PROLOGUE
I’m eighteen today.
And he’s the boy I’ve been dreaming about since I was fourteen.
Will. So spoken and unassuming. He had been sixteen when I first saw him step out of his father’s truck—lean muscle, easy confidence, like he already knew exactly who he was and didn’t need anyone else to tell him.
My father had hired them for work around our property.
That worked out perfectly for me.
The work was endless, which meant he was always there.
And over the years…
We became friends.
We played board games on the floor of my room. Read books we probably didn’t understand as well as we pretended to. Talked about everything—his life, his home, things I’d never seen but could picture perfectly because of the way he described them.
And with every passing year…
I fell deeper in love with him.
Quietly. Completely.
Not once did he cross a line.
Not once did he make me feel like anything less than something worth protecting.
And now, almost four years later, to the day I met him the first time, he's back for another project.
Twenty now, with vast experience working with his dad and older brothers, he was the project lead for this new assignment.
Another project. Another reason for him to be in my house, in my space, in my world.
Happy birthday to me.
My father had given him the house key weeks ago, when the renovation started. He came in during the day, when my parents were at work, and I was supposed to be at school, moving through the house as if he belonged there.
At first, we barely spoke.
He was busy.
And I was busy hiding—afraid he’d see exactly how much I felt for him.
A nod in the hallway. A quick “excuse me” as he passed with tools in his hands. The smell of sawdust trailing behind him, mixing with something warmer—sun and salt and something I couldn’t name.
Then one day, I stayed home.
And everything changed.
“You skipping?” he asked, leaning against the doorway of my bedroom like he wasn’t standing in my space—like he hadn’t just stepped into something that suddenly felt too small for both of us.
“Something like that,” I said, not looking up from my book.
He nodded, like he understood more than I’d said.
“Good book?”
I showed him the cover. He stepped closer, close enough that I caught the faintest trace of the ocean on him—like he’d carried it all the way from wherever he came from.
“I used to read that,” he said. “Back home.”
He bobbed his chin at me. “Hey—what’s your name? I can’t keep calling you the boss’s daughter.”
I held his gaze, something tightening in my chest before I let it go.
“You can stop calling me that,” I said, a quiet edge slipping into my voice. “I’ve got my own name.”
My fingers curled slightly at my sides. I swallowed.
“My name…” I paused, then lifted my chin. “Aaliyah Archer.”
After that, he kept stopping by.
Not for long. Just long enough.
A few minutes between tasks. A conversation that stretched a little further each day. He brought a deck of cards once, then a board game he said his grandmother used to play with him. We’d sit on the floor of my room, knees brushing, laughing over stupid rules neither of us really followed.
He told me about where he came from without ever naming it.
About water so clear it didn’t look real. About mornings that smelled like salt and heat. About nights filled with music that carried through the streets as it belonged to everyone.
“You should see it one day,” he said once, glancing at me over the edge of a book we were supposed to be reading.
“Maybe,” I answered, even though my chest tightened at the idea.
“Not maybe.” His voice softened. “If you want to go, I’ll take you.”
Like it was that simple.
Like he could just open a door and I’d step through it.
We talked about everything.
Books. Music. The way my stepmother rearranged the house was like she was trying to erase what had been there before. How she kept coming up with new projects for his crew to complete. The way my father let her.
He was just a friend.
That’s what I told myself.
But somewhere between the board games and the books…
Between his stories and the way he looked at me like I mattered…
I stopped noticing when friendship became something else—for me.
Something deeper, dangerous.
I was falling in love with him.
When our conversations and playfulness turned into something more—suggestions, lingering touches, wandering glances.
One night, after the crew had left and my parents were away, play became something more.
Something inevitable.
His eyes darkened. Always the gentleman, even when I could feel how badly he wanted more.
But tonight was different. Tonight, we had hours. Tonight, I was eighteen, and he was twenty, and we were alone, and I was done waiting.
“Come here,” he murmured, and pulled me onto his lap.
I straddled him, my sundress riding up my thighs. His hands settled on my waist, warm and sure, and I felt that familiar electricity arc between us—the thing that had been building for four years.
“I’ve thought about this,” I admitted. “About you. About... this.”
“Yeah?” His hands slid higher, thumbs brushing the underside of my ribs. “Tell me.”
My face burned. “Will—”
“Tell me.” His mouth found my throat, pressing hot, open kisses along the column of my neck. “I want to know what you’ve been thinking about.”
“You,” I gasped as his teeth grazed my pulse point. “Your hands. Your mouth. What it would feel like to have you inside me.”
The sound he made was somewhere between a groan and a prayer. His hands tightened on my waist, and then he was kissing me—really kissing me, deep, consuming kisses that tasted like rum and desperation. His tongue swept into my mouth, and I opened for him, giving him everything.
