I reached for her cheek, running my thumb over the softness.
“How did you stay for six years?” I asked her. It only happened to me for three minutes, and it almost killed me.
Emma turned her face into my hand. “Because it was you.”
“I don’t think I deserve it, querida.” I frowned slightly, moving my thumb to her lips. “I’m not a good man.”
“I know.” Emma kissed my thumb. “What info did you dig up on Dylan so far? How many ways have you come up with to ruin his life?”
Fourteen.
It wasn’t even hard. His finances were a mess, and so were his family’s. I could make one phone call and he was done.
I had been about to, when I saw Emma kiss him.
“Destroy that info, Marlon,” Emma whispered. “We’re just friends.”
And I was still jealous. “I’ll destroy it, but I can’t promise I won’t do it again.”
“You’re so impossible.” She studied me for a long moment. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”
Because I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never been afraid, until her.
I asked the question that had been on the tip of my tongue for sixty-nine days. “Will you come home?”
Emma shifted closer to me. “I want to.”
My eyes widened.
Fuck, but that was as good as a yes.
Suddenly feeling hopeful, I rolled on top of her, pinning her into the mattress.
“Let’s stop fighting, Emmaline.” I watched Emma’s face, knowing that it was the one I wanted to wake up to every morning. “I need my best friend with me. I need my woman.”
Emma paused, and I held my breath and waited for her reply. I never knew how important a word could be until this moment. Depending on Emma’s answer, I could be the happiest guy on earth, or the least.
“I have one question,” Emma began.
And I already had the answer for it.
“Do I love you?” I said promptly. “Yes, I do.”
“Oh, I already knew that.” She shrugged, even though she was biting back a smile. “It’s something else.”
I grinned slowly. This was really happening.
“What is it, Emmaline?”
“You speak to me in Portuguese sometimes.” Emma hooked her arms around my neck and looked up at me curiously. “What does it mean?”
I’d been waiting for her to ask.
“Remember when we made love for the first time, and you said you loved me? I told you, Eu gosto tanto de você.” My lips curved. “It means I like you, very much.”
“Oh.” Emma crinkled her nose, looking regretful. “But I didn’t hear it.”
“Because you were too busy screaming my name.”
“Ass.”
My smile came easier. “Another one I said to you before, right here in this bed. Estou apaixonado por você.” I gazed down at her face. “I’m in love with you.”
Emma blinked with shy surprise, her eyes looking brighter and bluer and lovelier than anything I’d seen. “Oh.”
“And I have one more for you now,” I said softly. “Você é tudo pra mim.”
I waited until Emma was breathless with expectation, and then I told her.
“You’re my everything.”
And from the way Emma looked at me, like I put the moon in the sky for her, I knew that she felt the same about me.
“Say yes, querida.” I repeated the words from long ago, the very same ones that brought Emmaline Brown to me. “I really need you with me.”
I waited patiently for her answer, unafraid because I knew what it was going to be.
Emma bit her lip.
Her cheeks turned pink.
Then finally, she smiled and gave me a small nod.
Day 101
“No.” I stared up at Marlon, my throat tightening in disbelief. “You can’t do this to me.”
“Sorry, chica,” he shrugged unrepentantly. He stood by the bed where he’d left me naked and shivering, tugging on his t-shirt in jerky motions. “But there’s no other way.”
My stomach fell at his final words. “Don’t,” I begged. “Please stay.”
Marlon exhaled.
Then he turned and smirked at me.
“Nice try with the puppy eyes, Emmaline,” he said dryly, “but like it or not, your sexy ass is coming with me. I’ve been planning this shit for weeks.”
I cursed, clutching at the down duvet and burrowing deeper into the warm bed. It was cold as balls outside, not to mention it was eight in the morning.
The last month since we got together had passed like a strange dream.
I moved back home with Marlon, though he remained uncharacteristically quiet during the first few days.
To my relief, he soon turned back into his usual cocky self, teasing me and driving me crazy. We settled back into our old life with surprising ease, best friends and partners in literal crime once more, with only two notable exceptions.
One, the sex.
Oh god, the sex. We screwed like a pair of horny rabbits, in every position, on every available surface in the apartment at random times of the day. Marlon’s defence was that he was making up for six years of ball-busting sex that he had missed—his words, not mine.
Not that I was complaining. I found that my body could bend in ways I never knew possible, and I’d screamed more in the past month than I had in my entire life.
And two, a mysterious surprise that Marlon had been hinting at ever since we got together.
I’d been pretty excited to know what it was, at least until I found that part of the surprise involved dragging me out of bed in the middle of winter.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I held the covers over my head. “It’s eight in the morning, and it’s freaking cold. This is the worst thing you can do to me.”
“Don’t make me prove you wrong, Emmaline. Get up.”
I yelped when the duvet was suddenly whipped off. The chilly air raised goosebumps on my skin instantly.
