I don’t know what to say, but she forges ahead.
“Me? I want a job I can’t wait to go to every day. One that isn’t dependent on how I look, one that I’ll have worked impossibly hard to get. I want to walk into a store or a cafe and have people be happy to see me. I want them to wave hello at me. I want a fancy-ass truck with leather seats and all the bells and whistles. I don’t want to work at going unnoticed constantly. I want to look respectable, but I also want to be respectable. I want to be respected.”
Vitality courses through her and I want to soak it all up. Just being around her makes me want more for myself.
I want to answer her question with the same kind of fervor and surety, but the only thing I can think is, “I want to be yours for real.”
“Wanna dance?”
Bailey has had two margaritas now and I can tell she’s feeling good. Loose. She seems … relaxed.
I chuckle and take a sip of my Coke. I’d kill for a beer right now, and I think I could handle one, but I still have to drive us back to Chestnut Springs, and I have precious cargo. “I’m not a big dancer, Bailey. Or not this type of dancing.” I gesture at the DJ, lifted on a podium across the dance floor. Bodies bounce and writhe in the pit between us.
“More of a two-step kinda guy?” She grins at me and pats my shoulder as she stands up, jeans hugging her hips, breasts full and on display over the neckline of her top. She’s totally oblivious to her sex appeal.
As I watch her walk away from me, weaving through the crowd toward the dance floor with her head held high and her shoulders rolled back, she doesn’t look young or inexperienced. She looks like a woman who could bring me to my knees.
I can’t help but note that other men are noticing her too.
My eyes never leave her. Her hair shines, reflecting the flash of blue and purple lights from above. When she finds an open spot, her toned arms slide up over her head, her eyes flutter shut, and her hips sway in time with the sultry beat of the music.
It’s a punch to the gut.
She’s fucking stunning. And confident. I can’t peel my eyes away. I can’t believe this is my Bailey Jansen.
Quiet, nervous, borderline mousy, Bailey Jansen.
But that’s not who she is today. That’s not who she is at all.
She’s someone else entirely and her transformation is something to behold. It feels like a gift to sit here and watch her be herself.
And it’s a gift I only get to savor for so long before I see a hand slide around her waist. One brush of another man’s fingers over the single inch of exposed skin between her waistline and shirt, and her eyes snap open.
Her gaze latches onto mine from across the room.
The guy shouts something in her ear from where he stands behind her and she smiles, still staring directly at me.
Then she holds her left hand up.
I see her palm.
But he sees her ring.
I see the guy chuckle and say something else before patting her shoulder and moving away. Which is perfect because he just freed up my spot.
I’m out of my seat and moving across the dance floor toward my fiancée within seconds. We don’t drop eye contact even once. When I get to her, I skim my hands over her waist, that inch of skin, as though washing away the other man’s touch.
“Bailey,” I growl against her cheek and press a brief kiss there as she wraps her arms around my neck.
“Beau.” She says my name like a sentence, as I do hers, and returns the one simple kiss to my cheek.
I tug her close, lining our hips up, reveling in the feel of her swaying against me, the vibration of the loud music that rattles in our bones.
Dropping my lips to her ear, I confess, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
The dancing, my life, this deal with her—I mean all of it. I have no idea what I’m doing. And for a man who’s had a plan for so damn long, it terrifies me.
She sways against me, fingers raking through the closely trimmed hair at the back of my head. “You’re just being here with me. That’s all I want.”
She turns and leans her back against my chest, ass brushing against my cock. I let myself settle into the thought that maybe it’s okay to have no idea what I’m doing.
That being here with Bailey is enough.
That maybe she wants more than this arrangement, impossible as it might have seemed originally.
I spend all night on the fucking dance floor, swaying to the beat, while Bailey dances against me with a heart-rending smile on her face.
“Beau, take me home,” she finally asks.
Of course, I’m more than happy to do that too. But this time, I don’t just hold her leg at red lights. I reach back and grip her thigh for the entire wordless drive back to Chestnut Springs.
And I swear she holds me closer than she ever has before.
By the time we make it home, I’ve realized that I’ll probably give this girl anything she wants.
A ring.
Sex.
Forever.
30
Beau
Our silence carries us through the house. Somehow, the comfort between us has grown, and so has the tension.
She’s slipped into an oversized vintage Madonna T-shirt that hits her mid-thigh and casts curious glances my way through the mirror when I bring my toothbrush into her bathroom to brush my teeth next to her.
Did I take one look at my empty bathroom and then opt to brush my teeth in hers instead?
Yes.
I don’t want to be far away from her, and I’m too tired to fight it right now.
We spit our toothpaste simultaneously, and both of us awkwardly reach for the tap. Our hands bump, and we yank back like the brief touch electrocuted us.
Her eyes snag on my naked torso as I mumble, “Sorry.”
She clears her throat, blinking away. “Don’t be. What are you—”
“Where are you—”
Our words collide with each other clumsily. After a fun night spent yelling at each other over the blare of electronic music, the house is too quiet.
Too private.
We’re out of places to hide from each other.
“Can I stay with—” I start, right as she says,
“I need to masturbate.”
My earlier sentence dies on my lips. “Come again?”
“You told me I should offer it to you first.” She straightens with pride, staring at me through the mirror. “The next time I was planning on doing it.”
I stare back, hating myself for saying those words to her in a moment of weakness. Hating that I meant them, and she’s throwing them back at me when I’m already feeling so vulnerable around her.
“Listen, you can’t just maul me all night on the dance floor and expect me not to have needs. I’m not a robot like you, apparently.”
I keep staring, grappling for some semblance of control, but it’s slipping through my fingers like sand I have no hope of containing.
Bailey turns to look at me directly, forcing our gazes away from the reflective glass. Our eyes clash as the tension pulls taut between us. “I felt you hard against me, Beau. You gonna tell me that didn’t happen?” Her voice takes on a venomous tone, frustration humming at the back of her throat. “You got some big, mature, paternal words of wisdom for me about what I should and shouldn’t do with my body? Because so help me g—”
My hand shoots forward, fingers curling into her hair. Until I’m fisting it, tipping her face up to mine while I step up close, toe to toe with her, cutting her off. “Bailey, stop running your mouth or I’ll find another creative way to keep it busy.”
Her tongue darts out over her puffy rosebud lips. Her eyes are furious flames. “Good. Do it.”
My jaw pops as I squeeze a fistful of her thick, silky hair. I want to flip her over and take her hard and fast and wild. I know she’d rise to the challenge.