Will kissed like he built things: with precision and patience and an artist’s attention to detail. He learned the shape of my mouth, the rhythm that made me moan, the exact angle that had me grinding against him without conscious thought.
“Slow down,” he murmured against my lips, even as his hips rocked up to meet mine. “We’ve got all night.”
But I didn’t want to be slow. I’d been slow for four years. I reached for the hem of my dress and pulled it over my head in one swift motion.
Will went very still.
I wasn’t wearing a bra, and now I was sitting in his lap in nothing but white cotton panties, my breasts bare in the candlelight, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might break through my ribs.
“Jesus,” he breathed. “You’re—” He shook his head, seeming to lose the ability to form words. His hands came up slowly, reverently, cupping my breasts. His thumbs brushed over my nipples, and I gasped, arching into his touch.
“You’re perfect,” he said roughly. “So perfect.” He leaned forward to take one nipple into his mouth.
The sensation shot straight through me. I cried out, my hands flying to his hair, holding him against me as he sucked and licked and gently bit.
“Will, please—”
He laid me down gently on my bed, then stepped back, pulling his shirt over his head.
I’d seen him shirtless before, but this was different. This was for me. He unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them and his boxers down.
My breath caught.
He was beautiful.
“I’m going to take care of you.” His hand slid down my stomach to the waistband of my panties. “Okay?”
I nodded, then added, “I trust you.”
He hooked his fingers in the cotton and slowly dragged my panties down my legs. And then I was completely bare before him, and instead of feeling vulnerable, I felt powerful.
“Will—oh God—Will—”
“I’ve got you.” He added a second finger, stretching me carefully while his thumb worked my clit. “You’re so tight, baby. I can’t wait to be inside you.”
The combination of his words and his touch sent me over the edge. I came with a broken cry, my body convulsing around his fingers, pleasure crashing through me in waves.
“That was just the beginning,” he promised.
“I’m ready,” I told him.
He settled between my thighs, bracing himself on his forearms. “This might hurt at first. But I promise it gets better.”
“I know you will.”
He kissed me, slow and deep, and I felt him position himself at my entrance. The blunt pressure made me tense, and he immediately stilled.
I focused on his mouth, on the taste of him, on the way his body felt covering mine. And slowly, carefully, he began to push inside.
The stretch was intense. Overwhelming. I gasped, and he froze.
“Okay?”
“Okay. Keep going.”
He pushed deeper, inch by careful inch, until I felt a sharp pinch that made me wince.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, kissing my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. “The worst is over, I promise.”
“Move,” I told him. “Please, Will. I need—”
One smooth thrust, and he was fully seated inside me.
The sharp pain had faded to a dull ache, but beneath that was something else. Something that felt right.
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
He groaned and began to move, slow, careful thrusts that gradually built in intensity as my body adjusted to him. The discomfort faded, replaced by pleasure—deeper, more profound. This wasn’t just physical. This was a connection. This was love made tangible.
“You feel so good,” he panted. “So perfect.”
“I was made for you.”
He shifted the angle, and suddenly every thrust was hitting that spot inside me that made me see stars. I clung to him, my nails digging into his shoulders, my body moving with his.
“Touch yourself,” he commanded. “I want to feel you come around me.”
I slid my hand between our bodies, finding my clit, and the added stimulation was almost too much. Pleasure built rapidly, spiraling higher and higher.
“That’s it, baby. Come for me.”
I shattered. My orgasm ripped through me, my body clamping down around him as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over me. I heard him groan my name, felt him thrust deep one final time, and then he was coming too, his whole body shuddering.
“You okay?” he asked, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my spine.
“I’m perfect.” And I was. Sore, yes. Overwhelmed, definitely. But also complete in a way I’d never been before.
We lay in comfortable silence.
“Tell me about the island you grew up on,” I murmured.
So he did. He told me about growing up here, learning to fish from his grandfather, the festivals, and the music. He told me about the house he wanted to build someday, right on the water, with big windows and a porch where we could watch the storms roll in.
“We could live there,” he said softly. “You and me. Build a life there. Raise our kids there.”
My heart swelled. “You want that? With me?”
“I want everything with you.” He tilted my face up.
I didn’t know then that forever was a promise neither of us could keep.
I didn’t know that in three months, I’d be pregnant.
In four months, he’d tell me he didn’t love me.
In five months, he’d be gone.
But that night—that perfect, impossible night—I knew nothing but the weight of his arms around me and the absolute certainty that I was exactly where I was meant to be.
I was his.
And I believed, with every fiber of my eighteen-year-old heart, that he was mine.-
