“That’s fair. There’s nothing wrong with waiting.”
“I guess.”
“Iknow. And I’m very glad you waited for me.”
Despite the crazy-ass cocktail coursing through my veins, of brimming lust, mild self-consciousness, nostalgia for things I’ve lost and things I never had, and exhilaration—because we’reflying through the air right now—this makes me laugh. “Cocky much, Dallas Wilder? Who said I was waiting foryou?”
“It’s obvious. That kiss was a dead giveaway.” He’s teasing me now, and I can feel my heartbeat in the warm, wet softness between my thighs.God, I’m so hot for him I can hardly stand it.
The pilot interrupts us over the intercom. “Mr. Wilder. Ms. Thibodeaux. We’ll be landing in approximately ten minutes. Please ensure your seatbelts are securely fastened.”
Dallas checks my seatbelt, making sure it’s tight. With measured … protectiveness. It’s not something I’m used to. He leans close to my ear as he does this. “It might as well have been my first kiss too, Boo.”
“Why?”
“It was by far the sweetest of my life. By a degree of at least a quadrillion.” He’s smug, he’s complicated and at times he’s sort of hard to read. But he says the most heart-breaking things.
“Dallas?”
“Yeah?”
“I just wanted you to know this is already the best day I’ve ever had.”
“Me too.” I vaguely notice the graceful curving gleam of the river below us. But most of all I’m spellbound by the hot, gorgeous stranger whose blue-green eyes are full of the darkest, dirtiest promises. He leans in and whispers close my ear. “The night’s going to be even better.”
18
I’min real fucking trouble here.
I unfasten her seatbelt and then my own, holding my jacket in front of me in a way I hope looks casual—even though there’s nothing fucking casual about my gigantic fucking hard-on.
Ameliekisseslike nothing I’ve ever experienced. Like a wildcat is locked up behind the saucy little virgin façade. I wasn’t joking when I said it was my first kiss too. I finally know what it means tofeel.
And I’mfeelingit so fucking hard right now I’m having trouble controlling myself.
With one glance, I was hooked. With onekiss, the entire mechanics of my brain have been rearranged. It’s disorienting and borderline unhinged. I want everything. The passion we can barely control. The white dress and the fairy tale wedding. The life together. The house full of little red-haired, hazel-eyedchildren. The sitting on the porch holding hands when we’re eighty.
She’s the one.
And, since I’ve never been able to stand even being in the same room with a woman for more than a couple of hours, it feels strangely like the Earth’s orbit has been radically thrown off course—or is finally at long lastoncourse—because of the power of Amelie Thibodeaux’s gravitational fucking pull.
I want to give her everything I have. I want to spend all my billions of fucking dollars onher.
With a suddenness that’s shocking to me, all the old priorities of my life have completely lost their shine. The non-stop work. The hedge funds and the shareholders. The bull markets and the fucking keynote speeches. I don’t care about any of it, not without her. My old obsessions have been knocked off their perch.
Once, they served a purpose. They drove me since the day I read that newspaper’s financial pages when I was seven years old. But all that changed the moment I sat down at the bar on a random Friday night in the Hotel Thibodeaux.
Now, I have different priorities.
Amelie Thibodeaux.
Not a single thought exists in my head right now except the ones that are consumed by the shape of her mouth, the sweep of her long eyelashes, the curve of her full breasts under her dress. And figuring out exactly what I need to do to keep her.
She’s mine.
“Be careful, Boo,” I tell her as I help her take the one stair down from the helicopter. I like the nickname. It fits her. We’reonly around ten steps to the limo, but a weird sense of rage fringes at the edges of my awareness. “You okay?”
I don’t know where the fuck the Sasquatch tendencies are rising up from, but right now I might as well be a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. A manic need to shield her and protect her consumes me. To keep hersafe. To pamper her and treat her like the goddess she is by giving her every single fucking thing she wants and needs.
