Page 45 of On The Beach

As soon as she was gone, Belle burst into laughter, covering her mouth as she stepped away from me. "Who the fuck wears heels on the beach?"

"Poppy does."

"That was wild. So, how long did you and her…you know, do the horizontal mambo?"

I rubbed my face, laughing despite myself. "Briefly. Very, very briefly."

"Oh, Snuggle Bug, she was priceless." Belle gave me a wicked grin.

I pulled her back into my arms. "Snuggle Bug?"

"It was inspired, wasn't it?"

I loved that she hadn't felt threatened or jealous—not in the way some women might have. Belle just took it in stride, cracked a joke, and left me feeling like the luckiest bastard on the island.

"You're one of a kind, Isabelle Volnay." I kissed her then, soft, sweet, long.

She looked up at me, a glimmer in her eye that made my heart jump, "I am?"

"Yes, you are."And you're leaving the day after tomorrow. This time, I'm going to have to let you go.

"This happen often?"

"Women I've been with coming over?"

"Yeah."

"Not much. I usually stick to tourists, and they don't tend to return regularly."Will you come back, Dr. Isabelle Volnay? Will you take a break from your busy life again, this time not to find Dr. Augustus but to be with me?

She leaned her head on my chest and we stood for a while, intimate, close.

Suddenly, she looked up at me, eyes bright with a kind of wild excitement. "You want to help me with an item on my bucket list?"

"Sure."

She leaned closer, her smile turning a little wicked. "Ever snuck into an old lighthouse after dark?"

I raised an eyebrow. "The Crane's Point Lighthouse? It's a rickety mess, Belle; nobody's supposed to go up there for safety reasons."

"Oh, come on, live a little," she mocked. "I've got two nights left on the island, and I don't plan on leaving Reef Harbor with any regrets. So, are you coming?"

"How the fuck is a lighthouse on your bucket list?"

She grinned, a glint of nostalgia in her eyes. "I've always had a thing for lighthouses, ever since I readThe Light at Tern Rockas a kid," she confessed. "There was something about the isolation, the way a single light could guide ships in the dark…I don't know; it stuck with me. Made me think about lighthouses as these keepers of secrets, silent but always watching."

I looked at her, surprised by her thoughtfulness. She gave me a blinding smile. I let out a low laugh, feeling her thrill run through me. "You know, I'm not usually one for trespassing, but you've convinced me."

"Yes!"

"I thought you'd want to go skinny dipping or something like that."

"We can do thatafter," she suggested mischievously. "But first dinner andthenthe lighthouse. I love finding places like Crane's Point, you know, a little piece of magic on the edge of…reality."

I kissed her, feeling her excitement. "Yeah, first food, and then let's go find a piece of magic."

The thing was, Belle was magic all by herself. She wasn't clingy or demanding. She didn't need me to reassure her. She was just here, in the moment, looking at me like I was the only guy who mattered.

I leaned in, brushing a strand of hair from her face, my thumb lingering on her cheek. "God, I like you," I muttered, barely realizing I'd said it out loud.

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