Page 52 of Runaway Bride and Prejudice

Glancing around at anything but Van—the watercolor of a beach scene, the little metal sprinkler in the ceiling, the emergency exit map on the back of the door—I try to locate an answer. I’d rather not admit how uncomfortable I feel. Which has nothing to do with not trusting Van and everything to do with not trusting my feelings. Or my decisions. Or my hands, which practically shake with the desire to touch him.

“I don’t want to sleep,” I say finally.

Van waits, like he can tell there’s more. And there is.

“Because when I wake up tomorrow, I think this all might hurt more,” I whisper.

While I am nervous about sharing this tiny space with the big man still clasping my wrist, I’m surprised by this truth, which I just confessed so easily.

“Today is like a weird bubble,” I continue, my words gathering momentum as they fall out of me like a long line of dominoes tipping into one another. “Doesn’t it feel like it’s been ten days?”

“It does. And also like it went by really quickly.”

“Tomorrow is the start of a whole new chapter. It will all be real,” I explain. “And I’m not ready.”

Van nods, though I’m not even sure if this makes sense and is a very deep thought or if it’s pure nonsense stemming from emotional overwhelm and the late hour. His fingertip brushes over the inside of my wrist before he releases me, and the champagne bubbles in my blood return with a vengeance. I’m practically drowning in them.

It’s not a bad way to go.

“Then we put off tomorrow in favor of today,” Van says with a grin. “Suit up, Mills. I’ll race ya.”

The only problem with this is that the water of today is much colder than I suspect the water of tomorrow will be.

“It’s freezing!” I shriek.

Van only smirks, backing deeper into the water, his expression a clear challenge. “If you put more than your pinky toe in, maybe you’d get used to it.”

“Shut up. You skate on ice for a living. Do you evenfeelcold?”

“I feel nothing,” he says.

I roll my eyes, taking the tiniest of steps forward, sucking in a breath as a wave submerges me up to my ankles. Surprisingly, we aren’t the only late-night beachgoers. A few other couples walk hand-in-hand along the shore, and there are two people making out in a lounge chair. Just down the beach, employees are cleaning up after a wedding. I have to swallow down a knee-jerk emotional reaction as a man on a stepladder takes down flowers draped over an archway.

Forcing my eyes away, my gaze snags on Van. It’s a much better view.

I tried not to stare when he dropped his shirt in the sand a few minutes before, but now, I look my fill. He’s broad and bulky. Solid and strong. And I can finally see his full tattoo, which is a dragon tattooed across one of his pecs and extending down his ribs.

Flames shoot from his open mouth, and thin plumes of smoke curl out of his nostrils almost to his collarbone. It’s all done in delicate black lines, save the golden eye of the dragon, which is done so that no matter where I move, it’s always watching me.

The whole thing is gorgeous.

If we were living in a fantasy novel, the tattoo would be some kind of enchanted creature. Like a familiar—a magical guardian that would be able to peel itself away from Van’s body and come to life. An inky companion.

“Come on, Mills. Don’t be scared.”

Van cups his hand and arcs a spray of water my way. I squeal and jump back. But when he laughs, a deep, low sound of amusement I can feel all the way down in my toes, something snaps.

I practically rip the thin coverup over my head and sprint into the water.

Running into a much-too-cold ocean while sporting a neon-green Walmart bikini whose seams I don’t quite trust?

Not on my bucket list.

More like on mynopelist.

But Van’s teasing, his challenge, and most especially, his laughter, emboldens me. He has that effect, like he is somehow able to reach in and tug at the heart of me. I can feel something shifting, lighting up as Van sends sparks of life into what was cold and dead.

Okay—that’s a little dramatic. Into what wasdormant. Not dead.

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