My chest seemed to clench so tight I lost my breath. Even more intimate than the sound of his coming was the way he spoke so plainly, so crudely, after he’d already finished. “I liked when you used it to play with your body. The idea of you coming because you’re rubbing me all over you?”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Fuck. I love it. And how you wanted it harder, too. I want you to push me to be a little filthy.”
“Only a little?” I asked playfully.
He looked directly into my eyes, and I caught the vulnerability there. I knew this conversation felt like a completely new language to him.
I stretched to kiss him, desperate to take the tone of teasing out of the moment. “What do you want to try?”
“Everything,” he admitted in a whisper. “But I think mostly I’m . . . a bit wrapped up in what it’s like to be intimate while being in love. I don’t want to hide from it anymore. This is so new to me, and it’s a bit mind-boggling how different it feels.”
“You mean physically?”
“I mean all of it. To speak openly while we’re making love. The way it feels to make love.”
He was still over me, inside me, asking for what he needed and for a long moment, I couldn’t really catch my breath. We were doing this. He was all in. We were in his bed, in his flat, and he’d said yes.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, kissing my neck.
“Just . . . so relieved that we’re back together, I might explode.”
“I rather like you in one piece, particularly beneath me, naked, and wet as a lake.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Then I’ll just have to keep you on top of me all night.”
He laughed, and then kissed me. “I love you, Ruby.”
Number of Times Niall Stella Used My Name When He Said He Loved Me:
One, and counting.
Acknowledgments
Some books roll off our fingers easily, while others seem to require some combination of the following: (1) rocking in a corner, (2) cake, (3) chaining self to computer, (4) tears, (5) bloodletting, (6) hard liquor, (7) starfishing on the floor, (8) Ryan Gosling and/or, (9) virgin sacrifice.
We’re not saying Beautiful Secret required most of these strategies, but we’re not not saying it, either.
So, thank you first and foremost to our editor, Adam Wilson, and our agent, Holly Root, for helping us whip this one into shape. Without the two of you, there would be no CLo, and not a day passes where we don’t feel it. This book happened only with the best kind of team effort.
To Kristin, our Precious, our rock, our rogue. Thank you for listening to it all, keeping our crazy at bay with Honest Trailers, and helping get all of these books in the right hands. You are so good to us.
Thank you, Erin, for always, always, always making sure we get it right. Thank you, Tonya, for your honest reads, necessary feedback, and porny gifs on demand. Thank you, Sarah J. Maas, for the enthusiasm that let us exhale and the final pointers that put the polish on the pages. Thank you to our Captain Hookers—Alice Clayton and Nina Bocci—for keeping us insane, ugly selfies, and the text box that gets us through even the most stressful times. Thank you, Drew, for staying on top of Team CLo duties every day; Jen, for the best promo hookups two gals could ever ask for; Helen, for help with our British dialogue and London geography; and Heather Dawn, for being the Goddess of Graphics.
To our Gallery family: Thank you to Jen Bergstrom, Louise Burke, and Carolyn Reidy for being the Greatest Champions Ever for Ladies Writin’ Smart Sexy Books. Thank you, Jen Robinson, Liz Psaltis, Diana Velasquez, Trey WASSUP Bidinger, John Vairos, Lisa Litwack, Ed Schlesinger, Abby Zidle, Jean Anne Rose, Lauren McKenna, Stephanie DeLuca, and—even though you’ve left us—Jules Horbachevsky and Mary McCue: we hope you feel our adoration. Truthfully, it takes a lot of effort to be this creepy, but you’re all worth it.
Bloggers, reviewers, readers, and fellow authors: you make the greater writing community into the best sandbox. Thanks for letting us play.
Finally, thank you to our ever-patient husbands, the cutest three kiddos who know not to repeat the titles of our books at school, and this Partnership in Bestiedom that makes writing these books the best job in the world. We used to be only a couple’s massage away from marriage, but we can’t even say that anymore.