by Virna DePaul
They both cried out in pleasure, and neither of them moved for a few seconds, just reveling in how good it felt. Annie felt the fire in her belly become a full-blown explosion. He drew himself almost all the way out before pressing forward once again. Did it again. Before long, he began to push harder and faster. They had both wanted to take it slow…make it last…but their bodies demanded satisfaction.
He grasped her hips and pulled her toward him as he thrust, both of them working in tandem. He felt so good inside of her, and it was clear he’d memorized what moves and angles drew her loudest moans. She loved the way it felt when his flesh slapped against hers, the way the pleasure rose and billowed out around them. She loved the way his body trembled and his muscles tensed, and she loved the way the pitch and tremble of his moans changed as his thrusts became quicker and more erratic.
His body tensed, his erection swelled, and Annie felt his release, hot and wet and welcome. They both gasped for breath. They lay still for a few seconds until their breathing settled, and then he shifted, pulling out of her and sliding off to one side, his arm and leg still curled around her.
Annie lay there quietly, trying to quell the voices in her head that said any minute now reality was going to rear its ugly head and ruin it all.
Ryan reached up and touched her face. “We have a problem.”
She braced herself for it. The “this isn’t going to work out” speech. “A problem?” she managed to ask.
He grinned. “Yup. You didn’t come with me.”
Intense relief flooded her. “Well, I certainly came before. That was—”
He stopped her with a prolonged drugging kiss before pulling back. “I want to make you come again. I want to make you come for fucking forever. Because that’s how long it feels like I’ve loved you. How long I want to love you.”
Then he pressed his mouth against her once more…
Afterward, as Annie lay listening to Ryan’s even breathing, she struggled to recall how many times she’d come as a result of his mouth, hands, and cock. At one point, she’d climaxed from the sound of his voice alone, whispering naughty and delicious things in her ear. Eventually, she gave up, snuggling into him. Her last thought before sleep took her was she didn’t need to fantasize anymore. Their forever had just begun.
Epilogue
Six months later
Christmas (for real)
Annie checked on the turkey in the oven then glanced at the clock. Ryan would be here any minute, and she couldn’t contain her excitement. It had been two weeks since she’d last seen him, but it had felt like an eternity.
When they’d returned from Vegas, he’d accepted the smoke-jumper job, and a month later he’d moved to Northern California. He was happier than she’d ever seen him, but of course she liked to think that was because they were finally together and not just because of his new job.
After all, she was just as happy, and she was now unemployed. She was also ten pounds heavier than she’d been in Vegas. She’d flushed the rest of her diet pills after realizing she’d taken the weight-loss thing a little too far. Now she still ate sensibly and exercised often, but she also allowed herself to indulge in her favorite foods again. She loved how she looked even better now. The angles of her face no longer seemed so severe.
“Honey, I’m home,” she heard Ryan call out as he let himself into the apartment.
Annie ran to greet him. He opened his arms as soon as he saw her, and she jumped into them, wrapping her legs around his waist. He squeezed her until she could hardly breathe, and then he kissed her, taking away what little breath she had left.
“I missed you,” he said when they broke the kiss.
“Mmm,” she said with a smile, still reeling from the kiss. “I missed you, too.”
Ryan set her on her feet and looked around the apartment. Annie had hung up all her old pictures again, even the ones where she thought she looked fat. With Ryan’s help, she had grown to love herself and embrace the small things she’d always viewed as flaws.
Annie’s favorite photo at the moment was one of her and Ryan in front of the Bellagio fountains. It had been taken the night she and Ryan had begun making the concrete plans that would take them from friends to committed lovers. Interspersed amongst all of the older photos were newer ones, too, many taken at his new place in Northern California, where Annie visited him every chance she got.
“It looks like Christmas,” he said. “And it smells like Christmas. I wasn’t even hungry until I walked in here.”
“You better be hungry,” she told him. “The turkey is big enough for a small army.”
Wrapping his arm around her waist again, he said, “So, do you miss your job yet?”
Annie shook her head. “I’ll miss my co-workers and the regular patients who we see all the time, but I can’t wait to be in a place where I get to come home to you every night.”
“Good answer.”
For the past six months, Annie and Ryan had been doing the long-distance thing. One weekend he would come and stay with her, and the next, she would stay with him. Occasionally, they’d been able to fit in a week together. Annie had found a nursing job up by Ryan, and as soon as the holidays were over, she was going to move in with him.
Annie went back into the kitchen to check on their dinner, and when she came out, he was slipping a few presents under the tree.
“About twenty more minutes until dinner. Just enough time to open presents.”
She grinned and touched the diamond heart pendant she wore—the one that had been stolen in Las Vegas and then thankfully recovered. She was already anticipating Ryan’s reaction when he saw the gift she’d wrapped in gold foil. She’d give it to him last. Maybe even after dinner. Because once he saw the bondage tape Paige had bought her all those months ago, she didn’t think they’d be able to concentrate on anything else.
Turning, Ryan handed her a long and narrow, box, the kind that posters came in. “This one first.”
Suspecting it was some kind of art for his apartment, Annie carefully unwrapped it. Inside the box was a thick roll of multiple pieces of paper held together by a ribbon. As soon as they were unrolled, she knew what he’d brought her.
House plans. For a two-story home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The kitchen was huge, with a big island and breakfast nook. In the master bathroom there was a huge Jacuzzi tub. And next to the master bedroom was a room with floor-to-ceiling windows, labeled Annie’s Studio.
