I feel so small in his arms, so delicate, something I never dreamed I’d experience.
We’ve been standing here for a while, simply existing in the closeness of each other, melting into one another as Paris glitters below us.
I keep expecting him to prompt me, but he waits patiently, the same way a jungle cat waits.
“It’s so silly,” I murmur into the sounds of the city, the traffic, the music, and the life far below. “It all happened when I was in high school. I should be over it by now.”
“Nothing you feel could ever be silly,” he rumbles in my ear, his chest vibrating as though he’s barely withholding his rage.
His words dance around my mind, about claiming me, needing me, wanting to have children with me.
I stare at the sun-specked city, wondering if it’s all going to warp and twist like a fever dream and I’ll wake up on the airplane, minutes before touchdown. The man next to me will glance over and frown. Maybe I was making silly noises in my sleep, whispering impossible phrases.
“You need to tell me, Fiona,” he growls.
“Why?” I whimper.
“Because we’re going to be together forever,” he says firmly, squeezing me a little harder. “We belong to each other. We own each other. Honesty is our foundation. It’s our rock. And I can’t tolerate the idea of you suffering through this alone.”
I turn in his arms, our bodies grinding together with the movement.
He stares down at me, as firm as his muscles, his eyes narrowed and his lips twisted into something between a grimace and a smirk.
It’s a just-Forrest expression. I can’t imagine any other man looking the way he does right now.
“Promise this isn’t a trick,” I say, “and then I’ll tell you.”
He smirks, chuckling deeply.
“Oh, my little firecracker,” he says. “I’d never trick you. I’d die before I tricked you. Tell me what I can do to prove it to you, eh? Do you need me to bungee jump off the Eiffel Tower, wrestle a bear, write you a love song?”
Love.
The word stabs into me.
That’s the reason I’m here, after all, in the most romantic city in the world.
I’m supposed to be writing my romance novel, not getting swept into a romance of my own.
“Promise,” I murmur.
He strokes hair from my cheek, tucking it behind my ear, my skin tingling wonderfully.
“I promise,” he snarls. “Now—tell me.”
I sigh and wander over to a sitting area, sitting down and crossing my arms over my middle.
“It was in high school,” I say. My voice seems so far away, as though I’m calling to him over a great distance. “Like I said, I should be over it. Anyway, there was this guy, Jacob. He was the cool guy. He was the guy all the girls wanted to be with.”
“Captain of the football team?” Forrest mutters.
I giggle and nod. “Am I that much of a cliché?”
“No, no,” he says, sitting next to me and wrapping his arm around my shoulder. He kisses the top of my head and tingles sizzle down over my face like hot rainwater. “It was just a guess. Go on, Fiona.”
“He started writing me letters,” I say. “Love letters. I’ve always been a bit of a romantic, I guess. Not in terms of boyfriends. I’ve never even had one. But I’ve always enjoyed love stories. I’ve always loved losing myself in tales where everything ends up all glittery and happy and perfect.”
“And he made you feel that way,” he says, voice husky with dormant anger.
“Yeah, he did,” I sigh. “He’d give me secret looks in school—looks we’d talk about in the letters. He’d smile at me sometimes. It meant a lot to me. And then one day he told me to meet him under the bleachers, after class, when the school was deserted. He …”
“It’s okay,” Forrest growls when I trail off.
He kisses my forehead and gives my shoulder another squeeze.
I cough back a sob. “It was summertime. It was warm. He’d sent me this lingerie set, left it in my locker. He told me to wear it. I felt so silly, but I didn’t want to disappoint him. So I went under there in a coat with the lingerie on underneath, and then he appeared.”
“The jock?”
“No,” I murmur, my voice acid-sharp. “The letters were never from Jacob. Those secret looks I mentioned, I imagined them. The boy who wrote the letters was named Zack Sykes, and he was … I don’t know, a bit weird, I guess. He used to skip class to smoke joints on the loading dock, but the teachers never stopped him. There were rumors his dad was involved in organized crime.
“He started saying all this crazy stuff like even though he’d lied to me, he loved me. He said I had to do what he wanted. I had to take off the jacket and … and show him. My body.”