“The most important part of design is finding all the issues to be resolved. The rest are details.”—Soumeet Lanka
Brady wondered how certain silences could scream.
He glanced over and studied her face. After expressing how wonderful she thought his family was, she’d stopped talking. With each mile the Mercedes gobbled up, the tension grew between them. But not the usual hungry, sexual type he was used to.
No, this was the worst kind. The awkward kind. The kind he got after a bad date where he couldn’t wait to flee the other person for a few hours to be alone.
He should’ve never invited her to dinner.
“Umm, would you mind if you dropped me off at my apartment tonight? I have some stuff to do.”
He stiffened. It was the first time she was asking to spend a night apart from him. The searing pain caught him under the chin and knocked him back, but he gritted his teeth and kept his gaze on the road. “That’s fine.”
Back to silence.
Sweat broke out on his brow. Why had he done it? He’d always known his family thrived on tradition. It was the main reason he sought a woman who could offer him the type of lifestyle he’d grown up with. Charlie was a complete contradiction to everything he said he wanted. Marissa would’ve emerged from the visit steeped in happiness, ready to accept a ring on her finger and get pregnant on the honeymoon.
Charlie looked like she wanted to change her phone number, leave town, and pretend they’d never met.
He was such an idiot.
Anger ruffled his nerves. He grabbed onto it, liking the emotion so much better than the hurt threatening to overwhelm him. He’d never lied to her about what he wanted. He refused to apologize for his family dynamics because it worked and everyone was happy. When he came into the kitchen and found her wrapped in an embrace with his mother and sister, his throat had tightened and he’d barely been able to speak. The idea of Charlie being part of his life in such an intimate way made his heart soar. But when he caught her expression as he stepped forward, he’d crashed immediately.
She’d looked completely panicked.
Brady pulled up to her apartment building and waited.
“Thanks so much. I had a lovely evening. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.” She leaned over, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and started to get out of the car.
His fucking cheek.
No fucking way.
He flicked his wrist and cut the ignition. “I’ll walk you up.”
“Oh, you don’t have to.”
“I didn’t ask.”
He got out of the car and walked around. She seemed tempted to respond to his statement but decided to let it go. She slid the key in the lock, opening the door, but he gave her no opportunity to dismiss him again. He walked right inside and shut the door behind them.
His gaze swept over the room. They usually stayed at his house, but he was comfortable at her place. It was a standard issue, one-bedroom basic apartment, but she’d made it unique with her flair for design. Done in tones of pale pink, cream, and chocolate brown, the furniture was comfortable, with tons of throw pillows, shag rugs, and a rustic chandelier she’d created herself. The famous pizza box art she boasted about lined the walls of her sunny yellow kitchen, done in bright turquoise and pinks, adding a shock of color. Glass vases stuffed with various wildflowers sprouted from accents of mismatched wood shelving, homemade cabinetry, and a giant coffee table converted from a headboard. It was one of the most visually arresting, homey places he’d ever been.
“Umm, I really need to go to bed early, Brady.” Her tone was the high, false one she used when she was nervous. “Can we talk tomorrow?”
“No.” He put his hands on his hips and faced her. “I want to know one thing. How bad were you spooked?”
She jerked back. He waited, drinking in her expressions as she seemed to struggle with telling him the truth or giving him an excuse. Finally, she tilted her chin and met his gaze head on. “Very spooked.”
“Better. I’ll take honesty over bullshit any time. What spooked you?”
Temper flickered in her hazel eyes. “Don’t try to bully me,” she warned. “How dare you not even warn them I was coming! And what was that crap of you pretending to choke on your water to avoid telling them I’m not your baby-making machine?”
He took a step closer. “I wanted to buy some time, okay? My parents have always had a traditional marriage, and so do my sisters. They expect the same type of life for me. And don’t you dare use that expression. My sisters are happy being homemakers and I refuse to allow you to judge them.”
“I’m not judging them, you idiot! I adored them. You dare to think I have a problem about women choosing to do what makes them happy? ’Cause if you think that, you can march your ass right out of my apartment and don’t come back.”
“You certainly seemed freaked out.”
“Because they didn’t even stop to think I didn’t want that type of life. I’m not them, Brady. I never pretended to be.”
He stood in front of her, seething with a bunch of tangled emotions that made him roar like a pissed-off lion. “I never pretended to hide what my family is like or what type of woman fits with my lifestyle.”
She breathed hard, cheeks flushed, fists clenched. Damn her. Why did she have to be so sexy and hot when she argued with him? Why was he so attracted to a difficult, bullheaded woman who’d choose career over love? “Is that what you want then? Because if you do, what the hell are you doing with me?”
“I don’t know! I never planned on you. Never planned you’d wreck me and make me want you so bad, I’d do anything to have you.”
She gasped, pressing her fingers to her lips. The room hummed with electricity. Those hazel eyes burned with a raw emotion he’d never seen before she quickly banked the flames. “Even give up your ideals? Your detailed plans for the future? Because I will never be that woman. I will never want to cook and run a household and watch the children while you go out every day to live your dreams.” Her voice broke. “It would destroy me.”
The truth choked him with fear and need and pure confusion. What did he want? Could he give up his own dreams of a future with a wife who suited his needs? Or had he believed in something for so long, he never questioned the possibility of falling for someone else? Someone with different plans in life. Someone who made him hunger from his very soul and filled him with a peace he’d never experienced.
“I know it would,” he ground out in the shattering silence. “I’d never ask that of you.”
She wrapped her arms around her chest as if seeking comfort. He fought back the impulse to cross the room and pull her against him. “How can we keep going on like this?” she asked. “We fell into a sexual affair and it worked because we asked nothing else of the other. We lived day to day. But eventually, we were going to have to face the truth and decide what we both really want from each other.”
