Chapter 1
The Proposal
My fingers moved fast but quietly across the keys of my laptop, and I’d adjusted the screen light so it wasn’t so blaring. I’d woken up in the middle of the night, wide-awake and itching to finish the chapter in my manuscript where my dad finally makes progress in his relationship with my mom. Much of what I’d written was conjecture since I only knew the basic history of my parents’ relationship, but their world, or the world I’d given them, had taken me over these past few months and I found myself enjoying writing in a way I had never before.
This often meant late-night type-fests and despite the fact that I was partially consumed by their story, I was also very much aware of my considerate bedfellow and was trying to act as he would and not wake him up.
I’d been typing for just over an hour and finally I’d come to the end of the chapter. After saving the file, I shut the laptop down and stared at it for a while. Breathing in and out, slowly, evenly, I controlled the wound inside of me. Pain slashed me deep across my chest and when I thought on the loss of my parents, of my little sister, Beth, that cut would widen into an agonizing gash. Before my considerate bedfellow, I’d have sewn that cut completely shut and put a numbing agent over it. Now I felt it. I just didn’t let it overwhelm me by turning it into a gaping hole.
Braden helped a lot with that.
My considerate bedfellow.
Among other things.
I smiled and turned in my chair to look at him in the dark room. His bare back was uncovered, the sheets drawn up to his waist, his long legs tangled in them in the middle of the bed. We didn’t have “sides of the bed.” Braden was a cuddler—he insisted we didn’t need sides.
He’d had an exhausting day yesterday. He’d called me late, explaining how he’d gone from meeting to meeting, and then he had been pulled into some emergency at his nightclub Fire, which turned out not to be such an emergency but a case of crap management. When he’d returned home I must have already fallen asleep but I wasn’t surprised that I woke up in his arms. Or that he’d been so tired he didn’t wake up when I extricated myself from his embrace.
Gazing longingly at his muscular back and strong arms, I wanted to slip back into bed and wrap him around me. But looking at his sleeping face in profile I stopped myself. I was afraid I’d wake him up and he obviously needed his rest.
Standing up slowly so my chair wouldn’t squeak, I tiptoed in the dark across to the bed and very gently eased myself back into it, checking constantly to make sure I hadn’t woken him as I pulled the sheets back up over me. I lay down on my side, my hand tucked under my cheek, and I stared at him.
He was beautiful.
Just looking at him caused a different kind of ache inside of me.
This was a man who’d fought long and hard to keep me, even when I was bent on self-destructing us. This was a man who understood I could be difficult and stubborn and a little bit irrational (okay, maybe a freaking lot irrational), and still loved me. I wasn’t the best at expressing my emotions. I’d spent so long guarding them so I wouldn’t be vulnerable to heartbreak that even now I wasn’t the gushy, emotional type of girl who could tell her boyfriend every single day that she loved him.
But Braden knew I loved him.
Sometimes I wondered, though, if he knew how much. I wondered if he knew that just watching him sleep made me scary happy, breathless even. I wondered if he knew that he was absolutely, without a doubt, everything to me.
Usually that wasn’t something I’d want anyone to know because it meant admitting it out loud, and if I admitted it out loud and then lost that person, then I couldn’t pretend I’d never felt so much for them in the first place. But that was the old me. Dr. Pritchard, my therapist, wouldn’t be happy with me if I held on to that kind of thinking.
I wouldn’t be happy with me.
Worse, Braden wouldn’t be happy with me.
I snuggled a little closer, just needing to feel the heat from his body against my skin. My eyes dropped to his mouth, his beautiful mouth, which said and did a lot of nice things to me.
I was everything to Braden. I knew this because he told me so. He never made me doubt how much I meant to him.
“Is there a reason you’re over there and I’m over here?” he suddenly muttered, his eyes still shut.
I’d jerked back at the sound of his voice but was now smiling as I slid closer. “You’re awake,” I whispered, wrapping my arm around his waist, entwining my legs with his as he draped a strong arm over my back and snuggled me against his firm chest. I sighed. Content.
“I’ve been awake for the past ten minutes, waiting for you to get your arse back in beside me.”
I snorted at his disgruntled tone.
His warm hand slid down over my back, caressing my butt before smoothing back up my spine. “You get what you needed to get down?”
“Mmmhmm. Finished my chapter.”
“Good, babe. Now go back to sleep.”
I smirked against his chest. “Okay, caveman.”
A minute or so passed and just as Braden was drifting back off I whispered, “You’re my everything. You know that right?”
