Meant to be More (Meant to Be Series Book 4)

by Amelia Foster

  Fireworks exploded behind her closed lids and she shrieked until her throat hurt. She almost thought she blacked out, the second pinnacle seemingly more intense than the first. She focused on trying to find something resembling a normal breath.

  When she finally found the strength to open her eyes, she found herself face to face with his cocky ass grin. “Proud of yourself there, Sparky?”

  His fingertips danced up her heated skin and sent a shiver through her entire being. “Pretty sure you’ve given me more than enough reason to be.”

  She lifted a brow and her own hand traveled down the front of him, slipping beneath the thin layer of material covering his hardened length. She clasped him in a firm grip and he groaned. “You’ve always been very, very good to me.” She pushed on his chest until he fell onto his back and she straddled his waist. “But I prefer a more fifty/fifty arrangement.”

  “Such a giver.” The words ended on a sharp inhale as her mouth repeated the actions he’d just performed on her only in reverse, moving from his throat, to his shoulders, down his chest…

  She shoved his boxers down and tossed them behind her back. Her lips wrapped around the glistening tip of satiny flesh. Her hand stroked up and down the shaft.

  “Damn, this is going to be a lightning round if you keep that shit up.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him, still gripping him firmly and moving at what she hoped was a maddeningly slow pace. She had a focused goal to pleasure him as much as he had her because…damn, that boy knew his stuff.

  “What’s the matter, Sparky? You can handle making a fire for me, but a little flame challenges your self-control?”

  His deep groan turned into a guttural growl and he grabbed her biceps and turned, seamlessly moving her beneath him. “I am not too proud to admit you’re driving me absolutely insane, but not just from touching me. Watching you fall apart was damn near a work of art.”

  Her thumping behind her ribcage had little to do with the renewed desire coursing through her veins and much more to do with Dean’s words. Things that brought back the feelings she’d thought were permanently locked away in the recesses of her mind and heart, never to see the light of day again.

  The immature childish crush that she’d briefly entertained in adolescence—and just as quickly banished thanks to a healthy and overwhelming fear Dean would go running for the hills at the mere suggestion—found new footing smack at the forefront of her brain.

  Her lungs burned as her breathing shallowed. “Don’t judge me.”

  The intensity of his stare melted into confusion. She wiggled beneath him enough to reach the drawer of the bedside stand. “I gave Angela the room card and…sent her on a mission for me earlier.” She pulled out a strip of condoms and held them up for him as best as she could still on her back, pinned under his weight. “I might have been hoping you’d agree.”

  He grinned and took the foil packs from between her fingers. “This is a good start, but we might need more than four.”

  Jillian’s mouth immediately fell open. “More than four? What the hell did you get bitten by, a radioactive spider and gain superhuman abilities and manage to forget to tell me?”

  Dean braced himself on his elbows over her and long moments passed with his gazing holding hers captive. The energy in the room shifted, or maybe she just imagined it, then he lowered himself enough to brush his lips along hers gently. Until she grabbed the back of his head and brought his mouth crashing into hers. Their tongues tangled and twisted together with desperation and need Jillian couldn’t quite understand.

  At least not in herself. She was pretty sure Dean had to be dying by this point.

  She lifted her hips up to meet his in silent encouragement and his hand reached around to squeeze her ass and bring her even closer to him. He pulled back long enough to rip one of the foil packets between his teeth, but before he could don the condom, Jillian plucked it from his grasp. She flattened the palm of her other hand on his chest and once more pushed him onto his back.

  She knelt over him, slowly rolling the latex into place before straddling him and lowering down at an agonizing pace.

  Dean closed his eyes and arched his neck, pressing the back of his head into the pillow and giving a low moan. “You’re trying to kill me, woman.”

  Jillian grinned and braced herself on his chest as she rocked her hips back and forth for a few minutes. “All part of my plan, Sparky.”

  He dug his fingers into her hips as he moved her up and down. “You have always been exceptionally successful at every plan you make.”

  A fresh wave of mounting need washed over her and the even plane she’d so briefly been on turned into a ninety degree ramp to the stars. Dean uttered a string of curses and his muscles tightened beneath her touch.

  “Dammit, Jillian.” He growled her name between clenched teeth and the very sound shot her into an entirely different stratosphere of pleasure right alongside him. She screamed his name. She screamed unintelligible words. But neither were anywhere close to being as loud as the internal declarations she couldn’t deny in this moment.

  Her dumb ass had gone and fallen in love with Dean Carlisle and had sex with him. Nothing in this world would ever be the same.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dean

  Nine Years Earlier

  Dean scooped food into the last bowl and set it inside Gilligan’s cage, giving the boxer mix a pat on the head and scratching behind his ear before closing the front gate. “Come on, Jilly, it is basically tradition by now, so you have to go with me.”

  She cuddled the small kitten she’d been playing with close one more time before gingerly replacing her in the cage and tossing in a handful of treats. “But it’s your senior prom. The one you’ll always remember. Don’t you want to at least try to find a girlfriend to go with?”

