Brave Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous #3)

Water spills roughly over the rocks like liquid silver, and when Tag cuts the engine I hear the distant hiss of its flow. I stare out at the view with my chin resting on Tag’s shoulder. Something about the moment is familiar, as though we’ve been here a million times. Together. Although we’ve only really known each other a few days, it’s as though we’ve known each other forever.

“Come around here,” Tag says quietly, his voice as rough and beautiful as the waterfall. I start to ease off the bike, but he stops me. “No, like this.” He holds his arm up and urges me to climb under it and then into his lap. I’m thankful that the skirt I’m wearing is loose.

When I’m settled with my legs wrapped around his waist, Tag clasps his hands at my lower back, his eyes shining down in to mine.

“Marry me,” he says quietly.

“Pardon?”

His lips pull up into a gorgeous smile that shows his perfect white teeth and reminds me why he is so irresistible. “I said, ‘marry me.’ Please.”

I grin. “That’s what I was waiting on. The ‘please.’”

He says nothing at my sarcasm, just continues smiling. But when he does speak again, so softly that I have to strain to hear him, it echoes through me as if he’d shouted the words. They stir something deep within me. “Marry me, my fair Weatherly. I want you to marry me. I want you to be mine.”

I’m stunned and breathless and thrilled. It’s completely insane and totally, inconceivably crazy, yet I want to say yes so much it hurts. I don’t know why. I don’t know if I’m nuts. I don’t know if it’s stupid and impulsive and irresponsible. All I know is that it feels right.

But I have to ask . . .

“Why? Why would you want to marry me? What’s in it for you?”

Tag unfolds his hands and brings them around to my front. Slowly, he unbuttons my sleeveless shirt, revealing my lacy bra underneath. “Well, there are these. These are in it for me.” He leans forward and sucks one nipple through the thin material. Heat pours into my panties.

He’s not finished, though. His hands continue down my stomach, onto my thighs where they slide back up, under my skirt. Pushing my panties aside, his fingers find my entrance and he eases them inside. He presses hard and deep, his three digits rubbing me from the inside. “And this. This is in it for me.”

As he works magic from within my throbbing center, his eyes never leave mine. “B-but this is just sex,” I tell him on a pant, even though I don’t believe that at all. At least not for me. But I’m quickly losing interest in the conversation.

“Is it? Is it just sex when you’re all I can think about?” he asks, nipping at my bottom lip with his teeth before pulling it into his mouth. “Is it just sex when you do this to me every time you cross my mind?” He unzips his pants and frees the broad head of his erection. I can see a single drop of semen glistening on the smooth crown. “Every time you walk into a room, open those beautiful lips, capture me with those dazzling eyes?”

Curious, I reach between us and run my finger over him, swiping up the drop of moisture and bringing it to my lips. I lick the tip, savoring the flavor of him as I bring my eyes back up to his. They’re darker now, serious. Vicious almost.

Without warning, Tag crushes me to him. My bones shift. My muscles give. My flesh concedes.

We are chest to chest, my aching breasts smashed to his firm pecs as he winds his arm around my waist and lifts me. My breath sticks in my throat when I feel him prod at my wet and swollen opening.

“Does this feel like just sex to you?” he growls, slamming me down on him so hard I cry out, arching against him. He picks me back up and does it again, throwing me straight into the wild, tumultuous throws of orgasm. “That’s more than just sex. That’s perfection,” he whispers, pumping his hips up into me as he moves me on his length.

I hear his loud groans in the fuzzy back of my mind as my body tosses me on the furious waves of release. I feel him spasm within me. I feel him pour out into me. I feel him swivel his hips as if to enjoy the feel of it inside me. “There’s no better feeling than my come inside you. Marking you. Staking my claim. Making this * mine,” he hisses against my neck, lips and teeth and tongue nipping me as he speaks. “Tell me this * is mine. Tell me nobody else can have it. Say it. Say it!”

“It’s yours. All yours,” I moan and mutter, my mouth dry and my throat raw. “My * is all yours.”

His low roar resonates in my ear at the same time that I feel the sharp pulse of him inside me, a last spurt of warmth shooting up into me. It’s as though he really is marking me, sealing our deal from the inside, and the thought of it, the idea of it, is enough to send another bolt of pleasure rocketing through me.

“Marry me,” he whispers, his lips pressed to my throat, his heaving breath searing my skin. “Say you’ll marry me. Not because I’m an out, not because you’re trying to stick it to your father. Marry me because you need me as much as I need you. Marry me because you want my mornings as much as I want yours. Marry me because you want the afternoons and the nights, the smiles and the tears, the good and the bad. Marry me because you want all of me. Like I want all of you. All of you, every day. Every. Single. Day. Say you’ll be mine.”