Ryan pointed at it. “You always said you wanted one so you could learn how to paint and do arts and crafts…”
The plans blurred as Annie’s eyes filled with tears.
“Our house,” she whispered.
“Um, yes. But you can change anything you want. I just wanted to get the ball rolling. Surprise you. If you don’t like—”
Annie threw herself into his arms, sobbing. “It’s perfect. Just like you are.”
“Oh, baby,” he murmured as he held her, rubbing her heaving back. “Shh, it’s okay.”
She pulled back fiercely. “It’s better than okay. You’re making all my dreams come true. And sometimes I wonder, what if we’d never figured things out? What if we’d missed out on all this? You and me?”
“That was never going to happen,” he said firmly.
“But—”
“Never, Annie. Between the two of us, we’d have made sure we became who we were meant to. I’d have worn you down, no matter how many games of strip poker I had to deal.”
She laughed shakily. “How did I get so lucky?”
He shrugged and said, “I bet half the women in the city would like to know that.”
She slugged him in the arm, and he laughed. Then his expression turned serious. “I’m the lucky one,” he said, and then suddenly he was sliding off the couch onto one knee. He reached into his pocket and pulled out another box. This one was tiny and velvet. He popped open the lid, and inside was the most beautiful princess-cut diamond and sapphire ring that
Annie had ever seen.
“Will you marry me, Annie?” he asked.
Annie put her hands on the sides of his face and forced herself not to say yes. Not yet. “Don’t you want to live together first? Make sure we’re compatible?”
He grinned. “I’ve known you for nine years, Annie. There’s no doubt in my mind you’re the woman for me, and I’m the man for you. I want to spend the rest of our lives together, and the sooner you become my wife the better. Now say you’ll marry me. Please.”
“Oh my God! Yes, of course! You are all I’ve ever wanted, Ryan. Yes! I’ll marry you!”
He slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her until they were both breathless. “Thank you for being brave enough to make your naughty list. It proved to us both you’re my woman. My best friend, and the best kind of bad girl there is: one who goes after what she wants. I’m so glad what you wanted was me.”
THE END
Thank you so much for reading Bedding The Best Friend!
If you enjoyed this book, be sure to read Cole’s story in Bedding The Biker Next Door,
Book 5 in the Bedding the Bachelors Series (Coming Soon).
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About the Author
Virna DePaul is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of steamy, suspenseful fiction. Whether it’s vampires, a Para-Ops team, hot cops or swoon-worthy identical twin brothers, her stories center around complex individuals willing to overcome incredible odds for love. Bedding The Wrong Brother, which begins the Bedding The Bachelors Series, is a #1 Bestselling Contemporary Romance and a USA Today Bestseller. Her PNR series with Random House includes Turned and Awakened. She loves to hear from readers at www.virnadepaul.com.
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Bedding The Wrong Brother (Bedding the Bachelors Book 1)
Determined to find her inner sex diva, Melina Parker enlists her childhood friend, Max Dalton, to tutor her after hours. Instead, she ends up in the wrong bed and gets a lesson in passion from Max’s twin brother, Rhys Dalton, a man Melina’s always secretly wanted but never thought she could have.
This #1 Bestselling Contemporary Romance is rated HHH ("Heat, Heart & HEA") and involves a bed mix-up, hot identical twins, sex lessons, naughty word games, light restraint, a shy sex bomb who’s afraid she’s boring and a playboy hero determined to prove she’s got everything he’ll ever need.
Purchase BEDDING THE WRONG BROTHER on Amazon
Bedding The Bad Boy (Bedding the Bachelors Book 2)
This bad boy is ready to work some magic...
Identical twin and Las Vegas performer Max Dalton has always been the number one bad boy in his family, and he’s appreciated the women and fame that comes along with his reputation.
Grace Sinclair is on a mission when she comes to Vegas, one that involves asking Max, her best friend’s brother-in-law, to give her the pleasure no man’s ever been able to. She suspects Max has more layers than he lets people see, but she’s determined to keep her heart safe even as she offers him her body.
What neither of them plan on is love--or the triangle the media stirs up with Max’s blonde bombshell actress friend.
Will Grace see beyond Max’s bad boy façade long enough to trust him with her heart? And will Max figure out what he really wants before he loses the one woman who makes him believe in love again?
Purchase BEDDING THE BAD BOY on Amazon
Bedding The Billionaire (Bedding the Bachelors Book 3)
Free-spirited Lucy Conrad enjoys her friends but keeps others at a distance, especially her affluent and judgmental family...and the billionaire she once dated, Jamie Whitcomb. Despite their explosive chemistry, experience has proven she’ll never fit into his world.
Charismatic Jamie enjoys work, women, and wealth. When duty demands he take over running the family business, he jumps in full-throttle; his only regret is Lucy’s refusal to take the ride with him.
Then tragedy strikes and Lucy realizes that in order to gain custody of her orphaned niece, she must prove she can fit back into the high-society world she once rejected. The solution? Accept Jamie’s make-believe marriage proposal, and be seen as the type of mother her niece deserves. Respectable. Controlled. Willing to play the game.
With her faux-fiancé by her side, Lucy exchanges dirty martinis and leather for champagne and silk. But when the passion between Lucy and Jamie only grows greater, they have to make a choice: back away from each other and not get hurt...or risk everything for the kind of love money can’t buy.
Purchase BEDDING THE BILLIONAIRE on Amazon