“I’m not ready to give you up.”
His stark admission fell between them and lay there, waiting for her answer. He couldn’t bear the idea of losing her. Panic hit him from all directions, and he felt like a wild animal locked in a cage, desperate to move.
“During dinner, when your family assumed my career meant little to me, you never defended me. Never said what you wanted or that my choices were just as important as yours. Are you ready to tell your family our relationship will never be like theirs? That I’ll never be a traditional wife?”
“Do you want children, Charlotte?”
He asked the question with nausea burning in his gut. His dream of a family was important. Could he possibly give that up for her?
“Yes.”
His chest loosened and he let out a breath.
“But not now. Not for a few more years. I don’t have a blueprint of my life like you do. I’m passionate about my career, and I want to build and renovate houses. I want to get married and have kids and have a beautiful house and a life full of chaos and joy. That’s important to me. But not now. And I don’t know when. Can you accept that?”
He studied the stubborn tilt to her jaw. The trembling of her lips. The too-wide hazel-colored eyes filled with fear and need and truth. That she’d never be enough for him. That eventually, he’d regret putting his own future on hold for a shot at something that might never work out. Was the risk just too great for both of them to take? He’d always longed for the type of family he was raised in, with solid roles for both sexes and a secure household. He’d never felt confused growing up or dismissed due to other obligations. He’d lived the happy, secure childhood he dreamed of for his own kids. Could he change his ideas for her? Be a different type of man? Or would their entire relationship be built on a lie?
He answered in the only way he could.
“I don’t know.”
Tears filled her eyes but she nodded, refusing to let them fall. “I understand. You have to go.”
He knew then if he left, it would be all over. The light of day would rip them apart with rational conclusions and neat answers that made sense. He couldn’t lose her like this. He wouldn’t allow it.
“Brady—”
“You tell me that you don’t want me.” He closed the distance, reached out, and yanked her against him. “You tell me you don’t want me to rip off your clothes and kiss you. Fuck you hard and deep until you come for me so many times, you forget why we shouldn’t be together.”
“Bastard! Why are you doing this now? I’m giving you what you want! I’m letting you leave nice and neat and tidy, just the way you like things!”
She pummeled his chest, but he knew it wasn’t to get away. Her body was already burning, melting against him, her hips arching, her tight nipples evident from the sheer fabric of her shirt. He let her pound at him a few more times before snatching her wrists and pinning them behind her back. His other hand thrust into her hair and pulled hard, exposing her throat. His gaze raked over her face, taking in her parted bubble-gum lips, the hazy sheen of need in her eyes, and the pounding pulse at the base of her neck.
“I don’t want you nice and neat, Charlotte,” he growled, scraping his teeth down the vulnerable curve of her neck, sinking his teeth in the sensitive hollow of her shoulder. She shuddered. His dick strained against his jeans. “I want you dirty and needy. I want you begging. I want you so hot for me you’ll do anything I demand.”
“We can’t make this about sex.” Her voice was desperate, and he took advantage by running his tongue up her jaw, nibbling on her mouth, teasing her with tiny bites and licks that he knew would drive her crazy. Her low whimper was music to his ears.
“It’s not about sex. It’s about want. Need.” His gaze crashed into hers. “It’s about everything.”
Refusing to wait another second, he slammed his mouth over hers, kissing her deep, his tongue thrusting over and over until she was a wild, writhing animal in his arms. Groaning, he lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom, laying her out on the comforter. He gave her no time to protest, quickly stripping her clothes off, then his, and joining her on the bed naked.
He was starved for her, and his slightly shaking hands showed her his desperation. Brady stroked every inch of her naked body, sliding over her lush breasts, teasing her tight pink nipples, tracing the gentle curves of her hips, the bare, swollen lips between her legs, all the way down her muscled thighs to her poppy-pink-colored toenails.
She cried his name, twisting under his touch, then arching to meet his tongue as he began to taste everything he’d touched. By the time he’d worked his way back up to her mouth, she was clinging, hooking her feet around his hips and arching for more.
“Damn you, Bolivar,” she whispered against his mouth, eyes glassy with need. “Finish what you started.”
A fierce rush of possessiveness seized him. This woman was his. She belonged to him, and they could fight, run, deny—nothing mattered in the end because she would always be his. He spread her thighs wider and reared up, poised at her dripping entrance.
“Yes, Charlotte.”
Then plunged deep.
Buried to the hilt inside her, he practically roared with pride, feeling her swollen tissues clench around him, squeezing and holding him tight. She arched, shuddering, taking him all in, and then her head began to thrash side to side, her nails digging and tearing his skin with command.
He cursed and grasped her hips. He pulled all the way out, then slammed back inside her. Again. Again. Harder. Always harder.
She took it all, begged for more, and surrendered completely. Brady became a madman, completely enthralled with her smell and touch and feel, and it was never enough, so he bent forward to kiss her, his tongue mimicking his rolling, thrusting hips, demanding every part of her be open to him.
She screamed and thrashed and then his fingers found her hard clit and he rubbed gently, then harder and harder, and she came around his dick, drenching him with her climax, and he bit her neck as he shuddered and followed her over the edge.
He wondered if an orgasm could last hours because that’s how it felt as the endless waves of intense pleasure rang through his body. She whispered his name in the dark, and he kissed her, feeling as if the earth had shattered and everything he’d once believed in was gone.
“What is it, baby?” he asked gently.
“I love you.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, the joy exploding through him. “I love you, too.”
“But I don’t know if this will work.”
It would. It had to.
Because he wasn’t giving her up.
“Sleep now, Charlotte. We’ll talk in the morning.”
This time, she chose to obey. Soon, he heard the deep steady beat of her heart and her even breathing and he knew it had to be okay.