  “Girls are overrated.” He dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand. “And besides, I’m going to have sorority chicks climbing all over me when I start college. I could use some time to rest up first.”

  Their weekly volunteer obligations at the humane society were usually a lot more fun, but Jillian had been giving him shit about what he thought was a no-brainer date to the prom. Ever since the homecoming dance last year that he had to take her to when Erica dumped his ass only a few weeks before the event, they’d simply gone to every school function at each of their schools together.

  It was an unspoken pact that wasn’t ever really discussed until this year, their senior year.

  Jillian laid her hand across her abdomen, laughing loud enough to startle Gilligan and elicit a short bark before he returned his attention to the bowl in front of him. “Sorry, bud.” She directed the comment to the dog before turning her full attention to Dean. “You too, if you’re really that delusional.”

  Dean straightened himself to his full height that, as it always had, dwarfed her by nearly an entire foot. He straightened his arms and flexed a little. “Who wouldn’t want a piece of this fine specimen of a man?” He threw her a wink. “Plus I am an expert on all that romantic bullshit girls like thanks to years of training from my best friend and trashy reality TV.”

  She plastered a sympathetic expression on her face. “Oh, I will gladly take all the credit for teaching you how to date two dozen women at a time equipped with nothing but red roses and an endless production budget.”

  “So, whaddaya say? Will you be my date for the senior prom?”

  Jillian’s gaze drifted around the room and she clasped her hands together, holding them close to her heart. “With an exceptionally romantic proposal like that, how could I possibly resist?”

  He drew his brows together and stared at her for a long time, then scratched his head. “Is…that some weird way of saying yes?”

  With a heaving sigh, she closed the few feet between them and patted his shoulder. “Yes, Sparky, that is a yes. And you’re probably the densest human being ever.”

  “Hey, I resemble that remark.” />
  They both said goodbye to the staff members at the shelter before they walked out the front door and headed to Dean’s hand-me-down car that Connor passed on when he left for college. Freshman year he couldn’t have a car on campus anyway and he’d been saving for a Jeep to take back with him for his second year.

  He pulled open the passenger door for her as much out of the respect his mother had ingrained in all her boys as he did out of habit. “Up for some ice cream?”

  Her emerald eyes glittered with excitement. “Do I ever turn down food?”

  “No, never.” He closed the door and jogged around the back of the car before climbing in the driver’s seat and bringing the engine to life. “You need to marry a chef. No, wait, better yet, a farmer.”

  She laughed, snapping her belt into place. “Why’s that, Sparky?”

  “Because you always, always require food.” He shifted into gear and slid seamlessly onto the highway. “And since you don’t eat meat, a farmer would be absolutely perfect. All the vegetables you can eat, always ready.”

  She tilted her head and stared at him silently for several moments. “Figured your plans out yet?”

  It was a question he’d heard enough times—from Jillian, from his parents, from his brothers; hell, he was pretty sure the mailman had asked once or twice—that he should be immune to its effects. But still his stomach tightened. The simple answer was no.

  The more complex answer was hell no and it was terrifying. All of his brothers were born with their futures clearly in view. His father built his own company from the ground up with no help just because it was his passion and he had a knack for it.

  But Dean had no plan, no gifts, no overwhelming desire. He was certain most of the time that something was wrong with him because he didn’t experience that all-consuming need to do one particular thing. How could he possibly be the only one of the entire Carlisle clan to be completely without a vision?

  And Jillian’s unwavering hunger to strike out for third world countries as soon as she graduated college only intensified the feelings of inferiority that plagued him when he tossed and turned in bed at nights. Thoughts he couldn’t bring himself to tell anyone, not even Jillian.

  “I’m going to declare something pretty basic to start with and get my crap classes out of the way. Like business administration or whatever. Then I’ll figure out what I really want to do once I get there.” It was the closest to a plan he could come up with.

  He pulled into one of the parking spaces right in front of the small ice cream stand. Before they got out, Jillian laid a hand on top of his where it rested on the gearshift. He forced his gaze to meet hers, slightly fearful the judgment and condemnation he heaped on himself would be reflected back at him.

  But he really should have trusted her more.

  She gave his fingers a quick tight squeeze. “I think that’s a perfect plan for you, Sparky.” She opened the door and hopped out of her seat. “By the way, you’re buying and I’m totally getting three scoops.”

  ***

  Jillian

  Nine Years Earlier

  Before Dean even had a chance to fully open the front door, she launched herself in his arms. As soon as she read the letter there was no one else she wanted to tell. She’d raced out of her house, through the backyard, beside Fredrock, making sure to run her hand across the surface for good luck, and up the cement stairs at the front of his house. No matter how many times his mother had told her to just walk right in, she always knocked.

  “I got in!” She shrieked the handful of words as she squeezed his neck and the paper tighter. “I got in, I got in, I got in!”

  He held her firmly against him and spun around in circles in the middle of the entryway. “Hot damn, I knew you would. Congrats, Jillybean.”