His arm tensed around me at my words and then I found myself pushed back, his eyes boring intensely into mine. After searching them, his sleepy mouth curled up at the corners. “You don’t need to sweet-talk me to get sex, babe.”
My eyes smiled. “Well that kind of knowledge could have saved me months of uncomfortable expressions of love.”
Wide-awake now, Braden tightened his arms around me and as he flipped onto his back he hauled me with him so I was sprawled across his chest, my legs straddling his hips. A note of seriousness entered his gaze as he drew his thumb across my mouth. A shiver rippled through me and I loved that he excited me so much. “I know how you feel about me. I feel the same way. You never have to worry that you don’t tell me enough, okay?”
There he went again, being all perceptive to the point of being creepy psychic mind reader guy. “You’re creepy psychic mind reader guy.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Creepy?”
“In a hot way.”
“There’s a hot way to be creepy?”
“Slide your hand south and creepy will certainly become hot.”
Braden’s teeth flashed in the dark, his wicked smile jump-starting my heart. His hand drifted south, down my back, over my pert ass he liked so much and under my nightdress.
“Am I hot now?” he asked, his voice low and rumbling with arousal as his fingers slipped beneath my panties.
I arched into his touch, bracing my hands on his chest. “Baby, you don’t know how to be anything else.”
My words jacked Braden up, his torso lifting from the bed, so I found myself sitting in his lap, our chests pressed close, his arms holding me tight. His lips brushed gently over mine as he shifted me so his erection throbbed between my legs. “You’re killing me with compliments.”
I shrugged, my reply whispered against his mouth, “I just wanted you to know that just because I don’t say it all the time, doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”
This time he kissed me, tongue and all, deep and wet. When he pulled back for air, he promised me, “I know.” His hands pushed at my nightgown until he caught the hem and tugged it up over my head. Braden’s heated gaze moved over my naked body and I abruptly found myself on my back as he pushed down his pajama bottoms. “Believe me, I know.”
***
The wind was beating against my back and the sad, gray clouds above me were giving me this apologetic little pout. When I’d left the flat this morning the sun had been out and I’d dressed weather-appropriate. I had on a thin T-shirt and my best pair of black skinny jeans. Now it was threatening rain and I was shivering in my shirt, wondering how I’d managed to let myself be talked into the trek I was on and trying not to be as pissed as I was feeling.
After the emotionally fueled sex Braden and I had had early that morning, I was a little surprised to find him so distracted when we’d gotten up. Sure, he was tired from lack of sleep, but that had never stopped him from paying attention to what I had to say. However, he’d hurried into a shower, shooed me (yes, shooed!) me out of our bedroom while he got dressed, given me a quick kiss, told me Ellie wanted to spend the day with me and I should call her, and then hurried out of the flat.
It left me feeling confused. I felt like I was missing something.
Instead of sitting at home on a Saturday, stewing over it, I’d let Ellie talk me into accompanying her. Sometimes she’d get something in her head that she just had to have or had to do and she’d drag me all over the city to these obscure little shops. This time I’d let her talk me into the thirty-minute walk to Bruntsfield. Way back in my pre-Carmichael years I used to live in Bruntsfield. It was this kitschy little area of the city with kitschy little shops. It was popular with students. I’d say I missed it but it hadn’t come with an adorably annoying best friend like Ellie or her brother Braden, the man who was currently driving me to distraction.
The journey to Bruntsfield had a purpose. Or at least that’s what Ellie told me. Apparently she’d passed this little clothing boutique that had on sale “the most gorgeous vintage shoes ever” and Ellie was kicking herself for not buying them. We were back, trying to find the shop and hopefully the shoes.
“Are you even listening to me?” Ellie asked, a teasing smile in her voice as she studied me, her short blond hair blowing into her face.
“Of course.” I really was listening. Mostly. I knew the discussion pertained to our friend Jo and her new boyfriend, Cameron. “You were telling me you think Cam is moving pretty fast with Jo?” I asked it with a slight hint of a question in my tone, since I wasn’t too sure if that was the point she’d been trying to make.
“A little. Don’t you?”
Absolutely. “Uh-huh.” And I did. However, my gut told me Cam was a good guy. “But I don’t think it’s a bad thing. In fact, I pretty much think he’s the best thing that could have ever happened to her.”
Ellie shrugged. “I like him. I do. I just don’t want Jo to get hurt.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Since when did you get so . . . normal?”
“Normal?” she glared at me. “You mean unromantic? I do realize there are times when romance needs to take a back burner to reality. Jo’s had it tough. As much as I think Cam’s great and as much as I’m rooting for them, I hope he really is going to be there for her. Taking her home to meet his parents this weekend? He’s telling her he’s serious. I hope he means it.”
