A Drop of Pretty Poison (Pretty Poison Trilogy #2)

by Kelsey Clayton

“I love you,” I tell him. He smirks, bending down to kiss me. “I more than love you.”

He pulls his head back to look at me. “We’re not hiding here, baby. There’s no one else in this place. It’s just us. And I want to hear you scream.”

“That’s it,” he tells me. “That’s my good girl.”

He drops down to his knees and hooks my legs over his shoulders. “Let’s see just how loud you can be.”

“Give me it, Laiken,” he demands. “Come all over my tongue so I can bury myself deep inside of you.”

“You are a fucking dream,” he murmurs. “I will never get enough of you.”

And when I feel him starting to slip in bare, it only makes me want him more. “This okay?” he asks. I nod. “I need to feel you. All of you.”

“Have you never…” my voice fades out, but he knows what I’m asking. He looks at me with the same vulnerability he had that day on the boat. When we were both in the middle of a freefall that neither one of us could deny. “Only you,” he confesses. “Only ever you.”

“God, that feels so good,” I moan. “So fucking good.” His jaw falls open as he pulls out just to slam back in. “You’re mine, Laiken. This pussy. This body. It’s all mine.” “All yours,” I agree. He lets out a mix between a hum and a moan. “Good girl. Come here.”

“Turn around,” he orders me, and I do as I’m told. “Now bend over and grip the banister.”

“H,” I pant. “There’s no blinds. Someone could see us.” But no part of him seems to care as he fucks into me. “Let them,” he growls. “Let them watch how I make your whole body tense up as you scream my name for the whole world to hear. I want everyone to know just who you belong to.”

“Fuck,” he moans. “I don’t want to pull out. I want to fill you up and watch as my cum drips from your pussy.”

God, I want that, too. And it’s so fucking tempting. But I’m not on birth control, and neither one of us are nowhere near ready for the kind of responsibility that risk brings. “Not today,” I tell him. “Today I want you to come down my throat.”

“You’re incredible,” he says, as his thumb cleans some of his cum off the corner of my mouth. “I’m so fucking addicted to you.”

“They’re doing that thing again.” “Doing what thing?” Aiden questions.

Cam sighs and answers for her. “That thing where they forget the rest of the room exists and live in their own little world.” “It’s nauseating,” Mali grumbles. I ignore them and tilt my head to the side a little, giving her a certain look. She knows exactly what it means, and she gets up without a word. As she walks straight into me, I wrap my arms around her. “Mine,” I growl, mostly for Lucas’s benefit. But it’s Mali that answers, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, we know, caveman. No need to brand her to clarify.” “It’s so weird seeing him like this with a chick,” Owen says. Cam grunts. “How do you think I feel? Being around the two of them almost makes me miss jail.”

But none of their opinions matter as Laiken looks up at me and my eyes meet hers—because she’s the best thing to ever happen to me. And I will spend the rest o...

Laiken looks intrigued as I walk over to her and hold out my hand. “Dance with me,” I tell her. She giggles. “Babe, there’s no room.” I glance around a moment before sliding the coffee table right out of the way. “There. Now, dance with me.” Her hand slips in mine and she stands. “Oh, right. I forgot about your secret love for chick flicks.” Our fingers interlace, and my other hand comes to rest on her lower back as we sway to the music. “Remind me to kill Devin for telling you that.” She chuckles, only to squeal as I spin her away and then back to me. “But then where would I get all of my intel?” “Me,” I answer simply. “There isn’t a single part of me I don’t want you to know. You can ask me anything.” Her brows raise. “That sounds dangerous for you.” “Do your worst.”

“When did you lose your virginity?” Ha. “And you say I have a one-track mind.”

“Yours is caused by perpetual sexual frustration. Mine is caused by jealousy. We are not the same.” I snicker, spinning her again before answering. “Okay…I was sixteen. We were at a party. And I only did it because all my friends already had.” “That’s a horrible reason,” she chides. My one shoulder r...

“Fine, you get a pass,” she says and moves on. “What went through your head on Monty’s boat that one day? You know what I’m talking about.” That question makes my breath pause for a moment, and I huff in amusement. “That I was falling in love with you. I tried so hard to keep you out, but I couldn’t. It was beyond my control.” She bites her lip, but her grin widens anyway. “And you tried to say we aren’t meant to be.” “Biggest regret of my life,” I reply honestly. “You are the only one I’m ever meant to be with.”

“Jealous of my grandmother now, are you?” I tease. But his eyes soften as he looks at me through the screen. “Baby, I’m jealous of anyone who gets to be around you while I can’t be.”

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” he tells me as he grabs his own donut. “No?” “Nope, and it’s all your fault.” A frown forces its way through. “My fault?” He takes a bite and nods. “Mm-hm. So, I’m going to need you to make arrangements to be here every night for the foreseeable future.” My jaw falls open as I stare at him. “May as well bring all your shit with you, too. Thanks.” I sit here, gaping at him and wondering if I heard him wrong. The words that just came out of his mouth were spoken with such casualness that you would think we were talking about what we have planned today. Not some major life choice. When he notices I haven’t said anything, he looks up at me. “What?” “D-did you just ask me to move in with you?” “No,” he says with a mouthful of donut, and my stomach drops for a second. “I told you to move in with me. There’s a difference.”

“Oh, well in that case, I’m going to pass. You know, in the name of women everywhere who don’t let men tell them what to do.”

