“Wow,” Richard says. He smiles. “That’s big news, Daisy. That’s great news.”
“Yeah,” Lacey says. “It is. I mean it. It’s just surprising, in a good way.”
I shrug and pop the cherry from the pina colada into my mouth. “I’m full of surprises.”
“That you are,” Tai says quietly. He’s watching me pull the stem out of the cherry.
I grin at him and chomp the fruit in half. Pervert.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Lacey says after a moment. “But that’s how you know it’s worth doing.”
“I think it’s a great choice,” Richard says. “The world can always use another scientist.”
“Not sure my parents agree with that,” I say with a laugh. “They’re going to wonder what the hell happened to have both their daughters turn this way.”
“They’ll be proud,” Tai assures me.
“I’m proud of you,” Lacey says. She reaches across the table and gives my hand an affectionate pat. It’s awkward, but I appreciate she’s trying.
“I haven’t done anything yet,” I remind her.
“But you’ve set your intentions. I’m proud of you for wanting that,” she clarifies. “For wanting more.”
“As am I,” Richard says, raising his fishbowl, the umbrella nearly poking his lens out. Wouldn’t that have been ironic? “Here’s to Daisy.”
I blush and raise my pina colada. “Here’s to us. We made it.”
“We made it,” Tai says, raising his beer.
We all clink our glasses together. I look Tai deep in the eye as we drink.
“Not going to lie,” I tell them all. “I thought we were going to die. Just because we were all ready to kill each other on more than a few occasions.”
“I slept with a knife under my pillow,” Richard jokes.
The waitress comes by at that exact moment with our desserts, carefully eyeing Richard as she places the treats on the table. It’s hard to tell when he’s joking.
“I have banana cream pie, macadamia nut cheesecake, a passionfruit tart, grasshopper pie, homemade mango and lychee sorbet, plus vakalavalava, a cassava cake that’s popular here. Enjoy.” Layla gives Richard one last weird look and walks away.
“I’m not sure I can eat anymore,” Lacey says, staring at it all with overwhelmed eyes.
“I don’t think so either,” I tell her, picking up a fork and spearing the cheesecake. “But I’ve never backed down from a challenge.”
The moment it hits my mouth though, melting on my tongue, my stomach calls out for me to stop. There is such a thing as overdoing it.
“So, where do you think you’re going to go to school?” Lacey says, pulling the sorbet toward her and poking it with her spoon.
I glance again at Tai, who is lost in a daze as he starts sampling all the dishes.
“Actually, I want to study in New Zealand. I haven’t obviously been able to Google around yet, but I bet at least a few universities have the program. Then I’ll see if I can get in.”
Now Lacey is really surprised. The spoon pauses halfway to her mouth. “Really? Why New Zealand?”
“Because…” I trail off. Do I really have to say?
I look at Tai. He’s smiling politely as if asking, “Yes, why?”
Guess I do.
“Because I want to be with Tai,” I tell them, feeling myself flush. God, I’m such a dork. Why is admitting this out loud so hard for me?
“Huh,” Lacey muses, sitting back, tapping her spoon against her lips. “I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me at all.”
“Definitely isn’t a surprise to me,” Richard says, gesturing to us with his drink. “Just look at the two of you. It’s quite apparent you’re in love with each other. Even the goat knew that.”
The room feels like it comes to a screeching halt.
At least my heart feels that way.
Love?
Did Richard really just say that? I mean, I know how I feel but there’s no way in hell that Tai feels the same way, and now that bomb just dropped and everything is so awkward and my face is burning and—
“Damn right I’m in love with her,” Tai says, before having a sip of his beer.
Oh.
My god.
My mouth drops open.
Words fail to come out.
Heart feels like it’s grown too large for my chest, about to consume me whole.
He…what?
I swallow, staring at him.
He gives me a sly little grin. “What? You didn’t know that?”
My eyes bug out.
Is he kidding me right now?