Although Ellie’s caution surprised me, I understood where she was coming from. Our friend Jo had been messed around by too many guys because she’d chosen them for the wrong reason. Struggling to look after her little brother and her alcoholic mother, Jo always chose men who had financial security. Cam wasn’t one of those guys. He was a struggling graphic designer who’d gotten a job as a bartender alongside me and Jo at Club 39, this swanky little basement bar on George Street. The sparks had started flying as soon as they met, though, and Jo had finally set aside all her silly little dating rules to take a chance on a man who seemed to want her for her.
Despite understanding Ellie’s reservations, I didn’t share them and finally I found myself being distracted from my own boyfriend as I tried to convince Ellie. “I think he’s serious. I think they have a connection. There’s no way to slow that down when you just fit with someone like that. If I hadn’t been so stubborn with Braden, we probably would have been a done deal within a few weeks of meeting each other.”
A mysterious, secretive smile flirted with Ellie’s lips.
What the . . . ?
“What? Am I missing something? Did I say something funny?”
“No,” she answered hurriedly, eyes drifting up over the old Evangelical church. Abruptly she stopped. “We’re here.”
“Where is here?” I looked around. There were no vintage shoes in sight.
Ellie glanced at her watch and then out at the traffic on the cross junction, then back at her watch, then back at the road . . .
“Ellie?” My heart started to thump as the day’s events began to fall into place, like pieces of a puzzle. “What is going on?”
Her eyes were wide when they hit mine.
“Jesus C, Ellie, what is it? You’re freaking me out.”
For once, however, her lips were tightly sealed. Literally. They were pinched closed so tightly the color was bleeding from them. Her eyes swung back out to the road and as I watched her shoulders deflate with relief, I followed her gaze.
She was smiling at an approaching black cab.
That excited, eyes-twinkling-bright-with-utter-joy smile swung my way. “I’m going to go now.”
Uh . . .
I whirled around as she strode past me, heading back the way we’d just come.
Baffled, I threw my hands up. “Ellie?”
She was still grinning as she looked back at me over her shoulder. She pointed behind me and I turned back to see the black cab had pulled up to the curb beside me.
The door swung open and I was greeted by a surprising but always very welcome sight.
My boyfriend.
“Braden?” I gave him a quizzical smile as he leaned toward me. He was wearing one of his fitted, expensive three-piece suits I loved. This one was a dark gray and was molded perfectly to his broad shoulders and fit physique. The sight of him sitting in the cab in that suit on this spot where we first met—
My heartbeat skittered to a stop as I finally processed the intensity in his gaze and the fact that the floor of the cab he was sitting in was strewn with dark red rose petals. Fuckity, fuckity, shit, fuck. His distraction this morning, his shooing me out of our room . . . it all added up and the breath just whooshed right out of me at the realization of what this meant.
“Get in,” he said, his voice low, brokering no argument.
Limbs trembling, I took his offered hand, ducked my head, and let him settle me close to him on the cab bench. “Braden, what is . . .” My words trailed off as he held up a gray suede ring box.
Everything around me stopped.
There was no cab, no rose petals, no nosy cabdriver grinning at us in the rearview mirror, no traffic going by . . . nothing but Braden and a ring box that symbolized so much to me.
Years ago I’d lost everything that meant anything to me.
Losing that left me lost.
Until Braden.
I’d given him the fight of his life when he’d tried to convince me that loving him was the best thing for the both of us, but when he won, when I eventually realized the truth in that, I knew our path wouldn’t always be smooth. I’d thought if this moment ever came, I’d be searching for a brown paper bag to stem my panic attack. To my utter surprise, I felt no such thing. Yes, the fear was there. The fear of giving in . . . only to lose him to life’s unpredictability. However, greater than the fear was my excitement. My excitement that this impossible, too-perceptive-for-his-own-good, arrogant, stubborn, kind, caring, sexy man was about to ask me to spend the rest of my life with him.
Braden’s pale blue eyes shone with emotion as he flipped open the ring box to reveal an elegantly simple platinum band with a princess-cut diamond perched upon a raised prong with a small diamond nestled on either side of it.
It was so me.
Shit, he knew me so well. Do not cry, do not cry!
“Jocelyn,” his voice was rough, like he was struggling to get the words out. “You’re my best friend. My everything. I love you and I want to be with you always. Marry me. I promise to try not to fuck it up if you promise to try not to fuck it up.”
