Page 109 of Nothing to Do

First thing came with him losing the jacket, the tee-shirt, his pants.

“Whoa, hey, hey,” he said, capturing her hands at his fly. “Can I take my boots off first?”

“If it gets you naked sooner.” She crawled onto the bed as he sat to unlace. Sliding her hands up his back, into his hair, she buried her face against him. “I have to go to work in the morning.”

“I know.”

“Not like work on the island. Actual work. With people who don’t want to see me naked.”

“Can’t imagine there are any of those.”

He stood and was nice enough to face her as he lost his pants. Wasn’t much time to admire the view. He scooped her up, shoved the covers away and settled them both skin-to-skin.

“Will you stay?”

“Little late to ask that, isn’t it? I’m naked, people will frown on me going outside.”

Nobody with eyes in their head.

“Tomorrow. I have to go to work, but if you stay, we can have dinner. This might not be the most exciting city in the world but—”

“I’m staying, Wanderer,” he said, pulling her up to kiss her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And it was nice, so goddamn nice to just exist with him in that moment. So they were missing the surf and tropical fauna, but that didn’t matter, it didn’t mean anything.

They’d left the island with so much still to say, still to agree on and organize. There it felt like the real world didn’t exist, that they had all the time in the world. Almost as soon as her feet hit Californian land, the naïveté of that struck her. Just agreeing to be together wasn’t enough. Saying they’d make a go of it didn’t shore up their security.

Had he felt it too? Had he wished they’d said more before parting ways? In his defense, he’d tried to put more concrete foundations in place. She’d been the resistor. Was it naïveté? Fear? Uncertainty? Whichever it was, or all of them, doubt no longer existed.

“Drift,” she whispered, her breathing slowing down.

“Yeah, baby?”

“You can work from anywhere.”

A beat and then he spoke with a smile. “I can work from anywhere.”

So it wasn’t a scream of passion or an exclamation of devotion. It didn’t need to be. When he’d said that to her, she’d ducked the prospect, now she got it. He could work from anywhere. That wasn’t just about work, it was about them. Their future.

A lot of guys—see: most—would expect the woman to give up and move her life. Zane hadn’t gone there. It was a consideration, and this wouldn’t be forever, but he was his ownboss. While she needed to be here, appeasing hers, he’d be with her, at her side.

Unless…

Maybe she was reading too much into it. Maybe this wasn’t a long-term situation. Could be he’d just showed to seduce her and leave again. Except he hadn’t seduced her. No more than them just being together did. So that was her point in the almost statement. Zane could work from anywhere. And he’d chosen there, with her.

“My Wi-Fi sucks.”

“Not for long.”

Because he’d fix it. Would anything keep him away? These weren’t barriers, these were realities. If she could break down every possible reason he might have for leaving her, maybe he’d stay. For a long time. Forever.

“I think we should spend Christmas together.”

On a snicker, he said, “Me too.”

They’d be okay. One day at a time. The wedding was at the weekend. Maybe he’d stay until then. If he didn’t, at least she had an idea about the next time she’d see him. Every minute was him, every thought, every flicker of consciousness.

Halloween. Thanksgiving. He’d said his plans were already set. Alessia spent Halloween with her friends and—damnit, she had to stop. Exhaustion, jetlag, dread over returning to the office. The weights on her mind lightened when she lost herself in him. Lost herself. It didn’t feel that way. Lost sounded negative and he was the opposite. Zane Dyce held her up, strengthened her. And, if she got through her day at the office, maybe she could return the favor in some way.

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