I shake my head. “You…you love me?”
“Uh oh,” Lacey says, elbowing Richard as she gets up. “Richard, let’s step outside for some fresh air.”
“Nah, stay,” Tai says to them, motioning for her to sit. “I don’t care if the whole world knows it.” He turns in his seat to me, leans over, and cups my bewildered face in his warm, large hands. “Daisy Lewis, I am utterly, totally, madly in love with you.”
Oh my god.
I’m still in shock.
This is beyond anything I could have imagined. I feel like I’m not even here right now, and my body seems to pop and fizz with the kind of joy I’ve never felt before.
“You love me?” I ask again, my voice cracking.
“I do,” he says, leaning in to kiss me softly on the lips.
This man. This beautiful man.
He loves me.
Tears suddenly spring to my eyes and spill down my cheeks, making our kiss salty and sweet.
He pulls away, resting his forehead against mine, breathing hard, like all of this has his heart rate up. It sure has mine going.
“I’m sorry you first had to hear it in front of your sister and brother-in-law,” he says wryly. “I was planning on telling you tonight. Something a little more romantic.”
“Sorry,” Richard mutters.
“Don’t be,” I whisper to him, staring at Tai, feeling absolutely giddy. “It doesn’t matter how I hear it, so as long as it’s true.”
“It’s true, Gingersnap,” he says. “I knew you’d get under my skin the moment I saw you.”
“Did I ever,” I comment.
Lacey clears her throat loudly.
I pull back from Tai just enough to give her a look. “What?”
She jerks her chin at Tai. Raises her brows. “Shouldn’t you…you know?”
“Don’t pressure her,” Tai tells her. “I didn’t say it to hear it in return. I said it—
“Because I said it,” Richard says, sucking on his drink. He swallows. “But when I said it, I meant the both of you. You’d have to be a complete imbecile to not see that she loves you too.”
I laugh, putting my hand at the back of Tai’s neck. “He’s right, you know. You can be a complete imbecile.”
“Is that all he’s right about?” Tai asks, so sweet, so hopeful.
I burst into the biggest smile. “No. He’s right in that I love you. I love you and you’re an idiot for thinking otherwise.”
Tai’s face cracks open, more fucking beautiful than ever. The joy reaches his eyes.
“You mean that?” he asks.
“I really do,” I tell him. The words seem to flow out of me now. “I love you Tai Wakefield.”
He shakes his head subtly, as if in awe, his dark eyes searching mine. Looking for the truth.
Then he finds it.
And it’s real.
He kisses me again. A kiss that pulls me under, a kiss that lifts me up.
Eventually, I become fully aware that we’re making out in the bar and making everyone uncomfortable, so it’s no surprise that Lacey and Richard tell us they’ll see us later. After everyone settles up with the bill, Tai grabs my hand and takes me straight back to the hotel.
We barely make it inside the hotel room before we’re attacking each other like crazed animals, hands and mouths everywhere. I just really want that ugly tie-dye sh
irt off him, so I’m yanking it impatiently over his head and tossing it to the floor.
“That’s more like it,” I tell him, running my hands over his chest, down his abs, savoring his taut, warm skin, my pale hands against his bronze skin. “How about we take this in the shower?”
His eyes light up.
A shower.
A fucking proper shower.
We’re a tangle of lips and tongue as we make our way to the bathroom, Tai pulling my dress and bikini over my head. His hands slide down to my underwear, but I went commando after I arrived in Fiji, kicking my last pair of undies to the curb.
“You’re full of surprises,” he says, reaching around and taking a firm hold of my ass with both his hands, bunching them up as he leans down to kiss me.
God, I love kissing this man.
If this continues, I won’t even make it into the shower.
Spurred by that thought, I open the shower door and turn the water on. Watching it pour from the rain head attachment makes me all sorts of giddy. I put my hand through the stream, testing it.
“It’s hot!” I cry out happily. “Hot water!”