  His parents emerged from one of the rooms near the back of the house, frowns firmly in place until the scene before them registered and their faces immediately morphed into amusement. In the half a second before Dean lowered her to the ground, she noted the older couple’s hands linked together and a mixture of jealousy and longing swept through her.

  The affection his parents openly displayed toward one another and their children was like nothing she’d seen in her own.

  A small smile tugged at her lips. Her grandparents, on the other hand, acted like newlyweds until her grandmother passed a few years earlier.

  It was the exact kind of marriage she wanted for herself and for her children to see. Someday.

  She banished the romantic ideations and held up the now wrinkled paper for display. “I got into Georgia State University. It’s one of the top schools for nonprofit management and they took me!”

  His parents each offered congratulatory hugs and kisses. Mike Carlisle flicked his wrist and offered the same suspiciously mischievous grin his son sported way too often. “Looks like you came just in time for dinner. Where do you want to go to celebrate?”

  “A field.” Dean piped up from behind her. “Something with lots of grass and dandelions so she can graze for hours.”

  Jillian spun on one heel, propped her fists on her hips and glared at him. “Are you making fun of me because I’m vegetarian? Because I don’t want to eat living, breathing, adorable animals? Because I think that they are treated inhumanely and that we as smart, ingenuitive beings could do better?”

  He blinked several times in rapid succession, his face completely void of all emotion. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  She looked back at his parents over her shoulder. “Do we really have to take him to dinner with us? It would be so much more enjoyable without,” she waved a hand up and down to encompass his six foot plus self, “that.”

  The two adults laughed. Dean’s father grabbed his keys from the hook by the door and pulled his and his wife’s lightweight jackets from the adjacent closet.

  Dean slung an arm over Jillian’s shoulders and steered her toward the exit that led to the garage. “You’d miss me.”

  Three simple words he meant as a joke hit her in a funny way. She would absolutely miss him like crazy. Her grandfather, Henry, Frieda, and Dean. A small, but loyal group of people she knew loved her beyond a shadow of a doubt, even if she was the odd child who dressed like a hippie and took up unwinnable causes.

  For the first time since she opened the letter and was overcome with total elation, her heart plummeted to her toes. Before climbing inside the back of the SUV as Dean held the door for her, she turned and wrapped her arms tight around his neck, forcing him to bend at the waist to avoid being choked.

  “I will,” she whispered in his ear. “I will miss you so much.”

  He pulled back and offered a cocky smirk. “Not a chance in hell you will. I’ll be driving down far too often for you to even have a chance to miss me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dean

  Present Day

  He lay in the bed staring at the darkness created by his closed eyes, afraid to open them and be confronted with the possibility that last night was all an exceptionally realistic dream. When he finally peeped through barely parted lids, the mass of ginger waves splayed across his chest eased the band of tension that barely allowed him to breathe.

  She moved slightly and he held every cell in his body at rigid attention until she stilled. When the soft puffs of air from her nose blew against his abdomen in a gentle, steady rhythm, he allowed himself to relax and commit every miniscule detail to memory.

  This was a dream come true and an epic nightmare all rolled into one.

  Damn it all to hell, he wished he could just grow a set and tell her that this wasn’t a fake marriage to him and he’d do anything if she’d give him a chance to prove he really loved her. Everything he should have said before falling into bed with her.

  His thumb stroked along her bicep to her shoulder and back down. The reality of Jillian in his arms asking, offering… he was a weak man when it came to her and that was just reinforced last night.

  She wasn’t lying. He�
�d seen her in a bikini every summer for years. He’d touched her, held her, hell, they’d even kissed when they were kids. But none of that mattered. Every caress, every kiss was completely different. Not only because she was naked, because that sure as hell helped, but because he had the chance to pour every drop of his emotion into the actions.

  Jillian stirred beside him again, this time picking up her head and offering a sleepy smile. Just before the color drained from her face and she scooted back on the bed, clutching the designer sheets to her chest. “I…”

  Dean sat up, his arm shot out to grab her arm. “Don’t.” If she said she was sorry, if she said she regretted it, he wasn’t sure his heart could handle being shredded that deeply.

  Her pale complexion regained its ivory tone and then morphed into a crimson shade. She shook her head slightly. “I loved last night. I just…” She gripped his hand in both of hers and finally brought her eyes up to meet his. “Promise me that nothing will change. Dealing with all this shit with my family has just…I need to know that I will always have my best friend. No matter what.”

  She had the power to rip him in half with only a few words. But she was also the only person who could somehow stitch him back together.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Even to his own ears, his tone was slightly more vehement than he’d intended. He tempered the statement with as cocky of a smirk as he could possibly muster. “Plus you made a damn good argument to the whole ‘friends with benefits’ thing. Keep that shit up and Tanner is going to hire you.”

  She rolled her eyes and stress he didn’t even know he was holding evaporated from his shoulders. Everything was back to normal and he was annoying her as much as ever.

  Dean bit the inside of his cheek, wanting to see exactly how far he could push it. And how much temptation he could endure before he picked her up and carried her into the shower with him. “Go get a shower. We’ve got a full schedule.”