The car slowed and then pulled to a stop. He put it in park.
“I’ll be right back to get you,” he said, and the door opened then shut quickly.
This was getting a little ridiculous—alphas and their need for control. I couldn’t see!
The door opened, and then his strong hands were unbuckling me and helping me out of the car. I tilted my head to the side to listen for any clues, the sound of a live band or a crowded bar. When I heard nothing but birds chirping, I frowned.
“Alright. We’re here,” he said, and I detected a hint of nervousness in his voice.
I felt his hands reach around the back of my head and then he untied my blind fold. When he pulled it away, I had to blink a few times to be sure of what I was seeing.
Hundreds and hundreds of tea lights covered the lush green grass of island park, where a blanket and picnic basket had been set up.
Island park was literally an island smooshed between the two banks of the green river where it split, leaving a lush, beautiful oasis in the middle. It was my most favorite place to go, my grandmother had taken me every time I’d visited when I was younger, to teach me about nature.
“I…” I was speechless. I’d been expecting a loud bar, an action movie and then a move to get in my pants.
Dax was grinning ear to ear, and it was hard not to notice how handsome he was. “Rowena told me that your grandmother would often take you here, and that it was a special place to you. I thought it might be a nice spot for dinner.”
I just stared at him as if he’d sprouted two heads. “You asked Rowena about me?” My brain was short circuiting, I didn’t know what to think. How could I function if Dax weren’t this big cocky asshole?
He grinned again. “Often.” He took my hand and stepped in front of me. “Look, I know I have a reputation but that’s because I’m really old and this town is too small for privacy. I promise you only fifty percent of what you’ve heard is probably true.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, sixty-five. Max. The point is, I want you to take this date seriously because I’m serious about getting to know you. I’ve felt a connection with you since the first day you showed up in town and not just the physical kind.” His cheeks were a bit red and he looked… nervous.
Whoa. He’d just laid his feelings out in the open, bare and raw and… submissive-like. It was the sexiest damn thing he’d ever done. Without overthinking things like I normally did, I popped up on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck, running my hands through his thick hair and pressing my lips to his. The second our lips touched, heat traveled south of my navel and pleasure exploded inside of me. I didn't realize until this moment how badly I'd been wanting to do this. His hands reached around to cup my butt, and he hoisted me up so that I could wrap my legs around his waist. My lips parted to let his tongue inside my mouth, and he gave a husky growl. When I pulled back, he was smiling.
“Does this mean I get a second date?” he asked, eyes pinned on my swollen lips.
I unhooked my legs from his waist and shrugged. “We’ll see.” I said with a smirk.
He chuckled.
“Challenge accepted, Tatiana.”
DAX
Mine.
THE END
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About the Author
Leia Stone is the USA Today bestselling author of the Matefinder series which is optioned for film. She writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance with sassy kick-butt heroines and irresistible love interests.
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Tristan & Anna: A Bachelors of the Ridge short story
Karla Sorensen
In this exclusive short story, Tristan and Anna prepare to say "I do".
Copyright ? 2018 by Karla Sorensen All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
One
The night before
Anna
Maybe most brides would have a hard time sleeping the night before their wedding, but not me. From the moment I crawled under the soft sheets in our big bed, the one that Tristan and I had shared for the last eleven months, my eyes drifted shut, and I fell instantly into the kind of slumber reserved for people truly at peace with their life.
Before I went to bed, Tristan had told me he’d be right behind me, even though I knew he wouldn’t stay the night.
My future husband was a stickler for tradition. No surprises there.
Which is why it didn’t surprise me when I was pulled from my deep, contended, at-peace-with-my-life slumber by the feel of his large hand coasting up my back, sweeping across my spine. My lungs filled slowly with a deep breath and I stretched on a happy sigh.
“What time is it?” I mumbled as I tried to pry my eyes open.
“Just after eleven,” he whispered against the top of my head as he curled himself around me.
All around me was the smell of him, the sweet protective cage off his big body. Something I’d never tire of, something that never failed to warm me completely.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.
“Liar.” I turned so that I could face him, and in the stretch of bright moonlight coming through the window of our bedroom, I could see the tiny smile on his face. I cupped the side of his cheek, felt the soft bristle of beard that he’d been growing for the last couple months. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
Tristan took a deep breath, his deeply brown, bottomless eyes searching my face in the dark. “Nothing that doesn’t go through my head every time I look at you.”
I couldn’t stop my smile. Happiness like this didn’t seem sustainable, but in the last year, he’d proven me so, so wrong, my big, quiet man.
“Tell me.”
He leaned forward to place a soft kiss on my waiting lips, slid his tongue against mine before pulling back. His massive arm wrapped around my back so that I was flush against his chest, which happened to be my favorite place in the entire world.
“Don’t you want to wait until my vows tomorrow?”
“No chance you’d tell me those tonight, huh?” I asked uselessly. For a solid month, I’d seen him scribbling in his notebook, erasing and starting over with a thoughtful look on his face. Every time I asked him if he needed help, he’d just give me a steady look with barely curved lips as he shook his head.
“What do you think?” he answered.
I huffed into the bare skin over his heart, but I softened my faux annoyance by dropping a kiss over the steadily pounding rhythm. If I thought too hard, too long about him, the kind of man he was, the way he loved me, I’d burst into tears.
Some days, it felt like too much, like I’d been slipped into some dream that I’d never be able to reconcile as reality.
My eyes pricked hotly, and I buried my nose against his chest.
“What are you thinking in that head of yours?” he asked. His hand moved up and down in a steady, never faltering pattern and I relaxed even further. When I didn’t answer, he hooked his hand over my shoulder and pulled me onto my back, so he could see my face. “Are you stressed about tomorrow?”
I shook my head and ran my hand over his forearm, up over the rounded curve of his shoulder. “No, Rory, Brooke, and Julia pretty much took care of everything. Did you see the tree?”
He nodded. “Looks good.”