“Not the only thing raising my temperature,” Tai says, stepping in the shower with me, completely naked. As usual, his erection could poke a girl’s eye out.
I grin at him and pump a few squirts of coconut-scented body wash out of the bottle, before lathering up my hands and sliding them down the thick length of his cock.
“You don’t waste any time,” he moans, closing his eyes.
“But I’m going to take my time with you.” I grin.
I start pumping my fist up and down his cock, until his breath gets sharper, then I start bringing the soapy suds all over his body, cleaning him from head to toe.
“This is torture,” he says through a stilted groan, his head back, the water running down the strong planes of his handsome face. “When is it my turn?”
I take his hand and squirt more body wash in his palm. “Now,” I tell him, standing under the stream.
It. Feels. So. Good.
He looks at me, his gaze burning with raw desire, then crouches down low. He puts his hands at my ankles and then slowly brings his palms up along my calves, the back of my knees, the inside of my thighs. His touch is light, slick, slippery.
I’m shuddering, anticipating his fingers.
When they find me, already wet, they stroke soft and slow.
I never knew how much I needed this.
With one hand continuing to slide over my sensitive parts, the other slides up over my belly, up to my breasts. He palms me, feeling the weight in his hand, then hooks his thumb around my nipple.
I gasp, squeezing around his fingers as they gently push inside.
He continues to work me with both hands, my nipple a hard pebble against his thumb, ecstasy spreading outward until it feels like my spine is a lighted Roman candle.
“Fuck,” I cry out, my eyes pinching shut.
He covers my open mouth with his, his tongue slipping inside, teasing mine, pulling me into a deep, searing kiss.
In seconds, I am seeing stars.
“Fuck, Tai,” I manage to say. “Oh, god.”
He grunts in return, working me until I am weightless, my legs shaking, my body quaking with unfiltered bliss. I feel like I’m made of stars and sunsets and sunrises and everything bright in the universe.
“Feel better?” he whispers against my mouth, smiling.
I stare at him in a daze, my eyes heavy. “Yes,” I croak.
“Good. Time for your hair,” he says, putting his hands on my shoulders and turning me around. He squirts shampoo into his hand and starts lathering up my hair, his strong fingers digging deep.
Have you ever come, hard, and then had your head massaged?
Dear lord, I’m in freaking heaven here.
Then, while the conditioner sits, I do the same to him.
Like a sexual spa day.
Finally, when we’re all clean and dry, we make our way over to the bed.
It’s king-sized with soft covers, and the moment Tai pushes me back onto the bed, I know how easy it would be to fall asleep here.
But the sight of him naked as he climbs on the bed, his big body prowling over me, pushes the idea of sleep to the back of my mind.
I am in love with this man.
And he is in love with me.
Every cell in my body feels so damn alive.
He plants his elbows on either side of me, holding my face in his hands. My legs spread for him, his heavy cock resting on my stomach.
“I love you,” he tells me, voice hoarse. He’s looking so deep into my eyes that I feel him inside me, like he knows every inch of my soul. “And I’m sorry I told you the way I did.”
“Please, Tai. Don’t be.” I give him a reassuring smile. “It was the greatest thing I ever heard; nothing can ruin that for me.”
“I wanted…” he trails off, licks his lips. “I wanted to tell you earlier, but I was so afraid you wouldn’t feel the same way. I wanted to be sure. I thought I could just keep it inside until I knew how you felt. And then I realized, in a way it didn’t matter how you felt, because I knew how I did. And the fact that I’m in love with you…it means I’m not a broken man. It means I’m living life again. I’m ready for a life with you.”
Oh no. More emotional tears are threatening my eyes.
I swallow, wrapped up in his sincerity.
He goes on, running his thumb over my lips. “You know that Soundgarden song, Rusty Cage?”
I nod. Not sure where this is going.
