Bridget glances down at the shirt before her eyes slide back to mine, her features pinched with confusion. “A Hidden Kill Bay Bed and Breakfast uniform shirt?”
“I thought I could be your pool boy,” I say with a half grin.
She doesn’t blink. Or grin. “We don’t have a pool. We have a hot tub.”
“Then I’ll be your hot tub boy. And your Mr. Fix-it. You said it yourself, things are always breaking around here, and I’ve got enough renovation experience to take care of most of it on my own. You wouldn’t ever have to call a handyman again.”
“You’re going to give up being a rock star to work as a handyman at a B and B?” she asks flatly, her crossed arms and puckered lips making it clear what she thinks of that idea.
“Not a B and B, your B and B.” I shrug. “Unless you don’t have room on your staff.”
“I have nothing but room on my staff. Hiring a stalker who nearly killed the man I love has made me a little gun-shy when it comes to new employees. But I also happen to love you and want what’s best for you.”
“What’s best for me is spending my life with you.” I drop the shirt back onto the chair and step closer, resting my hands lightly on her hips. “That’s what I want most in the world, Bridge. I want to spend as much time with you as possible before I die. That’s it.”
Her breath rushes out as her gaze softens. “Then I’ll find someone else to manage the B and B full time and come on the road with you. Like Kirby does with—”
“No,” I cut her off. “You’d hate life on the road.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“You hate it already. Even four days in a camper with me, moving from one show to another, drives you crazy. You might as well admit it. You can’t hide from me, woman. I know you too well.”
She bites her bottom lip. “Okay, fine. But I could learn to like it. For you. Because you’re an amazing musician whose work deserves to be heard.”
“And it will be.” I wrap my arms around her waist. “I’ll get a gig playing with some guys in town. And, like I said, this is just a temporary hiatus. Colin signed Phillip for a year. If at the end of the year I’m ready to go back, I go back.” I tip my face closer to hers. “And in the meantime, I get to spend a year shacking up with my favorite person in the world.”
Her hands come to rest on my chest with a sigh. “And you promise you’ll go back if you want to go back? Because as much I love the thought of you with me all of the time, I can’t imagine anything worse than you looking back on this down the line and blaming me for wrecking your life.”
“Playing drums isn’t my life,” I whisper as I reach into my front pocket for the ring that’s been burning a hole in my jeans since I left Ohio this morning. “You’re my life, and you always will be. So I’m hoping…” I trail off as I drop to one knee and lift the ring between us.
Bridget’s hands fly to cover her mouth as she sucks in a shocked breath.
“I’ve been thinking about this pretty much nonstop since you flew out two weeks ago, and I had a lot of flowery speeches written out, but none of those felt right. They were true—I do love you like air and water and really good nachos—but…”
Her shoulders hitch and her hands drop to reveal a smile on her face and a shine in her pretty blue eyes. Those eyes I’m hoping to wake up to every morning from here on out.
“But all that stuff basically comes down to one essential truth—loving you makes me the happiest man in the world. So I hope you’ll say yes and let me keep doing it for the rest of our lives.”
She nods, sending tears slipping down her cheeks as she says, “Yes. Me, too. Yes, yes, yes.” She reaches for me, and I stand, pulling her into a tight hug as she presses a kiss to my cheek and then my lips.
And then we’re making out and tumbling to the floor by the kitchen table, and I barely have time to slide the ring on her finger before she’s tearing my shirt off. I go for the close of her classy navy skirt, stripping it off to reveal the sexy little white lace panties beneath.
Within minutes, she’s on top, riding me as my shoulders dig into the cold stone tile beneath me. But I don’t mind it.
Hell, I barely feel it. All I can think about is how perfectly her body grips mine, how incredible her hands feel on my skin, how completely right and good it is to make love to my girl. My woman.
And, someday soon, my wife.
“Let’s get married tomorrow,” I say, fighting to hold on as the urgent rocking of her hips takes me closer and closer to the edge. “Elope. Atlantic City.”
“No way in hell,” she says, grinning down at me with mischief in her eyes. “We’re going to do it up right, mister. I’m only going to get married once, and I want it to be as perfect as you are.”
“Only once,” I say, teeth digging into my bottom lip as the first shivers of pleasure crest inside me. “Only to me. Only mine.”
“Only yours,” she promises, her gaze hooded as she moves faster and her breath grows shallow. “For as close to forever as we can get.”
“Yes,” I cry out, gritting my jaw with a groan as I beg her, “Come for me, Bridget. Please, I need to feel you go before I lose it.”
“Lose it,” she says. “Lose it, baby, because I’m coming right now.”
I feel her slick heat tighten around me and follow her lead, coming until a piece of me slips my skin and slides into hers, and a breath of fresh Bridget wafts into my chest, and I know it’s always going to be like this—close and honest and real and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever known.
Even when I finally convince her to let me get my fingers in the places she’s declared off-limits.
“A little butt stuff can be fun, I promise,” I say later, as we’re sharing a giant piece of cake in front of the fire and watching the first delicate flakes float down from the sky.