Marlon rolled me onto my back, and I wrapped my arms around his neck in a last-ditch effort to coax him back into bed with me.
“Make love to me, baby,” I breathed in his ear. “I need you so bad.”
Marlon laughed low as I took his diamond ear stud between my teeth and tugged. “Pixie, my ass, she’s a siren,” he said under his breath, whatever that meant.
But apparently this surprise he had planned was more important that screwing my brains out, because Marlon simply slid his hands under my ass and back and lifted me up against him chest-to-chest.
I dropped my face onto his shoulder and wrapped my legs and arms around him as he walked me to the bathroom. “I hate you.”
“You love me,” Marlon said cheerfully.
Fifteen minutes later, I emerged from our bedroom, freshly showered and dressed. Marlon was pacing the living room restlessly, already decked in a navy wool coat that fitted his wide shoulders and chest deliciously.
“You’re like a kid on Christmas morning,” I grumbled. “It’s not a good look, by the way.”
“Bullshit, querida, everything is a good look on me.” Marlon grabbed my down jacket off the back of the sofa and flung it at me.
With my sleepiness and dulled reflexes, the jacket landed on my head instead of my outstretched hands.
I pulled the jacket off my face and glowered at Marlon’s grinning face. “This better be worth it.”
Marlon flashed his teeth, stalking over to me like a predator.
“It is. I put a lot of time and money into it.” He slapped my ass hard, and I jumped. “Now move.”
I promptly fell asleep the moment I strapped myself into the passenger seat of Marlon’s yellow Lambo, waking up only when the hum of the sports engine was turned off.
“Where are we?” I blinked groggily at the underground parking lot we were in. Rows of sports cars in every color surrounded us—the people in this place were clearly loaded.
“Take a guess.”<
br />
“A hotel?” I got out of the car and shut the door.
“Wrong.” Marlon strode over to me and slung his arm around my neck. “Close your eyes.”
“Again? You’re kidding me.”
Marlon raised his brow at me. “Stop arguing and close your eyes, Emmaline. That’s an order.”
“I’m your girlfriend before I’m your bodyguard, pretty boy, don’t forget that,” I retorted.
But I shut my eyes anyway, since Marlon was so eager about this.
This was obviously an idea that he hadn’t thought through, because five steps later I tripped over his foot and almost fell face first into the concrete.
Marlon caught me and scooped me up against his chest, giving me a disappointed look. “You fucking suck.”
“You suck more. This is the worst surprise reveal ever.”
I jerked when Marlon pinched my ass. “You know what I do to naughty girls?” he remarked.
“Let me guess. You spank them.”
“Mm, naughty and smart.” Marlon lowered his mouth to mine and tasted me for a lingering moment.
“Should I just fuck you right here in the parking lot?” he asked seriously.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, feeling a little more awake, and a lot more turned on. “Focus, I want to see this surprise. I’m shivering my ass off for it.”
“Then you know what to do.”
I obediently shut my eyes, and Marlon shifted me higher against his chest and began walking again.
A minute later, I heard the hiss of automatic doors and the chime of an elevator.
“Are there people around who can see this?” I leaned my cheek against his coat lapel, feeling the heat of his body warming mine. “Because this is super embarrassing.”
“I’m doing something romantic,” Marlon informed me. “Most women would be happy about this.”
“I guess this is where I say I’m not like most women…?”
The elevator chimed again, and unable to resist, I cracked my eyelids open and snuck a quick look. We were in a wide, shiny hallway with ambient lighting and marble floors and walls. I spied four heavy dark wood doors down the entire length of it, two on either side.
“Okay we’re definitely at a hotel. You’re surprising me with a weekend getaway at a luxe suite—”
“Eyes closed, querida,” Marlon warned.
He soon came to a stop and dropped me to my feet. I heard the jingle of keys and a click as he opened the door.
Then he prodded me into the room. “Okay, you can look now.”
My eyes squinted warily at first, then they snapped fully open when I saw where we were.
It wasn’t a hotel room.
“It’s an apartment,” I said blankly.
“Not just any apartment.” Marlon grinned, his white teeth bright against his olive skin. “Ours.”
I stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the place. It was as vast as our old penthouse had been, with a similar grass lawn that stretched into the city skyline.
But gone were the faux Greek statues and gaudy marble walls and crystal chandeliers. This place had everything that I loved.
The raw wood floors reminded me of my old home back in Arizona. The high ceilings and windows showed so much of the morning sky outside that I felt like I was floating right up there with the clouds. Plush, comfortable couches sat in the large living room, and soft drapes billowed in the cold breeze drifting in from the open French doors to the terrace.
I ran to the open kitchen, running my fingers over the butcher block counters and gleaming appliances. “Ho. Ly. Shit.”
Then I headed to the rooms. One of them housed a gym for me complete with all the equipment I would ever need.
My new home, I realized, feeling dizzy with excitement. Somewhere I could finally belong to, and belonged to me.
