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)
She reaches over and strokes her hand along my face.
She’s been doing that a lot lately, as though she’s intoxicated with her newfound confidence and wants to make use of it every chance she gets.
“No,” she admits. “But you can’t blame a girl for being curious, can you?”
“The only thing I can blame you for is distracting me when I’m trying to drive. Do you have any idea how goddamn sexy you are, how impossible to resist? I’m almost tempted to pull this car over and take you right now. Except…”
I trail off, feeling the pressure against my chest, the object pressing from my inside jacket pocket against my tense pectoral muscle.
Except I don’t want to lose my nerve.
I’ve never felt like this before, this rising sense of anticipation, as I try to envision the look on my woman’s face when I ask her the most important question of our lives.
It’s the question that will forge our future.
Or break it.
“Except?” she prompts.
I shoot her a look. “Stop being so damn curious. Just sit there and look pretty.”
I add heavy irony in my words, letting my woman know that she’s far more than a pretty face… even if she is that, the prettiest, sexiest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. The only woman I ever want to be with.
She’s already talking to Maximillia about working on another movie project once this one is over.
Maximillia – who seems to have become a sort of mother figure for my queen – has even mentioned that she could take Bria under her wing, really teach her the business.
I watched her in Maximillia’s costume warehouse a few days ago. Bria didn’t know I was there. I was smiling like a madman the whole time, as my gaze greedily devoured the care with which she approaches her work, the seriousness with which she attends to her costumes.
“Okay, but only if you just drive and look handsome.”
She giggles and I laugh because we both know what we have goes far beyond the physical.
A few nights ago she awoke from a nightmare with a cry, her voice strangled, already mid-sob when she arose from sleep.
It was a dream about her parents, haunting her, a dream full of fire and death and devastation.
I held her close to me, comforting her as she said she was sorry, when she said she shouldn’t be ruining what we have with long ago heartache.
“You never have to be sorry for having feelings, Bria,” I told her, squeezing her tightly. “Good or bad, I’ll always be here to share them with you. Always. There’s nothing you have to worry about. Okay?”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
Instead, she hugged me tighter and kissed my bare chest, resting her cheek against me afterward. “I love listening to your heartbeat.”
“It beats for you,” I told her with a snarl. “And only you.”
There was a time when I would’ve found a declaration like that impossible to believe… there’s no way I could say something so emotional, so filled with love. But my woman has transformed me, opened up places inside of me I never dreamed existed.
I love her.
That’s the truth I haven’t spoken yet, the reason we’re making this drive. That’s the reason for the pressure in my chest and this surprising nervousness fluttering through me.
I love her.
And I hope, when I tell her, she says she feels the same.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bria
It’s difficult to sit still as Braden guides the car toward a mansion with a red ribbon across the front of its gate. My whole body is pulsing, the same way it has ever since we first came together.
When we collapsed against each other, when I finally cracked open that nervous place inside of me and revealed a little confidence, it was like I was able to push aside so much else – so much of the past, the self-doubt, the you’re-not-good-enough instincts that have tormented me my whole life.
We’ve spent every moment we can together since then, talking, holding each other, making love, having sex.
That’s one thing I’ve learned being with my man.
Having sex and making love are two very different things.
There are times when we’ll clash together like wild animals, like we’re attacking each other as much as seeking pleasure.
We’ll roughly claim each other, Braden driving up inside of me with firm possessive thrusts as I buck against him and let out shivering moans.
And then there are times where he’ll slowly glide inside of me, his eyes locked on mine the whole time.
Now I let my gaze scan over the mansion, the wide lawn spied through the bars of the gate, the fountain, and the way the windows sparkle. It’s like the house is winking at me, trying to let me in on a secret, as the dozens of windows catch the Calabasas setting sunlight and throw it back at me.