“No,” she says, kissing me with a smile and frosting on her lips.
“You should at least try it before you knock it.”
“Butt stuff is like leprosy. I don’t need my nose to rot off to know I’m not going to enjoy the process.”
I grin. “I hear they have cures for leprosy these days. Completely curable as long as you catch it in time.”
“I’m going to catch you in time. Just try it, buddy, and you’ll see just how fast I can break a man’s finger.”
My brows shoot up. “Are you threatening my finger, Miss Lawrence?”
“Only if it gets near my No-Go Zone, Mr. Strong.” She holds up a fork covered in frosting with an even wider smile. “Whose name are we going to take? Yours or mine, or are we going to hyphenate?”
“I say we make something up. Something that’s totally, uniquely ours.”
“That’s a brilliant idea.” She takes a thoughtful lick. “Shep and Bridget Sassypants?”
I chuckle. “I think only one of us actually has sass in her pants, so that might not work.”
“Only with you, baby.” She kisses the tip of my nose. “No one else gets my sass in its pure, unfiltered form.”
“I’m a lucky man,” I say, meaning every word.
“Shep and Bridget Lucky-kins?”
“Maybe something that sounds a little less like we’re both five years old?”
She giggles. “If you wanted suggestions like that, you shouldn’t have given me this much sugar. Isn’t sugar the best thing ever? Aside from you, of course.”
“It’s pretty high up there. Right behind fucking you and dreaming about fucking you and waking up to find you giving me a blow job.”
“Except that I’ve never done that last thing.” Her gaze narrows wickedly. “At least, not yet…” She drags her tongue slowly, dangerously up the tines of the fork and I suddenly lose all interest in cake.
“Bedroom. Now.”
“But we still have more sugar to take care of,” she says with a barely contained smile.
“I’d rather take care of you, instead, but you can bring the icing. I can think of several parts of you that could u
se a good licking.”
“Oh yes, please,” she murmurs, kissing me with a soft hum low in her throat. “But I’m going to lick you first, Mr. Awesomesauce.”
“Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Awesomesauce. Boom. Nailed it.” I sweep her—and the plate of half-finished cake—into my arms and head for the stairs and the bedroom beyond, where I show my fiancée just how awesome I think her sauce is.
Keep reading for a sneak peek of
BANG ON LOOSELY
Theo and Cutter’s story!
Available winter 2020. Order here.
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Sneak Peek
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BANG ON LOOSELY!
Theodora Devi
I’m a truth teller, which is why I can’t help speaking my mind an hour later beside the fire, when Cutter plunks down on the stump next to mine and asks me for a light. “Do I look like the kind of person who carries a lighter?” I ask, arching a cool brow his way.
“You look like the kind of person I’d love to share a joint with if you’re interested,” he shoots back, grinning as he gives me a once-over that ends with a long, lingering contemplation of my chest. “We can get a lighter from someone else. No worries. So how do you know Bridget?”
“How do I know Bridget?” I echo, too shocked to infuse the words with the proper amount of smart-ass.
He’s got to be fucking kidding.
But no, he isn’t fucking kidding, a fact he proves when he opens his stupid mouth again. “Are you a friend of hers from college? I’ve been on tour on and off the past few years, but I’m pretty sure I’ve met all of her high school friends.”
I pull in a breath, about to launch into a verbal lashing the likes of which this ridiculous unicorn person has never seen, but I stop myself at the last second.
Because Cutter is still staring at my boobs like they’re the most beautiful boobs ever plunked down on God’s green Earth.
And Cutter clearly has no idea I’m the little girl he called a royal bitch all grown up.
And the opportunity to fuck with him is just too delicious to resist.
“What kind of tour?” I lean forward slightly, granting him a better view of Thing One and Thing Two as I bat my lashes. Most of the time, my breasts are a pain in my back and neck—going from an almost-flat chest to a double D practically overnight during my first year of culinary school was an adjustment, to say the least—but there are moments when I love the girls.
Moments like these, for example…
Cutter’s eyes glaze over with lust so quickly I almost feel sorry for the drunk bastard.
This is going to be too easy.
Seriously. I wouldn’t be a man for a fistful of diamonds. Yeah, periods and sexism and feeling unsafe walking after dark all suck, but better that than being a helpless slave to the male sex drive.
And boobs.
“I’m in a band,” Cutter tells my boobs. “Lips on Fire. You might have heard our new single on the radio?”
I bounce up and down, letting the girls do most of the talking. “Oh yeah. That’s so cool. Congratulations.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he says with a smile. “It’s been a wild ride. So much travel and press for the new album. A lot of fun, but it’s good to be home.”
“Home is where the heart is,” I say inanely, knowing full well it’s not my conversational skills he’s interested in. I use my arms to enhance my already dangerous cleavage, squishing Things One and Two closer together with a flex of my biceps. “So do you want to get out of here? Go somewhere we can be alone and…talk?”
“Yes,” he says without a beat of hesitation. His gaze finally leaves my chest, sliding back to my face, setting my heart to racing.
