Excerpt from Esme’s Novel #2
His fingers dig into my back as his lips move achingly slow against mine, savoring and tasting and exploring.
He hazily murmurs my name, pulling away from my lips just to rest his forehead against mine, salt water from his drenched curls dripping down my face.
“Esme, I love your soul. I love your desire for passion. I love how you want to please your family. I love your hesitation and your wild abandonment. I love your heart. Esme, I love you. I didn’t fully understand that word until you.
My readers were right. The male characters I wrote were not ones in love with a woman.
Because now, I know what it feels like.”
I’m silent, hearing the words while I read them in his eyes.
Feel them in his grip. Before I can respond, he continues.
“I don’t care if it’s too soon to tell you that.
Genuine, earth-shattering love is deeper than a feeling.
It’s a choice, as my mom used to say, and I choose to love you.
You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to choose.
Stay with me when we leave this place. Make a life with me in Juniper Grove or Hartfield or wherever else you want.
Meet my family. I want to meet yours. And when you’re ready, Esme, sweetheart—” Noah pauses, removing his hand from my back and cupping my face, wiping at the liquid streaming from my eyes as it merges with the ocean water already there.
“Marry me. Pencil me in. I will be waiting for you at the altar. Let me love you well for the rest of our lives.”
“Noah, that’s crazy!” I gasp, but I can’t stop laughing. Laughing because yes . I want to say yes. I want him. This. Forever. “People just don’t fall in love over the span of days.”
He grins against my lips. “Sweetheart, just as two people can instantly become friends, they can also instantly love. I clicked with you, and we’ve been building a romantic friendship all week.
I’ve dated women in the past for months and never could bring myself to say those words.
But you?” Noah exclaims, shaking his head while disbelief shines in his eyes.
“If I’m honest, I wanted to tell you that I loved you that first night.
I just… knew . Would you prefer it if I worded it a little differently?
” He nibbles my bottom lip, proving we are, in fact, miles away from the friendship line.
When I don’t answer immediately, Noah pulls away, but only far enough to where he can look me in my eyes. “Esme Samantha Prewitt, will you do me the greatest honor of being my best friend for life?”
Tears mix with the water in my face as I live in this suspended moment of disbelief. How is this real? How is he real? Have I gone bonkers? Lost my mind?
If I have, I’d rather not get it back.
But he doesn’t know me. Not really. “Noah, you don’t even know the real me.
This woman you’ve been with, she’s—” I pause, searching for words that will break into his bones and make him understand I’m not right for him.
“She demands too much. We have this fiery chemistry now, but what if it dies? What if it was never love? What if what we have fades away and is lost to memory of time as it has in the past for you? What if one day I decide to tell you I want more romance in our relationship and you walk away? You’re like a fictional man, Noah. You’re not real. You’re too perfect.”
Noah’s laugh is strangled and disbelieving.
“Esme, sweetheart. You think I’d ever turn away your request to be more romantic?
I write the genre, baby. I’m all for inventing new ways to woo you.
” He presses his lips together, a firmness flickering across his expression.
“If that sorry excuse of a man who cheated on you and left you at the altar ever told you that you demand too much, then he’s the one with an issue.
Not you. Esme, you are easy to love. Every laugh, smile, kiss, conversation…
Every moment with you is easy. As natural as breathing.
Don’t you want that forever? I do. I don’t say those words lightly or without intention, Esme.
I haven’t known love in the past because I think God was waiting to bring me to you.
So that I could choose you. And that’s how I know what we have won’t fade.
Because every day, I’m going to choose it. You. Us.”
My heart pounds hard enough it could be mistaken for an earthquake with the way I’m shaking. He’s saying all the right words, and I think I’m ready to jump to the insane asylum with what I want to say.
But Noah continues. “I know I have so much more to learn about you, so please, take me to school, Miss Prewitt, because I want to learn. I want to do it every day by your side. I want to learn your soul.” He places his hand over my heart.
“Your mind.” He moves his hand to cup my face.
“And every inch of your body.” He kisses me and mumbles, “There’s no one else for me, Esme.
I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.
Believe me when I tell you that. And I think you feel it, too.
Heck, I’ll even take your last name as you suggested on that painting of yours. ”
The grandest smile I’ve ever smiled stretches across my face as I make my decision.
Unlike Ryan, when I felt uneasy and unsure, I am ready and more confident than I’ve ever been.
Noah, I think, brings out the real me. Maybe Island Esme isn’t totally who I am, but I’m also not the woman I was when I first arrived here. Not anymore.
“Yes, Noah Ashley Ashton, I’ll take your last name. But I'm not penciling you in. I’m writing your name down with a Sharpie.”