My sweet boy.
My filthy rebel.
My love.
I’d never been this happy in my life.
“I’m going to miss this view,” he murmured. “We’ll have to come back soon.”
Yeah, definitely, but enough chitchat. I turned around in his arms and took a sip of my coffee.
“I wanna hear you say it again,” I informed him.
Mirth lit up his dark silvery gaze, matching the salt-and-pepper bed head. “If I say it more than I already do, you’ll tire of it in no time.”
“Impossible.” I tugged at his undershirt. “Lemme hear it.”
He chuckled and cupped my cheeks, leaning in slowly. “I love you beyond words, Kellan.”
That. Right. There.
That’s the stuff.
I sighed contentedly, and he kissed the cheesy grin off my face.
“It’s unbelievable what you’ve done to me.” He slowed down the kiss and squeezed me tightly. “You don’t know how grateful I am.”
I did, though. “You show me every day.” It was often the little things, like the return of his energy, his growing interest in working again, how he was eating better—just the simple concept of having opinions. Of caring enough to make everyday decisions. And he thanked me plenty. He could pass me in the hallway and squeeze me hard and tell me he was still overwhelmed by the intensity of his feelings and how he’d evolved.
I reached up and touched his cheek. “I just wish the crashes weren’t so brutal.”
Because they were. He could go to bed happy, screw me into next week, then wake up devastated. And because his energy was climbing higher slowly but surely, the low points were heartbreaking to watch. He became so angry, so saddened, because he’d thought he was making progress—which he fucking was. He just didn’t see it when the darkness swept in.
“They’re worth it. I have to look at it that way.” He tilted his head and kissed my fingertips. “Now I can’t wait to see my grandchildren again—not because I need their innocence in my life as proof of there still being some good left in the world, but because I want to see them grow up.”
Yeah, he was definitely making progress.
“I love you.” I set down my coffee cup on the railing before I locked my arms around his neck. “It’ll be good to go home again after the holidays.”
“Mm.” He rested his forehead to mine. “I do worry, though. Are you positive you’re okay with us being private a while longer?”
“I think it’s best for both of us.” That was what I needed him to understand. “A lot has changed already, and when we get home, we still have to land in our reality. You promised me you’d give a grief counselor an honest try, I have to catch up on work after being outta the country for so long, you and Finn have to discuss your way back into the syndicate, and then there’s our batshit-crazy family.”
He grinned faintly and closed his eyes. “You realize we’re as crazy as them.”
“That’s not the point.” I touched his cheek and kissed him chastely. “They’re part of the real world. So far, our relationship has existed in a vacation bubble, and I’d rather get used to being outside the honeymoon phase without Finn and Colm in the audience.”
Shan straightened a little and furrowed his brow. “Are we leaving the honeymoon phase so soon?”
I chuckled. “You know what I mean, baby.”
“I suppose. But I don’t want to stop taking you to dinner.”
“Who says you have to?” I smiled. “We’ll find places where we don’t gotta be discreet.” I’d ordered something online intended to be a Christmas gift, but I wanted to spill the beans now. It sounded like he needed a clearer image of how I saw our immediate future. Besides, he’d get other gifts too. “You remember in Bordeaux, you mentioned an art exhibit in New York about naked dudes?”
He rolled his eyes. “The Soldier’s Strength Through Time, you mean?”
Yeah, that one. “I got us tickets.”
I fell even more in love with him when I saw how quickly his gaze warmed up and glowed with surprise.
“We’ll make a weekend out of it,” he suggested. “Oh, I’m looking forward to that. What a wonderful surprise.”
“See? Everyone knows that you don’t stop going to art exhibits and museums until you’re sick of your spouse.”
He laughed softly and kissed my temple.
I hugged his middle and buried my face against his throat where his body heat could defrost my nose. We were gonna be just fine.
Shan seemed to be in a mood that went beyond hugging. He kissed my neck as one of his hands appeared down my sweats, cupping one of my ass cheeks.
He did that thing where he rumbled a low growl and sounded like he just had to have something from me.
He knew how to turn me on mad fast.
“You’ll have to forgive me, sweetheart.” He breathed me in and grazed his teeth along my neck, and I shivered violently. “Nearly thirty years of unconsciously suppressing how much I love the male body…and then I get to call the most beautiful, sexiest young man mine.” With those words, he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me hungrily, and it didn’t take more than that to sweep me off my feet. “Your incredible body, baby boy—I can’t seem to stop touching you.”