Surely, he’ll remember me now—yes, my body is completely different, but my googly eyes are still as googly as ever.
But when his eyes fix on mine, he smiles a warm, happy smile, as if he’s delighted to discover my face is as nice as my boobs, and reaches out to take my hand. “I’m Cutter, by the way. Do you want me to call you Beautiful, Beautiful? Or do you have a name you wouldn’t mind sharing?”
The moment of contact is so startling—I don’t think I’ve ever touched Cutter, and I certainly never expected his hand to feel so nicely warm and calloused in mine—that it throws me for a second, giving him time to add in a softer voice, “Sorry if that’s cheesy. I’ve had a lot to drink, but I mean it. You’re gorgeous.”
“Am I?” I will my skin to stop tingling and get with the busting-the-bad-boy program already.
“Stunning, actually,” he murmurs.
“So you’d like to spend some time alone together?” I ask, trailing the fingers of my free hand along the plunging V-neck of my summer sweater.
As predicted, Cutter’s attention is sucked back to the booby objects of his affection. “So fucking much. And I’ll make it good for you, Beautiful. I don’t leave women hanging, even when I’m drunk. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
“Hmmm, I like being taken care of,” I say in a sexy voice even as I gently twist my palm, freeing my hand from Cutter’s. “Too bad I find you utterly revolting in almost every way.”
He stills for a moment before he blinks and his gaze jerks back to mine. “What?”
“I find you revolting,” I say with a sweet smile. “I mean, you’re pretty good with a guitar, but that’s not nearly enough to make you a tolerable human being.”
He frowns and shakes his head as if he doesn’t trust his ears. “What?”
“I would rather have my nipples cut off with a rusty razor blade than let you touch them,” I say in a slow, condescending voice that sends evil glee crackling through me. “I will never have sex with you. Not if yours was the last penis left on earth and banging you was the only way to continue the species.”
“Well, our species sucks, so I’d be on board with that part,” he says, anger creeping into his voice. “But I get it, okay? You don’t have to be a bitch about it.”
“But that’s what I am,” I say, smiling harder. “I’ve always been a bitch. And if you were better at remembering the faces of the people you’ve treated like shit, you would have recalled that before you embarrassed yourself.”
His forehead smooths out as his eyes go wide. “You’re Bridget’s friend. The Squirt.” His gaze sweeps down my body and back up again, making me feel self-conscious in a way I didn’t when he still thought I was a stranger. By the time his eyes fix on my face again, I’m blushing. “You’ve grown the hell up.”
“That tends to happen,” I say dryly. “Little squirts become grown women too smart to fall for your bullshit because they know who you really are.”
He takes a drink of the beer in his hand, seeming to contemplate that as he swallows it down. Finally, he nods. “Yeah, I was a dick to you that one time.” He shrugs. “But I was a dick in high school to almost everyone.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, well, that makes it so much better.”
“No, it doesn’t. It was still shitty, but it wasn’t personal.” He shrugs. “I just hated my life, hated living with my dad and fighting about my future every fucking day. Hated feeling like I was this big disappointment no matter what I did, all because I couldn’t give up on music the way he wanted me to.”
I sit up, crossing my arms over my chest, not liking the way his words are making me feel.
I’m a compassionate person, but I don’t like having compassion for Cutter. He’s a jerk, and jerks don’t deserve access to the soft spaces in my heart.
“Like I said, that doesn’t excuse it, but it was never about you or anyone else. It was about me
.” He takes another drink of beer, holding my gaze as he adds flatly, “I hated myself. And it’s hard to be good to anyone else when you hate yourself.”
“I’m pretty sure there are about a hundred books written about that,” I say, in a gentler tone than I’ve ever employed with this particular person, the only soul who’s ever pissed me off enough to get on my Shit List.
He grins. “Yeah, I’ve read at least a dozen. It would have been good to know they were out there while I was in high school.”
“So you’re a reformed asshole, now?” I ask, pinning him with a narrow look.
His grin widens until it pops an irresistible dimple in his cheek. “I wouldn’t say that. I mean, I don’t think I’m an asshole, but most of the women I’ve slept with would probably tell you a different story.” He stretches his neck to one side in a way that’s relaxed and sensual at the same time.
But he could probably make changing a light bulb look sexy. It’s in the way he moves, the way he holds himself, the way he fits so comfortably inside his own skin, making me wish I felt even half as at home in mine.
“But I tell them the truth,” he adds. “I tell them I’m not looking for anything but fun and friendship and a fond farewell when it stops being fun and friendly. It’s not my fault if they choose not to believe me.”
“Like the Maya Angelou quote,” I say, fetching my glass of Chardonnay from the sand. “When someone shows you who they are; believe them the first time.”
He nods. “Yeah. Exactly. She’s a smart lady.” He toasts me with his almost empty bottle. “And so are you. Thanks for the reminder to keep my feet on the ground.”
I huff. “Was that what that was? I thought it was payback. Petty payback,” I add. “And I’m sorry about that. I usually have better manners.”
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