Her hands slipped into my shorts, and I slid them down my legs, kicking them off until we were both naked. When she reached for me, I took her hands and pinned her wrists over her head. “Let me worship you,” I whispered in her ear before taking the lobe gently between my teeth.

If I couldn’t say that I loved her in words, I would do it with my hands, my mouth, my every single movement. I showed her my love with each kiss, lingering where she gasped, sucking on the sensitive patches of skin under her perfect breasts.

I kissed her mouth softly, then took her deeper, until I couldn’t tell where her mouth began and mine ended. Her legs moved restlessly, locking around my back, and I groaned at the sublime feeling of her, wet and ready against me.

“Paxton,” she moaned as my fingers tested how ready she was. Of course she was already slippery, our bodies were always magically in sync. I loved that about her, too, loved how the sex only got hotter and yet somehow reached me on emotional levels no one else ever had.

I leaned over, taking a condom out of my wallet and, in quick motions, protected us both. “Is out here okay?” I asked. It was hot as hell to have her on our balcony, but there was zero chance I would make her do something she didn’t want 100 percent.

She nodded, her eyes half-lidded and drunk on lust. “I trust you.”

Her words shot through me like nothing else could have.

“You’re everything,” I said with a kiss as I slid inside her. I love you. The words were in my head, my heart, my thrusts as I found a slow, deep rhythm within her perfection. She was heaven, squeezing me tight every time I withdrew and moaning softly when I drove back in.

I love you, I thought, barely stopping the words from tripping out of my mouth as I memorized the way she looked, the way her neck arched as she met each of my movements, drove me to soar with every kiss, every time her fingernails scraped across the skin of my back. I didn’t say it aloud, but it coursed through me all the same, bringing me higher than I’d ever been with no chute to break the inevitable fall. But for just this moment, I let my love for her consume me, move me, drive me—and her—toward the kind of heaven I only knew in her arms.

Even as I felt that pressure—the tingle at the base of my spine—and I knew I was close, I couldn’t stop. I would never get enough of this, of her. There would never be anyone else who fit as perfectly against me, who drove me to the brink of insanity with a simple smile.

She was it.

I moved my hand between us and stroked her clit, pressing where she liked, quickening my thrusts to match my hands and her moans.

“Pax!” she cried out, and I surged forward, capturing her mouth and muffling her next shout when she came, clenching around me so tightly that I couldn’t help but let go and let the waves of my orgasm wash over me.

I pulled the beach towel she’d brought out around us and tucked her into my chest, holding her as close as I could. I understood it now—why people gave up logic for love. If Leah had asked me to quit riding, quit boarding, I would have done it in a heartbeat if it meant keeping her.

She was better than the hit of adrenaline I craved, took me higher than any rush of endorphins at a victory. She’d become more than the thrill, she’d become the air, the only thing I absolutely needed to live.

As she looked up at me with those expressive eyes, sleepy in satisfaction, I’d never felt so alive…or so terrified.

“You sure you don’t want some dinner?” she asked, always thinking about me first.

“I’m good. I’m sorry for missing it. Was it busy?”

She shrugged. “Pretty empty. I think half the students went on the safari trip.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to go.”

“I’m not. I don’t regret any of the time I spend with you.”

God, I loved her—and not a little kind of love. My heart was practically glowing. I probably looked like a warped glowworm or something. “I’ll take you sometime,” I promised. “One day, we’ll come back so we can go look at the lions.”

Her eyes widened. “Paxton…”

“Yeah, I know what I said. I implied that we’d be together long after this cruise is over. You need to know that this isn’t a fling to me, or some distraction. I’ve never felt anything this real in my life, and I’m not going to let it go—let you go—just because this trip comes to an end.”

“I go to school on the East Coast—”

I leaned in, kissing her quiet. “I know how to use planes. Look, I’m not saying let’s figure this out tonight. We have months. But I am promising that I will bring you back here, and we’ll look at lions, and elephants—”

“And giraffes?” Her eyes lit up.

“Anything you want.”

As long as you still want me.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Paxton

Madagascar

“Did you get it turned in?” Leah asked, the noise from the airfield making her shout.

“I’m about to attempt one of the riskiest skydive landings ever, and you want to know about my English paper?” I retorted, unable to keep the grin off my face. Of course she did.

“Well…yeah. I have zero control of what happens once you decide to bail out of that perfectly good airplane, but your grades are pretty much my responsibility, so yeah, I’m asking if you turned in your paper.” There was a slight panic in her eyes, in the tense line of her mouth.