Chapters (52)
- COVER PAGE
- DEDICATION
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- PART TWO
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHORS
‘Well,’ Ben said quickly. ‘That would only be, like, everything I’ve ever dreamed of since the first day I met you. But I didn’t want to, you know, rush anything. Until you were ready.’ ‘Ben. I have never been more ready than I am right now,’ said Evie, gazing into his eyes. ‘I have never wanted anything more than I want you,’ she added, her candidness jolting even herself, but with it came the realisation that this statement felt so true. She’d thought Hugo would mean everything to her—that she would never want anybody as much as she had wanted him—but it had become so clear, for longer than she cared to admit, that they hadn’t truly fitted together. After all, he was just a flawed man, not a fantasy.
For Evie, there would be no more second guessing herself, no more tiptoeing around her dreams and desires. She felt sure of herself: who she was, and who she wanted to be. And who she wanted to share life’s great pleasures with. This thing with Ben wasn’t a rebound. This was a decisive action, because this—her and Ben—felt more real than anything could feel to a woman who had recently travelled through time.
Ben smiled with the calm assuredness Evie adored. ‘Then what the hell are we waiting for?’
He leaned over, took Evie’s face in his hands, and kissed her with a fervour that made her stomach tighten and her body do strange things.
Evie kissed him back deeply, twisting towards him and placing her knees on either side of his body. Ben grunted, a primal sound, which made Evie make sounds of her own that she’d never made before. She reached for the bottom of Ben’s t-shirt and pulled it up, revealing his soft, tanned stomach. Ben whipped it over his head with one hand, tugging at it as it got stuck while running his other hand down her neck, over her collarbone and down her chest until he found the first button of her shirt. He unbuttoned each one slowly, his fingers dragging across her tingling skin. Leaning forward with her knees hovering off the bed, Evie awkwardly slipped off her skirt—which took significantly more effort than the women in the films she loved always made it look—and then Ben reached behind her and unclasped her bra at the same time as she unzipped his jeans.
Evie had thought that it might be weird, being naked with Ben after all these years of being fully clothed friends. But the deep friendship they had already cultivated only made it feel more intimate; more intense than a regular first time. The softness of his skin against hers, the heat of his body pressed into her own: everything felt perfectly imperfect. He was her Ben. And she was never letting him go.