“I thought girls liked this romance shit?”
She laughs. “God, you are a gem.”
“I know.” I grin. “Meet me on your back porch.”
“Just like high school, huh?”
“Exactly.”
The window closes with a bang, and I make my way around to the back of her house. My heart pounds in my chest, a thin layer of sweat beads on my brow. Jesus, my nerves are really fucking with me tonight.
Just as I step onto the decking, she opens the door. My dick goes hard at the sight of her in that white tank that hits the top of her thigh. She’s not wearing anything underneath it, and the bead of her nipples are visible. “Woman,” I groan, biting my lip. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?” I grab her arms and pull her to me.
“Absolutely.”
I lean in by her ear to place a soft kiss to her neck. “So cruel,” I whisper, and she shudders before pulling away. She walks toward the swing, glancing coyly over her shoulder before she takes a seat.
I follow suit, the worn chain creaking under the added weight when I plop down. She tucks her legs underneath her, laying her head on my shoulder while I push back with my feet. The gentle breeze causes the vanilla scent of her shampoo to lift in the breeze.
“How many nights do you think we’ve spent out here?” she asks, lazily trailing her finger over my arm.
“Too many to count.”
“It’s our spot.”
“It’s the first place I told you I loved you.”
“It’s the first place I realized I loved you.”
It’s crazy to think that we were in love for years, but we never made a move, and all because we were too afraid to lose each other. I guess we were too young to understand that nothing could be better than being in love with your best friend. Cupping her cheek, I lean in and kiss her, my heart going nuts. “It’s the place I realized you were the only one for me.”
She smiles, but she has no idea. Leaning back in the swing, I shove my hand in my pocket and wrap my hand around the box. Excitement and fear wind through me, and I have to exhale just to manage the next thing I’m going to say. “Em,” I hold up the box. Her eyes go wide before I flip it open, my hand shaking. The ring may not be much, but I worked doubles and saved six months for it. “I love you. You’re my fucking world. You always have been. Marry me so you always will be.” She covers her mouth with her hands, but the crinkles that form in the corner of her eyes tell me she has the biggest grin on her face. “Em?” The silence seems to be dragging out forever.
“Yes. Yes!”
I grab her trembling hand and take the ring from the box, slipping it over her fingers before kissing her hard.
“Always and forever,” she breathes against my lip.
“Always and forever.”
* * * * *
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my agent Emily Sylvan Kim for helping me get my foot in the door for this project. I would also like to thank my amazing editor Kerri Buckley for having all the patience in the world.
Thank you to Jen Lum and Ashleigh Giannoccaro for supporting me always and being amazing friends. And thank you to everyone who has taken a chance on any of my stories!
Also available from Stevie J. Cole
Falling in Between
Exrated
Whiskey Lullaby
Jag
Rush
Stone
Darkest Before Dawn
A Love So Tragic
The Game series
The Wrong series
About the Author
Stevie J. Cole lives deep in the woods of Alabama with her sexy husband and two precious daughters. She has an obsession with penguins and English chocolate and is terrified of clowns.
Her solo books offer you all the feels you’ve come to love in a steamy romance with happily ever afters, while her co-authored books with LP Lovell take you on a thrilling ride of suspense and danger with a nice little punch of love.
Follow Stevie on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorsteviejcole/
Follow Stevie on Instagram: @steviejcole
Don’t miss the rest of the Dirty Bits series
Sorority Secrets!
BIDDING FOR KEEPS by K Webster
HIS UNDERCOVER VIRGIN by M. Never
STAR-CROSSED by Heather Stone
TALL, DARK AND STORMY by Mickey Miller
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ISBN-13: 9781488038785
The Boy Next Door
Copyright © 2018 by Stevie J. Coler
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publishe
r, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
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The Boy Next Door (Sorority Secrets) Page 7