“That’s what I’ve been living with all these years. For far too long. I’ve had this rusty cage in my chest, and I got so used to it, I never even bothered to see if it could open. But you opened it, Daisy. You not only opened it, you ripped the cage right out of my chest.” He swallows thickly. “I feel like a free man now. I owe it all to you. Wonderful, beautiful, unforgettable you.”
I sniff, reaching up and wiping away a tear. “You have to stop making me cry, Tai.”
He places a kiss at my neck, running his hand down to his cock and positioning it between my legs.
“Only if I can keep making you come.”
I don’t even have to answer that.
He pushes inside me, to the hilt, the breath expelled from my lungs, and then he’s rocking into me, slowly, carefully, a lazy kind of rhythm.
I dig my nails into his back, holding him as close to me as possible, not wanting to have any distance between us. He returns in kind by pistoning his hips against mine, his cock driving inside me in short thrusts, keeping us as connected as possible.
The orgasm takes us both by surprise. He cries out softly, his brow furrowed in concentration, then release, pumping inside me. I am weightless once again, calling out his name, holding him tight.
His pumping slows. Sweat drips off his forehead and onto me.
He rolls over onto the bed and then takes me by the shoulders, pulling me on to him.
I lay my head on his chest as it rises and falls, both of us catching our breath, our hands entwined.
For a moment I think I’ve fallen asleep and when I open my eyes, I’m shocked to see where I am. Not on the island. In a hotel room, in Fiji, safe in his arms.
“Daisy,” he whispers.
“I’m here.”
“It sounds completely selfish, but I wish you didn’t have to go home,” he says to me. “I hate not knowing when I’ll see you again.”
My heart squeezes with his words. “Don’t worry. I won’t be gone for long. I haven’t even booked the flight. I just need to go and cancel my lease and pack up my things.” I pause. “I don’t want to do it either.”
“I was thinking,” he whispers to me, his fingers playing with my hair. “Maybe I’d come back with you to San Francisco.”
I blink. Raise my head and rest my chin on his chest, staring at him. “Are you serious?”
“When am I not?”
“Whe
n you’re making fun of me?” I joke.
He frowns. “Oh, I take making fun of you very seriously.”
I pinch his nipple and he yelps. “I mean it.”
“I mean it too,” he says, wincing.
“Who’s going to run your business?”
“My manager can handle it. He’s been running it all this time I’ve been gone, and it’s the end of the season now anyway.”
I’m having a hard time believing this. “You would actually do that?”
He nods. “Won’t even go home, Gingersnap. I’ve started to realize what home feels like is wherever you are.” He smiles at me, his eyes crinkling. “Tomorrow I’ll call the airlines, change my flight.”
“Ohhh, maybe we can get a Skycouch!” I say excitedly. Put that other couple to shame.
“Whatever you want,” he says. “As long as we’re together.”
I lay my head down on his chest, listening to his heart beat steadily, grinning against his skin.
The future still seems a little hazy, but at least I know to not be afraid of it. To rise up to the challenges ahead, no matter how difficult, to let myself smile through the good, and cry through the bad.
I just know I won’t be alone in it.
We’ll face the future together, whatever it holds for us, one sunrise at a time.
Epilogue
Tai
Three years later
“Are you ready?”
Daisy sits on the pontoon opposite me, all shapely in her wetsuit. Combined with the scuba mask on her face, she looks like a hot frog. Actually, hot-frog Daisy is one of my favorites. She’s in her element, which means she’s in her scuba gear and about to plunge into the ocean.
“I’m ready,” I tell her, sticking the regulator in my mouth.
I’ve been ready for this for a long time. Three years, to be exact.
It’s dusk, and the sun is going down. I had suggested to Daisy that we do a night dive, since I’ve never done one of those before, least not here at the Leigh Marine Reserve. This is where the University of Auckland has their marine campus, overlooking Goat Island (a place that Wilson would enjoy). Daisy is in her second year of marine sciences at the university and is absolutely thriving in the program.
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