I burst out laughing, tears falling without my say-so as I nodded, completely unable to speak. Braden grinned huge and I reached for him, needing to feel his mouth on mine. My tears mingled with our heated kiss and when he finally let me go, we were both a little out of breath. He took hold of my trembling hand and slipped the ring on my finger. We both stared at the diamond glittering on my left hand. My stomach and heart were jumping all over the place.
Threading my fingers through his, I clasped his hand tight and stared into his beloved face.
“I love you,” I whispered hoarsely. “You’re my favorite person.” The tears blurred in my eyes again. “And if you ever tell anyone I cried during this moment I will withhold sex for a year.”
His warm, husky laughter spread through me as he wrapped his arms around me, hauling me close. I tightened my own arms around his shoulders, shivering with delicious anticipation as he murmured against my mouth, “I’d like to see you try.”
Cocky, arrogant caveman. “Marriage will drive the cockiness right out of you,” I murmured back.
“The only thing that’ll drive the cockiness out of me is you faking an orgasm. And I don’t see that happening any time soon.”
“Hmm.” I nuzzled my nose against his, the tingling between my legs growing more insistent. “You’ve got a point there, Mr. Carmichael.”
***
“Mr. Carmichael, I do believe I’m tipsy,” I threw him a wonky smile over my shoulder as I turned the key in our door.
We’d just returned from having celebratory drinks with Ellie and Adam. Honestly, I think Braden and I would have preferred a quiet night in together on the night of our engagement, but Ellie was having none of that, and Alistair, my colleague at Club 39, had given us two bottles of champagne on discount, so I wasn’t complaining. It had been a fun night.
As I pushed the door open, I felt Braden’s strong hands on my hips and his warm breath on my ear as he asked softly, “Tipsy or drunk?”
I grinned, stepping into our flat with him close at my back. “Tipsy.”
It was true. I was feeling a little giddy and more talkative than usual, but my vision was clear and my coordination was intact.
“You sure?”
Turning around, I reached past him and shoved our door shut, leaning my breasts into his chest as I turned the lock. I was still grinning as I tipped my head back to meet his heated gaze. “If you’re wondering if I’m sober enough to fuck but drunk enough for it to be especially hot, the answer is yes.”
Braden fought a smile. “Have I ever told you how much I love that filthy mouth of yours?”
Yes, on many occasions. “Well, I hope so,” I teased, “because it’s going to be your filthy mouth for a long time to come.” I smoothed my hand up over his hard chest. “Speaking of coming . . .”
His hand on my hip tightened, drawing my eyes back to his. To my surprise he’d gone from teasing to intense. I knew that look well. My fiancé was in the mood to play “caveman.” I shivered, feeling my breasts swell with arousal. “Strip,” he uttered quietly, deadly serious.
The tingles started. “Here?”
He nodded to the space in front of him, smack-bang in the middle of our hallway. “There.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But I get to be bossy tomorrow.”
The intensity in his eyes lightened for a second as he gave me a little nod of acquiescence. Of course he would acquiesce to that. My version of sexually bossy was insisting on being on top and although it wasn’t Braden’s favorite sexual position, he certainly enjoyed it and the view.
Eyes locked, I took a few careful steps backward until there was enough distance between us for him to enjoy the show. I shrugged out of my light blazer first, letting it pool at my feet, and then I reached for the first button on my black sleeveless silk shirt.
“Everything but the ring,” Braden murmured, his expression all smoldering as he leaned back against our front door, crossing his arms over his chest, and one ankle over the other. His pose said casual, possibly even bored. His eyes, however, were burning my not-even-naked-yet skin.
I shivered at his command, my own gaze dropping to the glitter on the fourth finger of my left hand. Braden had a possessive streak. He hadn’t even known he had one until he met me. The thought of me with someone else cut him, just like the thought of him with someone else cut me. It was part of the undeniable connection between us. More than that, I’d made it hard for him to win me over. That had not been intentional, believe me. I got the impression, however, that winning me over not only brought Braden peace, but it made him feel a bit like a conqueror. Not that he would ever admit it, but I knew my fiancé, and he definitely had caveman mentality.
Thus, I knew that having me stand before him, wearing nothing but the symbol of my promise to be only his for the rest of always, was a huge turn-on for him. And that meant it was a huge turn-on for me.
My fingers drifted from my buttoned shirt to the studs in my ears. I took them out and reached over to the sideboard, the sound of metal clinking against wood as I dropped them there filling the hallway. I then removed the necklace I was wearing, followed by my watch. Once all the jewelry but the ring was off, I went back to my shirt.
