Chapter 24
Phoebe
* * *
We played like that all night.
Tasting. Enjoying. Savoring.
Then we lay in each other’s arms wrapped in the warmth of the magical sensation that bonded us together.
I knew Tai wasn’t sleeping, could tell from his breathing.
He was thinking, just like me.
There was so much I wanted to tell him. To really talk and tell him, but I held back.
Deep down I knew I could trust him but I also knew I had to be careful not to fall into the lasting afterglow of our extended foreplay.
The happy buzz could be making me think anything. My skin was tingling and I couldn’t believe we hadn’t even had sex yet.
He ran a finger over my stomach and rested his head in the crook of my neck.
“What are you thinking Phoebe?” he asked, voice soft against my ear. “We’ve been awake for hours. If you’re asleep then I can at least calm the urge to take you right here.”
He wasn’t joking I could feel his arousal pressing against my ass.
I smiled and turned to face him. Our faces were inches apart.
“I should have kept in touch. I could have. I should have at least found some way to apologize to you for the way my mother behaved.”
He frowned. “Forget it princess.”
“I can’t. It was one of the worst days of my life.” I would never forget it. not ever.
“But… look at us now.” He held his hand over me and I reached up to take it. “We can enjoy this.” He breathed.
I returned my gaze to him and clutched on to my pearl with my other hand.
“We can.”
He smiled when he saw me holding the pearl. “It suits you baby. It looks exactly how I imagined it would when I found it.”
“Tell me what happened, how you found it. I want to hear the story.”
He tweaked my nose playfully. “Dad took Neo and I to Indonesia to swim with sharks.”
“What? Swimming with sharks?” I shouldn’t have sounded so surprised.
“Oh yeah. It was one of his father son bonding activities. I loved it.”
I snuggled against his chest still holding onto his hand and the pearl.
“One of the sharks kept swimming after a stingray. I followed it, thinking it was cool to swim with both and that was when I saw the oyster. Tucked into the crevice of the last remains of a coral reef that had been destroyed in a hurricane the year before.”
“I can’t believe you found an oyster with a pearl.”
“It was amazing Phoebe. When I brought it to shore Neo went crazy over it because he’d never found anything like that. My dad said, give it to someone special. It was like he knew all that time how I felt about you. So I had it made into the necklace. It was like it was always supposed to be yours.”