Gansett After Dark by Marie Force Page B

even knowing it… I feel like a selfish bastard.”
    “You’re not. It’s not your fault. I went out of my way to hide my worries from everyone. No one knew until today.”
    “Will you promise me you won’t suffer in silence anymore?”
    She nodded.
    “Say it. I want to hear the words.”
    “I promise I won’t suffer in silence anymore.”
    “And do you promise to remember every day that I love you more than I love myself and all that matters to me is that you’re safe and happy?”
    “If you promise to remember I feel the same exact way about you.”
    His smile filled her with giddy joy. It was okay. He knew all her darkest worries and loved her anyway. “Promise.”
    “Me, too.” She drew him into a soft, sweet kiss. “Let’s go to bed.”
    “Not before we set a wedding date.”
    “Oh, I thought you’d forgotten about that,” she said with a coy smile to let him know she was kidding.
    “I haven’t forgotten and neither have you.” As he spoke, he pulled her top up and over her head, released her bra and removed it. “What’s it going to be?”
    “Whatever you want is fine with me.”
    Nuzzling her breasts, he said, “How about next weekend, then?”
    Her mouth fell open in shock, and she tugged at his hair to get his attention, which was fully on her breasts. “What? Next weekend?”
    He looked at her briefly before stroking her nipple with his tongue. “Why not?”
    Stephanie squirmed as desire shot through her, hot and insistent, until she throbbed from wanting him. “We can’t get married next weekend.”
    “How come?” he asked as he sucked her nipple into his mouth.
    She gasped and squiggled, forcing him to release her. “First of all, that’s right before Laura and Owen’s wedding, and I don’t want to upstage them. Second of all, it’s still high season at the restaurant, and it took a lot of juggling to get today off. I don’t want to be worried about work when I should be focused on you. Third of all… I can’t think of a third reason, but the first two are enough.”
    He cupped both her breasts and ran his thumbs over her nipples until they were hard and tingling. “Okay, then Labor Day. We’ll get married on the last day of the official summer season when everyone will be headed home and we get the island back—for the most part.” The season lingered these days until Columbus Day, but things definitely quieted down on Labor Day.
    “Fine. We’ll get married on Labor Day.”
    “Where?” he asked as he unbuttoned her shorts and slid his hand down the front of her until he was cupping her sex.
    “On the beach.”
    His fingers pressed and probed until they encountered the well of moisture that awaited him. “And then what?”
    “We’ll have a party at the restaurant.”
    “Good. It’s a plan.” He sat up suddenly, pulling her shorts and panties off her in almost frantic motions that indicated how badly he wanted her. After removing his own clothes, she expected him to help her up and lead her to bed. But he came down on top of her, apparently in too much of a rush to change locations.
    “I love you, too, you know. Unreasonably.”
    “There’s not one thing about it that’s unreasonable,” he said, kissing and touching and caressing her until she was on the verge of begging him to take her.
    “You’re often extremely unreasonable, but I love you anyway.”
    His huff of laughter preceded the press of his erection against her sensitive opening.  
    Stephanie raised her hips, needing to get closer, to take him in, to show him what he meant to her. She wanted to give him everything, including the family he wanted so much. If it meant making him happy, she would swallow all her remaining fears and have faith that the future he promised would be as bright and as glorious as he said it would be. As long as she had him, she couldn’t imagine her life playing out any other way.
    With a hard thrust, he entered her fully, and every thought that didn’t involve the