I spun and took a running leap into Marlon’s waiting arms, laughing aloud. “How long did you plan this?”
Marlon looked smug as hell. “Since Day 12. If the renovations didn’t take that long, I could have won you back in thirty days.”
“Agreed.” I took his face in my hands and pressed a firm kiss on his lips. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome, chica. Happy birthday.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“I know. It’s an early present, so I don’t have to think of what to get you when the time comes.”
“You’re just saying that,” I warned.
Marlon flashed his teeth. “Smart girl. I already have something else. I’m thinking, maybe I should fly your mother and brother out here to see you.”
I let out a very un-Emma-like shriek, kissing Marlon again as he walked us to the master bedroom.
“On a scale of one to sex with Marlon da Silva,” he grinned, “how happy are you right now?”
“Eight.”
He raised a brow. “Where’s the rest?”
“I haven’t had sex with Marlon da Silva today, so…” I shrugged slowly.
“Are you complaining?” Marlon dropped me on the plush king-sized bed and joined me, pressing me back into the mattress with his weight. “Because I think I can fix that problem.”
“You horny bastard.” I laughed as he nuzzled my neck.
“You’re rubbing your little pussy on me, querida, don’t act so innocent.” Lust darkened Marlon’s face as he eased over my body, gazing at me with the kind of desire and affection I’d only dreamed about.
In that moment, as I looked up into his sinful hazel eyes, I wished I could go back in time and tell a younger me that pain wasn’t forever, and that love would find a way.
Because it had, for us.
The Moon and the Sun, the raven and the wolf. They had finally found their way to each other, and a few years down the road they would even have two children of their own—one dark-haired girl with blue eyes, as mischievous as her father, and one light-haired boy with hazel-green eyes, as quick with his fists as his mother.
But for now, they were happy just having each other.
I laced my arms around Marlon’s neck, looking up at him with all the love in my eyes. “Te amo.”
Marlon’s brilliant gaze burned bright as he lowered his face to mine.
“Eu também te amo,” he murmured against my smiling lips.
I knew what that meant without asking.
I love you too.
THE END
But first! I’d just like to hijack this little space here to say a huge thank you to the readers of my debut novel, Arrogant.
Every happy email, review, blog post and personal message that I get from you is so incredibly amazing. I read every single one of them, and I’m grateful for every day that I’m allowed to chase my dream of creating worlds to escape into.
Thank you for everything.
Andrea
What’s coming your way…
Early June 2018
Broken (Book #2) — Theo and Karin’s story
End Summer 2018
Cruel (Book #3) — Gabriel’s story
Read on for the cover and blurb for Broken (Book #2), and an exclusive excerpt of Arrogant, the first book in the series!
BROKEN
(New York Heirs Book #2)
KARIN
Theo Valentine is a cruel heartbreaker. A manipulative psychopath.
As beautiful as a fallen angel and the most damaged man I’ve ever met.
He came into my life ten years ago like a whirlwind, taking over my town and my high school.
I couldn’t resist. I tried to fix him.
In return, he broke me and destroyed my life.
Now our past has caught up to us, throwing us together again.
Theo is more twisted than ever, but this time, I’m ready for him.
This time, I’m unbreakable.
THEO
Ten years ago, she turned my life upside down.
She came close to me and made me feel for the first time.
So I took everything
from her.
Karin Beckett will stay away from me this time if she wants her heart intact.
But she won’t.
She has always been drawn to broken things, and she will try to save me once more.
If only she knows how fucked up I am now.
I’m too far gone, too sick in the head for saving.
All I’ll do is break her again.
Read on for an exclusive excerpt of
ARROGANT,
Book #1 in the New York Heirs Series!
Heirs of New York.
Manhattan Royals.
Trust Fund Nobility.
Whatever the tabloids call it, they’re all referring to the same thing: The new generation of playboys and party girls from old money, all richer, more beautiful, and more arrogant than the last.
And the richest, most beautiful, and most arrogant of them all is Ryland Wyatt, CEO and heir to billions in real estate fortune.
Our paths first crossed ten years ago, in a seaside town on the coast of California. The town was large enough to have a social hierarchy, and small enough for everyone to know who belonged where.
Ryland had been at the very top with his father’s behemoth of a business empire.
And I, being a loner despite my dad’s money, was at the very bottom.
We didn’t know each other then—the drama came ten years later in the city of New York, along with all the lies and secrets that Ryland had kept since our time in San Juan.
I thought that I’d escaped him by staying out of his radar back then.
I should have known that darkness followed Ryland wherever he went, like he was a horseman of the apocalypse.
And like Death, he came into my life and destroyed everything in his path, leaving nothing intact. The last thing he shattered was my heart.
This is our story.
Ten years ago
“It’s the same shit, same people, week after fucking week.” Theo sneered at the crowd below like they personally offended him. “How the hell are these idiots not sick of it?”
Untamed (New York Heirs #1.5) Page 10