Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 45301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
“It doesn’t sound crazy,” he snarls, knowing what I’m going to say before I said it.
Of course, he does, my mind sings. He’s your forever man. Of course, he can read you.
He grits his teeth as his eyes skim over the road and he leads us toward the highway.
“Maybe it should. Yeah, you’re right about that. Hell, I’ve been fighting this feeling ever since I laid eyes on you, trying to convince myself it’s not real, trying to hold myself back. But it’s impossible. I need you. Forever. For-fucking-ever. I know it’s not fair, but if I ever saw you with another man, I’d tear him to pieces. I’d end him.”
His voice has gotten louder, fiercer, and his grip is even harder on the steering wheel if that’s even possible. It’s like he’s going to tear it off as he envisions this make-believe competitor.
“I don’t want anyone else.” I reach forward and grab onto his arm, digging my fingernails into his bare skin. “Ever. I only want you.”
“But you were scared.”
“Yeah, because you were so intense and… Things are still the same, Braden, with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just because we both feel the same, just because my body and my mind and my soul are giving me all these crazy signals, it doesn’t mean I can just switch off the anxious part of me off. I can’t just become this sex-crazed super-experienced woman.”
“I don’t want that,” he snaps. “That’s all in your head. I want you. I want your body. I want your tits and your tight hole and your round gorgeous ass and those thick thighs of yours. But I don’t need you to be anything other than who you are. Haven’t I already made that clear?”
A note of anxiety flutters inside me.
“You don’t even know me,” I murmur. “How can you feel like this?”
He shoots me a quick smirk as he joins the freeway.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
I laugh, the feeling sending warmth spreading through my body. He chuckles and then we just keep laughing, the sound of our relief and joy fusing and hovering all around us.
Our eyes meet and he shakes his head as if to say, What the hell are we doing?
I shoot a look back at him, suddenly filled with sassiness and confidence. Being happy, I think.
I wonder if I imagine the silent communication, but I’m certain I don’t. I’m certain it’s there.
“You’re right,” he says once we calm down. “This has all happened so fast. I haven’t even gotten the chance to know you, not properly. So let me take you out.”
I smooth my hands over my belly, sizzling tinglings dancing at the end of my fingertips, dancing around my womb. My whole body is suddenly buzzing. My nose is filled with his scent, animalistic and musky with a hint of sweat from a long day on set.
“Like a date?”
“No, not like a date. A date.”
“But you never go out in public,” I murmur. “You’ll be mobbed.”
He nods. “That’s exactly why I don’t go out. I hate that side of the business. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy I get to do what I love. I’m happy people enjoy it. But being treated like a god, people sprinting down the street to get a snapshot of me eating lunch… it’s not great. Fame has its issues. It even—”
He abruptly cuts himself off, like he’s about to walk into a minefield.
“What?” I urge.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s clearly not nothing. Come on, Braden, if we’re going to be together…”
I can’t even finish the sentence. It sounds so freaking insane, so freaking unbelievable and impossible. It sounds like something out of one of my high school fantasies, but it’s here, he’s here.
It’s real. It’s happening.
“We should be honest?” he finishes for me.
“Yeah, exactly,” I murmur.
He sighs, nodding. “Yeah, you’re right. But I don’t want you to be offended.”
I say nothing, waiting for him to finish. The traffic glides by, the city glistening, the skyline bright.
“I’ve always had this fear of opening up to women,” he says, his voice low now like he’s struggling to reveal this aspect of himself. “That doesn’t mean I’ve ever had the chance. Hell, I’ve never had a serious partner. I’ve never felt like this, even close to this, about anybody in my entire life. But there was always this niggling feeling at the back of my head.”
He switches lanes and surges forward, as though he thinks he can drive away from the past, from his feelings.
“What feeling?” I ask.
He grinds his teeth, his jaw pulsing. “That if I ever did find a woman – and that was a big if – but if I ever did, that she’d only want me for my fame, for my money. So I tried to hold myself back.”
“My feelings go way beyond that,” I whisper. “It’s like this compulsion, this freaking… I don’t even know how to describe it. Destiny?”