K. Bromberg - Slow Burn

He slowly lifts his eyes to meet mine, and that soft smile on his lips owns my heart like I never could have imagined before. “What’s the one thing we’ve learned through all of this?” he asks me.

“That cancer sucks ass.”

He throws his head back and laughs loudly, the sound so welcome to my ears when he’s been so worried himself over the scans. “Well, that’s true, but that wasn’t what I was going for.”

“Um … that wall sex is definitely hot.” I say, my fingers walking their way up his bare chest, my thoughts turning to how I want to be festive with Becks.

“You are incorrigible!” he says, grabbing my wrists and holding them in his grip, humor in his voice and his pants beginning to tent. At least I know it’s a possibility . “But very right again. And maybe if you can be serious for a second, we can have some very hot wall sex in a few minutes.” He raises an eyebrow at me and mixes it with that cocksure smirk of his, and I know he’s just thrown down a challenge that I will willingly accept.

“So I answer the question right, I get wall sex?” He nods, causing my libido to stir to life and my mind to scatter, trying to figure out what the answer could be.

“Hm. Let’s see…. You like rules.”

“And you like to break them, you smart-ass.”

“I need help, Mr. Daniels, because you mentioned wall sex, and now all I can think about is you pinning me over there”—I point to the wall behind him—“and you sliding your rock-hard—”

“You’re distracting me.” He laughs as he leans forward and presses another kiss to my lips, his tongue lingering with mine for just a moment before he leans back, the gravity in his eyes again. “What’s the one rule we’ve lived by this whole year? Our motto?”

I angle my head to look at him and wonder how Lex’s motto that we’ve adopted as ours holds any relevance when it seems we have all the time in the world now.

“Time is precious. Waste it wisely,” I tell him, a ghost of a smile on my lips at how that advice in the voice mail she left me—that I still listen to—has come full circle in this moment.

“Exactly,” Becks murmurs. “If that’s our motto, then we need to wise up here…. I don’t want to waste another precious moment without you as mine, Haddie Montgomery.”

I begin to tell him he already has me when it hits me. My hands begin to tremble again, but this time for a very different reason. I watch as he reaches into his pants pocket and produces a black box, which I never even noticed because I was so stunned at my good news. I suck in a breath, his words and the sight causing my mind to leap ahead to what he’s about to do.

And I’m not sure where I want to look more: at the box as it’s opened or at his eyes as he asks me. I look up because I’m only going to get one chance to catch this moment—this look in his eyes—and I’ll have forever to look at the ring on my finger.

I laugh nervously, realizing he’d better be asking me to marry him because I just mentally agreed.

“We’ve been to hell and back, and I love you more for every single step of that journey. I only hope you feel half of what I feel when you look at me, when you love me, or when you laugh with me. The world stops for me—time stands still—when I put my arms around you. I love that feeling, and I love that I’ve only ever felt that way with you. I want to be the first thing you touch in the morning and the last thing you taste at night before you dream. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Had…. I want to stop wasting that precious time. Will you marry me?”

I launch myself at Becks with a shriek, our bodies colliding and falling backward as I rain kisses all over his face, repeating how much I love him again and again. Somewhere in my barrage of expressed love, he manages to hold my hand still enough to slide the oval-shaped diamond solitaire onto my ring finger.

“Is that a yes?” he laughs out as I straddle his hips and lean down to kiss him again, my lips on his. Smile, kiss, smile, repeat cycle.

“Yes!” I cry out at him, my heart so full of love and the future that all I can think about is that this gorgeous, caring, wonderful, sexy man beneath me really wants feisty, tell-it-like-it-is me to be his.

My city to his country.

I lean forward and press my lips to his again, slipping my tongue between them, my hips grinding against his out of pure physical response. He groans at the sensation, and I start laughing.

Wall sex is hot.

But just-got-engaged-sex-on-the-kitchen-floor is even better.

Why waste time maneuvering to the wall? It’s a precious thing after all.

You saw how they fell in love.

Now see how Becks and Haddie first met.

Turn the page for a bonus scene!

The bass of the club’s music hits hard as I scan the nearly naked women surrounding us—every single one of them ripe for the picking. A bat of fake lashes. An accidental lean over the bar, tits on display, and painted lips offering up what is literally and figuratively on the table.

So why am I not finding some hot piece, offering to take her up to our room? Shit, I could use a little release after the stress of a long week.

It’s Wood’s fault. That’s my go-to answer. It’s always his fault . And hell if I’ll tell my best friend he was right when he said, “She’s got a hot friend.”

Hot friend, my ass . Haddie Montgomery’s more like molten fucking lava.

I sweep my eyes across the crowded dance floor and try to move past her, but it’s no goddamn use. Don’t kid yourself, Daniels. You’ve been looking at her all night . I toss back the rest of my drink, but my damn eyes remain fixed as she throws her arms up in the air and swivels her hips. Those long, shapely legs move to the beat, and hell if I can’t get the thought of them and those sexy-as-fuck heels wrapped around me somehow, someway, out of my damn head.

I avert my gaze, try to distract myself with one of the many easy targets in the club, but no one else calls to every part of me like Haddie does. And of course my eyes shift back to the floor just in time to see her dress sneak up some. Every toned inch of those thighs is on display as she grinds her hips to the beat. I groan. And I don’t even care that I do, because hell if a sane, red-blooded American male would look away from that perfection.

“Hey,” I hear to my right as Colton’s hand, which is holding my fresh drink, bumps against my arm.

“Thanks,” I say, forcing myself to pull my eyes from the sight of her and focus on the man who’s like a second brother to me. But when I meet his eyes, they’re studying me, amusement mixed with confusion. Here we go again . I hate when Colton gets this damn look. “What? What the fuck is that look for?”

“Seriously? You have the two-point-five look on your face, dude,” he says, taking a sip of his beer and shaking his head as if he’s ashamed.

“Two point five?” I sputter, completely shocked that he of all people would say that after the revelation he dropped on me earlier. The one where he admitted that he, the man who’s the king of condoms, is sliding skin on skin with his girlfriend, Rylee. Taking that giant leap of trust for the first time ever to bareback with a woman. The confession still staggers me even after more than a few cocktails.

And he’s accusing me of the two-point-five look? I don’t think he has any room to throw stones in the fucking glass house he built. “Two point five?” I repeat. “This coming from the barebacking cowboy himself? Whatever . You have no idea what you’re talking about. Have another.”

“Which one is she?” he asks, slinging an arm over my shoulder and pointing toward the dance floor.