The Missing Years - a kissing booth fan fiction

Again

Author's Note: This is the honeymoon chapter....so a little bit of light mature content here.

Noah

"I know what you're doing, you know?" Elle's voice interrupts my afternoon musings.

"What do you mean?' I ask innocently.

"Trying to convince yourself it's real, that it wasn't just a dream."

We're lying together on the daybed next to the plunge pool, Elle's back to my stomach and her head resting against my chest. The fingers of our left hands are intertwined, and I had been twisting them slightly, enjoying the play of the light reflected off the diamonds in Elle's rings.

I grin, "Oh I know it was real. I remember it vividly."

"Do you now?" Elle's voice is teasing.

"Yep." I drop my voice and whisper in her ear, "You know what else I remember vividly?"

Elle's head lolls back against my arm as she looks up at me. "What?" she breathes.

"What we did in the limo on the way back to the hotel that night."

A sly look comes across Elle's face. "Really? I'm not sure I recall anything particularly memorable happening..."

I smirk, "I guess I'll just have to refresh your memory then."

"Well, if you insist." That didn't require much encouragement, I note with some satisfaction.

Elle gets up, presumably thinking I mean to head back inside our villa, but I grab her hand and pull her back towards me.

"No. Here."

"Here? Really?"

"Elle, we're facing a very secluded stretch of beach, I think the chances of someone walking past right now are pretty low." I raise an eyebrow and tug on her short sarong. "Besides, this can stay. These, however," I pull the strings on the sides of her bikini bottoms. "These have to go."

Elle rolls her eyes at me as the offending fabric falls to the ground at her feet.

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Elle

I wake up to the sound of the ocean, the small waves breaking and the water reaching towards the sand before sliding away again. The sheer curtains billow in the light breeze, the early morning air just cool enough to warrant the light cotton sheet that covers me. I turn my head and find Noah still fast asleep, his long eyelashes casting light shadows on the skin below his eyes.

Excellent.

I've rarely had the opportunity to watch him sleep this past week, but it's truly one of my favorite things in the world. He looks so peaceful and I love observing him in this purest form, a blank canvas, no thought or emotion altering his handsome face. To me, this is what Noah really looks like, and a part of me is thrilled that I'm the only one who ever gets to see it.

The urge to reach out and softly trace the lines of his face with my fingertips is strong, and only my desire to keep gazing at him awhile longer stops me. I wonder if he's dreaming. Our whole honeymoon has been like a dream, like something that exists apart from the real world. I'm beyond grateful that we still have a few days left, because I'm not ready to go back to reality. Not that our reality is so bad, not at all, it's just that I don't want to share him with anyone else yet.

It's been such a joy to slow down, to not be busy. To focus only on each other. I suppose all newlyweds feel the same way. I hear Noah's breathing change and watch as his eyelids flutter open and his eyes focus on mine. A small smile plays on his lips.