Braden’s pale eyes were already blazing.
I kept mine on him as I slowly unbuttoned my shirt, shrugging my shoulders so the fabric would slip down my arms and flutter to the ground.
The zip on my pencil skirt was next. I slid it down in increments, enjoying the way the muscle in Braden’s jaw flexed at the sound. My eyes lowered.
He was hard already.
My nipples tightened and I felt my breath hitch with anticipation.
Once my skirt fell to the ground, I stepped out of it, marveling at my own stability. I was still tipsy, and tipsy, four inch heels, and good balance usually didn’t go hand in hand. Thankfully, I kept my grace and I bent down to slip the heels off. Flat on my feet, I lifted my eyes to watch Braden again as I reached behind me for the clasp of my bra. I unhooked it but slowly peeled the straps down, teasing the fabric away from my body.
Goose bumps erupted over my breasts and areolas, my nipples hardening to little points. Braden’s hard-on pressed against his suit pants and I hid a pleased smile. For someone who had dated a lot of women with small chests, Braden certainly was obsessed with my D-cups. He had gone from being a leg man to a boob man.
Not that he didn’t like my legs, because he definitely liked those too.
Unconsciously I licked my lips, watching his eyes flare as I gently pushed down my panties. They were damp with my arousal. I was dying for Braden to touch me, to feel how wet I was with only his eyes on my body.
“Now what?” I asked quietly, my voice thick.
His eyes burned a path that touched every inch of me. “Let down your hair.”
I smirked at him as I reached up and unpinned my hair, letting the mass of waves fall heavily down my back. I threw the pins on the sideboard and massaged my head, my breasts rising provocatively with the movement. “And now?”
He stood up from the door, his relaxed pose gone as he replied in his low, rumbling tones, “Now walk into the bedroom, lie on your back on the bed, stretch your arms above your head, spread your legs, and prepare to take me. Hard and deep.”
Desire shot through my belly and straight to my core at the imagery. I had to admit I loved how confident and commanding Braden was in bed. Still, I couldn’t allow him to be too bossy. “If I’m spreading my legs for you, I want your mouth between them before anything else.”
He gave me a slight smile and a knowing nod. “Deal.”
“Deal.” I smiled saucily back at him and turned around, feeling a surge of empowerment at the sound of his indrawn breath.
As I walked toward our bedroom he said, “Later, I want you on your stomach and that gorgeous arse in the air.”
“First your mouth,” I replied before disappearing inside our room.
My heart was beating fast with excitement as I crawled onto our cool sheets, reached across, and flicked on the bedside lamp before turning on my back, stretching my arms above my head, and spreading my legs.
My whole body shivered at being in such a position.
Eyes on the door, my pulse raced as Braden appeared in the doorway.
“Fuck,” he breathed, moving toward me, stripping much more quickly out of his clothes than I had done. “How did I get so fucking lucky?”
“You were a very good boy this year,” I teased.
He smiled devilishly in the low light as he pushed his pants and boxer briefs down. My hungry gaze settled on his huge, throbbing erection as he moved on to the bed, his beautiful hands sliding up my spread legs. “And have you been a good girl, Jocelyn?”
I tilted my hips up, telling him silently I wanted his mouth on me and I wanted it on me now before I combusted. “Yes,” I breathed. “I haven’t made any grown men cry this year. I’d call it an improvement upon last. Now give me your tongue.”
His hands gripped my thighs. “Who’s in charge here?”
Despite having started the teasing, I was losing patience. I knew one way to speed things up. “Just put your mouth on me, Braden, please.”
His growl was the last thing I heard before his head descended and his tongue parted my labia. I rocked against it, feeling the build start as he circled my clit over and over before sucking it between his lips. My panted pleas for more filled the apartment, my fingers curling into the sheets as his tongue drew down and entered me.
“Braden,” I gasped, my hands automatically reaching for his hair.
This halted him immediately. “Hands back,” he demanded, looking up at me with fire in his eyes.
I instantly did what he asked and Braden returned to tormenting me.
Just when I was on the brink of orgasm, he stopped.
“What are you doing?” I panted as he moved up my body. He’d promised me his mouth first.
He threaded his fingers through mine, holding my hands firmly to the mattress. I felt his thumb rub over my engagement ring as our eyes held. “I want the first time you come as my fiancé to be around my cock.”
My inner muscles squeezed and my reaction was surprisingly docile. “Okay.”
As his mouth moved over mine, he thrust into me.
It was hard. It was deep. And it was beautiful.
Just like always.