Dr. Stud

She looks at him with questions. “You feel it?”

He shrugs. “Oh, yeah. I’m completely undone around you, Bella. All I can do is ‘feel it.’”

“Oh,” she chuckles, sniffling. Her small smile gives me hope.

“It’s all up to you, fairy princess,” I assure her. “You write the story. You get to decide how it ends.”

Chapter 41

Bella

Far down the beach, I almost think I see them. The sand is hazy, the heat moving the air back and forth so that it's hard to tell where the ocean ends and the land begins. Here, I can listen to the sound of the waves, the cries of the birds, and the wind through the grasses that line the sheer white cliffs at the back end of the beach.

Mountains rise high in the distance, green and drastic, lush and dangerous all at the same time. Everything in New Zealand is just a little bit more extreme, more magical. We've gone days without even seeing another person, just sheep and odd-looking bugs and strange sounds at night.

Emmet adores it. Dillon is… Well, he's being a good sport about it. Every few days we trek back to Dunedin and explore the nightlife, let people recognize us, and generally do whatever we want. It seems to satisfy his urge for spectacle.

I hold their hands, both of them. We kiss, sometimes rudely, in front of everyone. New Zealanders aren't overly polite. They take pictures, make jokes and comments, egg us on. They love the American celebrities being so transgressive right in front of them. In a way, they seem to feel like they own us a little bit, since we were so careful until we got here.

And I do wonder what's going on back home, but not enough to try to find out. We've only got a few days left of our no cell phone oath. Afterward, we will find out everything. We won’t be able to avoid it. Every hashtag, every pictorial, everything that Hannah freaked out about since we've been gone. What Xavier at Random House thinks of my book, if it hasn’t been taken for a movie deal first.

But for now, it's just us in our own gorgeous, private heaven. Anything we want to do, we do. There’s no one here to tell us otherwise. And so we are going to do it.

It's them. I'm sure of it now. They’re on horses, cantering calmly along the wet sand, firmly packed by the water. The third man rides between between them on another, darker horse.

I stretch out on the hammock, flexing my fingers, flexing my toes. These moments of serenity, when I'm by myself with my thoughts, calm and happy… I've never felt this way before. I'm safe. Without the cell phones, there's no chatter to interrupt that feeling. I'm suntanned and satisfied. Filled with emotions that I simply let roll through me like the waves on the ocean, inky blue to jade green. One right after another they come, unceasing, as warm and salty as you can imagine.

At they draw closer, I leave the hammock and step to the edge of the canopy, shading my eyes at my hand and waving happily. I see Emmet wave back at me. He may have been watching me this whole time. He does that.

He's a whole other kind of person here. Not different, just so much more. In Chicago, so much of him was always longing for privacy and the freedom to be the man he is. What I knew of him there was the only part he thought he could show. Here, he’s downright silly. He's sexy and funny and romantic. He's perfect.

Dillon is eager to get back, I can tell, but not because he misses it. He's looking forward, thinking of all the things we will do together. There’s a whole world for us to explore, full of cities and sights and tastes. People to meet. And he is excited to share it with me, he tells me, spinning out tales of all the places we’ll go. All the parties, all the good food and music. All for me.

Little old me. Bella and her beasts. Cinderella with a twist.

As they advance, my heart begins to beat faster, just like every time. I can't wait to touch them again, to hear their voices and taste their soft and hungry kisses. I'm on fire constantly, gradually learning how to mount my desires and emotions, like riding a horse — the one that Hannah was probably referring to when she said I didn't know how to handle men.

Seems she's going to be surprised.

“You're back!” I call out when they’re close enough to hear me. It makes them happy. That's all I want.

They swing down from their horses, looping the reins around the support posts of the enclosure. Dressed all in white, trousers and open neck cotton shirts, they look like they have just stepped out of a fairytale. They're both smiling at me, deeply and truly, sunburnt with dimples that stretch all the way up to their eyes.

“Of course we’re back,” Dillon grins. “Had to come get our Princess.”

“Deacon Burberry,” the third man says, offering me his handshake. His New Zealander accent is clipped and charming.

I glance at Dillon, wondering how he found a religious leader to perform the ceremony. As though he knows exactly what I'm thinking, Dillon just winks at me. He is the master of the spectacle, the magician, always.

“You got the rings?” Deacon Burberry asks Emmet, who nods and plunges his hand into his pocket, drawing out two gold rings with diamonds as big as pearls.

“You could see these from space, pretty sure. Lost the receipt, too,” he quips.

“Perfect,” the Deacon says. “Let's just get in the water, then. Up to our ankles, sounds good. Let's just bring mother nature right into the middle of it, yeah?”

“Yes, let's,” I agree, charmed and dazzled.

Emmet and Dillon stand on either side of me, taking my hands. They lead me forward and as our toes breach the first wave, I can feel how right this is. Deacon Burberry walks backward in front of us, grinning like a fool, his curly, sandy, salty hair falling over his sky-blue eyes.