“I just admitted to messing with your food and enlisting other people to help me do it,” she replied.

“You just admitted to wantin’ me so bad, you knew the only way we weren’t gonna happen was if you fuckin’ killed me,” I returned, reaching around her, grabbing hold of her hips, and sliding her closer until her ass was pressing against my thigh again. I leaned in, getting in her face. “You’re right about that, babe. I’d have to be dead.”

The corner of Tori’s mouth lifted. She shook her head and lowered her eyes. “I never wanted to kill you,” she argued quietly. “I wasn’t even fully committed to not liking you. I pretty much sucked at it.” Her eyes found mine again, then she reached out and held my face between her hands. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, all sorts of meaning in her voice.

“Know you are, babe,” I murmured. “Don’t need to be, but I feel that.”

“I still think you should hate me. Even if it’s just for an hour.”

“I’ve never loved you more than I do right fuckin’ now,” I shared. “And that’s saying a lot, ’cause ten minutes ago I was crazy about you.”

Tori sucked in the quickest, quietest breath. Her eyes were wide. Her lips were pressing together. She looked stuck somewhere between crying her eyes out and putting on the biggest smile of her life.

I grinned, unable to help it. “You fuckin’ love me, girl. Look at you,” I murmured, wiping my thumb across her cheek.

Tori blinked and allowed her lips to curl, then she let go of my face, twisted her upper body, grabbed her silverware, forked three squares of pancakes, and shoved them into her mouth, mumbling two words around her bite.

“So much.”

Chapter Nineteen

TORI

Three days later

You win yet?

I sent my message, then glanced up at Nate’s office door. It was still closed, so I looked down again, keeping focus on my phone while I stood behind the bar at Whitecaps.

I had been on it all morning, more than I’d ever been on my phone before while working a shift. Just reading and sending texts, not talking, but still. It was unprofessional. I knew that. I knew it before Nate caught me and then caught me again the two times he’d stepped out of his office today.

He didn’t say anything, just gave me a look indicating the level of unprofessionalism I was hitting. I read it loud and clear, tucked my phone away, and got back to work.

Then my pocket vibrated again and I was reading and smiling and typing, doing this while keeping an eye out just in case Nate needed a third refill on his black coffee.

I couldn’t help the sneakiness and the risking I was doing. Really …

Okay, that wasn’t exactly true. I could help it. This could absolutely be helped. I just didn’t want to. I wanted other things more.

I wanted to talk to Jamie. I wanted to be there with him on the flight to Florida he took yesterday morning. I wanted to be with him in his hotel room and do hotel room things, like have sex in the bed and in the bathroom, and if there was a desk, I wanted to be bent over it or have my butt hanging off the edge and my legs spread wide, because that’s what you did when you shared a hotel room with someone you were seeing. You had vacation sex, and I wanted vacation sex with Jamie.

Our everyday sex was phenomenal so I knew vacation sex with him had to be out of this world amazing. I was really wanting to experience that.

More importantly, though, over everything, over holding hands on flights and neighbors in the next room complaining about the noise level and middle-of-the-night wall banging, I wanted to stand on that Florida beach and watch my man take first place in his meet today.

I wanted it badly. So, so badly. It was killing me not being there.

But there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t do those things. Any of them. At least not this time. I had to work a job that never really felt like a job to me, until today and a little yesterday when I was thinking about Jamie alone in his hotel room. But now, right now, it was really feeling like a job and one I no longer wanted.

Ridiculous. I loved working here. I always did.

But today and yesterday and maybe for months, I loved Jamie, too. I loved him.

Name doodling and spare house keys and can this be our thing kind of love, which was why I was being unprofessional and staying on my phone as much as I was doing. I was excited for him and sad that I wasn’t there and I loved him.

I loved him. I loved him. I loved him.

And I was certain he knew it, too.

I hadn’t said it yet. Not really. Not so that Jamie could hear. I said so much and nodded and moaned yes yes yes when I was coming and he was in my ear, growling you fuckin’ love me, girl, but I never said it. That was our game. I wouldn’t say it then. If I did, we wouldn’t have that anymore, and I wasn’t ready to give that up. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be.

I loved our game almost as much as I loved Jamie.

Maybe I would say it when he got back from Florida. Maybe I would say it a month from now or in the next message I typed. I didn’t know. I was waiting for it to happen as much he was.

Love was an adventure. It should be spontaneous and irresponsible and a little crazy. Not planned for. Not overthought. I had no idea when I was going to say those words to Jamie, and I liked not knowing.

I wanted impulsive I love you’s and reckless desires. I wanted this how it always was between us—uncontrollable. Overwhelming. And never, ever contained.

The phone vibrated in my hand as a new text appeared on the screen. I smiled reading it.

Hasn’t started yet. All these assholes got their girls here to watch them lose. Sucks for them.

God, he was so damn cocky. And I totally loved that, too.

Sucks worse for me. I wanna be there.

You are here, babe.

I felt my cheeks warm.

Oh, yes, I liked that. Jamie was saying I was with him even when I wasn’t. That was seriously sweet.

I wanted to give him something seriously sweeter. So I pulled out my ticket book and flipped to the page I’d been doodling on all morning, snapped a pic of it, and sent it through with a caption.

You’re here, too.

The page had Jamie’s name scribbled all over in different sizes and fonts, some darker than others, with hearts and starbursts and decorative swirls filling in the white. And in the center was a thought bubble with the word LOVE deeply bolded.

Again, I wasn’t saying the words, not exactly, but kind of, maybe … I was.

My phone started vibrating with a call as I was sliding my ticket book away, and although I had been using it all morning, I hadn’t been talking on it.

Texts were one thing. I could be discreet with those, like I was doing right now by keeping my phone below the lip of the counter. But taking a call was different. That would be difficult to hide if Nate walked out.

Too bad I totally didn’t care if Nate walked out right now and saw me. Jamie was calling and I wanted to answer it. So I did.

I was certain I could convince Nate of this phone call’s importance later if I needed to. And if I couldn’t, well, I did have a nice run here.

“Hey,” I answered through a smile, keeping my voice down. I turned to face the kitchen, listening to beach breeze and the rushing of waves in the background. I could hear the crowd gathering around to watch.