Chapter Twenty-Eight

Somebody should have warned her how freaking hot it would be inside a donkey suit. The damp tendrils at the nape of her neck were cold on her skin, and the T-shirt and shorts she wore beneath the costume were plastered to her body.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help in there?” Wes called from outside her bathroom door.

She reached behind her neck and found the zipper, letting out a relieved breath. This wasn’t their first time, but it was going to be the first time with the whole I love you thing out there, and the last thing Annie wanted was for him to see her as a sweaty mess on what was turning into the most romantic night of her life.

“I’m good,” she called back to him. “Out in a few. Just—uh, make yourself comfortable.”

“Okay,” he said, and she detected a hint of disappointment in his voice.

She looked at herself in the mirror, her red waves in various asymmetrical angles surrounding her face, some of them matted to her forehead. From neck to toe she was a complete and utter ass, and she couldn’t help but remember Oksana from the wedding—or the pages she inhabited in Wes’s first book. It wasn’t that Annie wasn’t a confident girl. He loved her. She knew it, believed it, and felt it in every vein as her heartbeat pulsed through her.

But what the hell was she thinking dressing up as a donkey to win him back? She wasn’t exactly thinking about what came after the grand gesture when she’d set this plan in motion. You didn’t just come home and sexily tear off an Eeyore costume.

But she wanted out of it now, so she tugged at the zipper and got it down a couple of inches before it stopped.

She groaned.

“Annie?”

She jumped, Wes’s voice startling her so that her hand jerked the zipper back up to the top. And now it wouldn’t budge at all.

“I thought you were making yourself comfortable,” she accused, immediately regretting the annoyance in her tone.

She heard him laugh softly.

“Kind of hard to do if I’m not wrapped around you,” he teased.

She had no choice. She threw open the door and crossed her donkey-clad arms and tapped her donkey-covered foot.

“I’m stuck,” she said with a small pout. “How’s that for comfortable?”

He bit back a smile, but she shook her head.

“Go ahead. Laugh.” She threw her arms in the air. “This will be a great one for the book. Um…you know, if you’re still working on the ending and are looking for a super sexy finale. I mean—if Jack and Evie get their happily ever after. Not that it’s any of my business.”

She groaned louder, expecting this, not her stupid costume, to be what ruined their reconciliation—reminding Wes how she’d not only invaded his privacy but also assumed the worst of him when she did.

“Turn around, please,” was all he said, and Annie was so caught off guard that she did.

He unzipped the costume with ease, and she stepped out of it as it fell to the floor. She turned back to face him, her white T-shirt that read fictional character plastered to her chest. He ran a finger beneath the words, as if he was underlining them, and Annie’s frown quickly morphed into an openmouthed gasp.

“You were never fiction for me, Annie,” he said, his voice soft and insistent. “Even when I wasn’t willing to admit it, you were always more. Words on the page are just that. But us?” He dipped his head and kissed the exposed skin on her neck. “We’re real life. Maybe there is no yellow brick road pointing us toward Oz because, shit—I sure as hell have been lost for far too long. But I found it anyway, the Emerald City, and you want to know what it is? It’s this girl who challenges me, who isn’t afraid to show me what she wants, who calls me on my bullshit, and who’s seen me at my lowest, my most broken, and loved me anyway. And donkey costume or not, she’s the sexiest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I’m still kind of floored she chose me.”

He brushed the matted hair from her forehead, and she let out a shaky breath.

“That,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t like the first book. Your hero hid himself away and never let anyone see cracks in his armor. No one ever truly knew him, which meant he could never truly be happy. And the hardest part of it all was that he chose that path, the one that never really seemed to have a destination.”

Wes raised his brows. “That’s not me. Annie. Neither is Jack. Not completely, at least. There’s a little bit of truth in all fiction, but my fiction isn’t my whole truth. You believe that now, right?”

She shrugged. “I might need a little more convincing.”

He tugged at the hem of her shirt. “I already finished book two. Jack and Evie get their happy ending. Because you were right.”

“About what?” she asked.

“There is such a thing as a happily ever after. But this one’s just for us.”

He kissed her then, and Annie’s shoulders relaxed. She melted into him, forgetting that she was standing with a donkey costume pooled at her feet or that she’d ever been worried about how this evening would end.

She backed over the donkey and into the bathroom, pulling him with her as she did. She managed to keep her lips pressed to his as she reached to turn on the shower. She undressed him and let him undress her, and she took a few seconds to marvel at the beautiful man standing in front of her—the boy she’d known so many years ago.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Only—I don’t want a happy ending,” she said.

He kissed her then, his tongue slipping past her lips, and she knew the end was nowhere in sight.

“I love you, Annie.” He pulled her with him into the growing cloud of steam.

“I love you, too,” she said, her hands splayed against his chest as beads of water pebbled his skin.

“Good.” He kissed her again. “Because this is only the beginning.”

…

Annie lay on the bed next to him, her pillow soaked from her freshly washed hair. He kissed her, his lips light on hers, tongue teasing but not entering. His hand traveled down her neck and over her breast, relishing the way her body moved in reaction to his touch, feeling her sharp intake of breath when his thumb grazed her peaked nipple. He didn’t stop there, though, but kept traveling until his hand rested between her legs.

She sucked in a breath.

And he paused.

“Show me, Annie. Show me what you want.”

She let out a soft moan, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep it together for this.

“You already know.” Her words came out as a breath.

“It’s different now,” he argued, then softly kissed her neck.

She must have agreed because she placed her hand over his.

“Every time with you is like starting over,” he said. “Because each touch reminds me how lucky I am that I didn’t scare you away—how grateful I am that you fought for us.” He kissed her again, this time more insistent. “I love you.” Another kiss.

“I love you,” she echoed.

And together they guided his hand down farther until he slipped inside.

“Once upon a time,” he said softly in her ear, “there was Annie and Wes. And they were happy.”

His lips found hers again as he moved inside her, Annie leading him every step of the way.

“Sounds like a pretty boring story,” she said, and he felt her lips part into a smile.

He tilted his head up so his eyes met her emerald green gaze.

“Hey, watch it, there,” he teased. “That’s the story of my life.”

She rested her free palm on his cheek and smiled the sweetest smile, the kind he knew was only for him.

“Mine, too,” she said.

He nodded. “Okay, then.”

“Okay,” she said.

He kissed her again because there was nothing more that needed to be said. The right words had always been there. The only thing missing—was her.