Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 131(@200wpm)___ 105(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 131(@200wpm)___ 105(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
“I love you, too,” I whisper, playing with the ends of his hair. “And…I think, just as importantly, I trust you, Dean.” I take a deep breath, looking him in the eye. “I’ll let you put me through medical school. I’ll accept that you want what’s best for me. Because I believe it.” Moisture blurs my vision. “And I believe in us.”
Dean presses his forehead to mine, exhaling unevenly. “Thank God. Thank God.” I think he’s going to kiss me, but he steps back and goes down on one knee instead. There’s a loud gasp behind me, reminding me that Priscilla has been an audience to this entire reunion.
I give a watery laugh when Dean raises an eyebrow, looking past me and giving my mother a lopsided grin that turns my heart to mush. “Ms. Beck, I’m guessing?” My mother must be nodding, because his smile broadens. “Is it okay with you if I ask your daughter to be my wife?”
“Anyone who can tie my girl up in knots must be a worthy soul.” Priscilla’s laugh is wobbly. “Yes, you have my permission.”
“Thank you.” Dean’s intense gaze captures mine once again and he takes a ring box out of his pocket, opening it in front of me to reveal a jaw-dropping diamond. And oh, my jaw does drop, both knees turning to jelly. “Charlotte, I’ve had a glimpse of losing you and I won’t let it happen again. You, sweetheart…you’re my other half,” he rasps. “You’re a beautiful dream I never want to wake up from. Coming home to you, waking up to you, being with you any way I can…will be the greatest honor and privilege of my life if you take me as your husband. Marry me, Charlotte. Say yes.”
Throat constricting, heart rejoicing, I nod. Emphatically. “Yes.” With a hoarse sound, he slides the ring onto my finger and surges to his feet, wrapping me in a desperate hug. Our mouths meld together, my head tipped all the way back and resting on his bicep, his powerful body bending over mine. Vibrating with need. My thighs itch to wrap around his hips, my skin beginning to pebble with goosebumps, awareness thickening inside me like humidity. Need him, need him.
But he breaks the kiss, his breath pelting my mouth. “Charlotte, your mother is—”
“Don’t mind me.” With a jangle of keys, my mother walks out the door. “I’m heading to the store to pick up ingredients for a celebration dinner. Shouldn’t be more than an hour. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she calls, her voice fading as she steps into the building elevator.
Dean wastes no time picking me up and carrying me into the apartment, my legs slung around his waist, fingers plowed into his hair. Clinging with no intention of letting go.
“My room is on the right at the end of the hallway,” I whimper, sinking my teeth into his earlobe and tugging. “Faster, Daddy.”
Dean lets out a guttural grunt and throws me up against the hallway wall. “Not going to make it.” He jerks down his zipper, shoves a few layers of material aside and pumps into my ready sex, my scream of satisfaction bouncing off the walls. “Besides, little girl. Your room is at my house now, isn’t it?” He drives into me. Savagely. Teeth bared and pressing to my ear. “You eat, sleep, bathe, study and fuck with Daddy now. Don’t you?”
“Uh-huh,” I wail at his increased pace, his leather belt chafing the insides of my thighs. “I want to do everything with you,” I say breathlessly. “Everything.”
“That’s a very good thing, because I’m going to be your husband.” He drives home, grinding the trunk of his shaft against my clitoris, looking me right in the eye as he does it, watching me come apart, as if memorizing my gasping climax. “And you’re going to be my wife. My smart, beautiful well-fucked wife. Every day for the rest of your life.”
“Every day,” I agree, bucking my hips, working him closer to his own release, my buttocks flattened between him and the wall, creating a friction that has us both in a frenzy, fucking and humping and writhing and biting. “Every single day. With you, Dean…”
He stiffens, his heat blooming inside of me, groaning his pleasure into my ear. “With you, Charlotte.”
Epilogue
Dean
Seven Years Later
From one end of the hospital corridor, I watch my wife instruct a group of residents, my chest packed full of pride. Their open adulation of her is not surprising to me. I’m pretty sure that’s how I stare at her—stars in my eyes, tongue thick in my mouth. She’s a fucking miracle and I say a prayer of thanks every day for her coming into my life. Infusing it with color and love and happiness. Not to mention…awe. As I suspected, Charlotte is a wunderkind. A genius with an incredible intuition for medicine. A surgeon whose fame has nothing to do with mine.