(Mia & Ford, The Seattle Sullivans)
JUST TO BE WITH YOU
(Ian & Tatiana, The Seattle Sullivans)
I LOVE HOW YOU LOVE ME
(Dylan & Grace, The Seattle Sullivans)
ALL I EVER NEED IS YOU
(Adam & Kerry, The Seattle Sullivans)
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Click here to download a Sullivan Family Tree!
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Please enjoy the following excerpt from THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT (Rafe Sullivan's story), the first Seattle Sullivan book...
As a very successful private investigator who has caught most of the cheaters in Seattle with their pants down, Rafe Sullivan believes true, lasting love only happens once in a blue moon. Needing to get away from the city to clear his head, he finds the lake house where he spent the best summers of his life is now a wreck...but the sweet girl next door is all grown up and prettier than anything he's ever seen.
While Brooke Jansen is happy making and selling chocolate truffles in her small Pacific Northwest lake town, she secretly longs to experience something wild. So when her favorite "Wild Sullivan" moves in again next door after more than a decade away, and sparks fly between them, she can't stop wondering if being bad is really as good as it always seemed...and just how long it will be before she can find out.