“Laiken,” he says seriously. “Will you please move in with me so that I don’t have to spend another cold and lonely night without you for the rest of my life?”

“I’d love to,” I tell him, and his grin widens as he exhales. “But I can’t. My parents would literally off us both. I mean, we’ve only been together for a few months. I can only imagine the conniption they would have if I told them I was moving in with you out of wedlock.”

Whatever conclusion he comes to, it doesn’t take him long, because he hums, dropping a quick kiss on my lips. “I can work with that.” Hang on. “Work with what?” But he doesn’t answer as he grabs his donut and holds it with his mouth before picking up his phone and car keys off the counter. Then he heads for the front door without a second glance. “H, what does that mean?” Still silence. “Hayes!” He takes the donut out of his mouth as he opens the door. “Love you!” And then he’s just gone, leaving me to wonder what the actual fuck just happened.

The day my dad left, I told myself that happily ever afters don’t exist. That fairy tales are for books, and no one ever really loves someone more than they love themselves. And for years, all that has been true for me. I never found someone that made me second guess what I believed—until Laiken.

In just a few months, she’s proven me wrong at every turn and shown me things completely different from what I thought I knew. With her, I have a relationship that is just as much about friendship as it is being in love. I have a person that doesn’t only make my day better but makes me look forward to every day

after it. I have someone who has taught me what it feels like to care about another person more than I...

My other half. My favorite person. My once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. So, as I walk out with a little velvet box bulging from my pocket, there isn’t a doubt in my m...

The door opens and Laiken walks in, freezing as soon as she sees the scene in front of her. I’m honestly not sure I’m breathing at all as she drops her bag and looks around. Finally, her eyes land on me, but I can’t seem to get a read on them. “Did you hit your head recently?” she asks. I chuckle because I expected this. “No.” “Drugs?” Taking a step toward her, I shake my head slowly. “Nope.”

“Some kind of fucked-up dare where the guys are going to jump out and say I’ve been Punk’d, like you all used to do a few years ago?” My grin widens as I pull the ring box from my pocket and open it in front of her. All of the air leaves her lungs in one breath and she stares at the gorgeous diamond in disbelief. “You’re seriously proposing to me right now?” Yes. “You say that like it’s such an outrageous concept.” She looks a little skeptical. “Not outrageous, just not like you.” Her words instantly make me wonder if I haven’t done nearly enough to prove to her how much she means to me. How important she is. “What do you mean?” I ask nervously. “Hayes,” she sighs. “It took you until a month ago just to say I love you.” I huff out a laugh. “Yeah, because I’m a pussy. Not because I haven’t been completely fucking gone for you from the start.” The way she smiles gives me a little hope. “I just don’t want you to feel like you need to rush into this. I’m not going anywhere. Okay? Just because I can’t live with you right now doesn’t mean I’m not going to be here every day.” “No,” I say, cutting her off from saying anything else. “Let me make something very clear here, because I’m not sure you fully understand.”

Taking a step closer, I rest my arms on her shoulders and stare into her eyes—really making sure she’s listening to every word coming out of my mouth. “You’re it for me, Laiken. I don’t care if it’s been a few months or thirty goddamn years. That isn’t going to change. So, you can say no and we can play the long game if that’s what you want. We can take it slow. But I’m going to spend the rest of my life loving you, regardless.” A single tear slides down her cheek and I gently wipe it away. “This isn’t me trying to rush into something to get my way. This is me acting on what I want with absolute certainty that it’s th...

“Okay.” “Okay?” I question, hope swelling inside my chest. She nods and a smile spreads over her face. “Okay. Ask me.”

grin, trying not to tear up myself as I drop down onto one knee in front of her. She giggles as she cries happily and watches as I open the box once more.

“Laiken Rose,” I say, looking up at her and almost swaying from the intensity of my feelings for her. “If I’ve learned anything over the last few months, it’s that this life isn’t worth living if I don’t have you by my side. I’m already the luckiest man in the world for getting any time with you at all, but I’m greedy and I want every second you have to give. So, for the love of God, marry me, because anything less than forever with you just isn’t enough for me.” She’s a mess by the end of it, letting the tears drip from her face and onto her shirt, but she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And when she manages to nod up and down, I know this image is going to be burned into my mind until the end of time. “Yes?” I double-check. She nods. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

She’s been my best friend’s sister, my only secret, and my girlfriend. Now, she’s my fiancée. And I can’t fucking wait for the day where she becomes my wife.

My hand rests on her stomach, my thumb moving back and forth across her skin. “God, I can’t believe I’m marrying you.” “How are we going to do it?” she asks. “I don’t think either of us has the patience for a long engagement.” I shake my head. “Definitely not. I want you to be my wife as soon as humanly possible. I want you where you belong—infiltrating all of my space and sleeping beside me every night.”

“Then what? Why do you want to marry my daughter?” “Because I love her more than I’ve ever loved anything,” I answer immediately. “She has very quickly become the center of my entire universe. The one person I cannot live without. And if I can spend the rest of my life making her feel for me, even half of what I feel for her, that would be a life worth living.”

Cam peeks his head in the door. “You guys ready?” But when he sees me, he smiles. “Look at you.” “How is he?” I ask nervously. “Is he still going to be there when I get downstairs?” Cam rolls his eyes. “Are you kidding? Why do you think I’m up here? He’s ready to drag Pastor Todd up here and marry you in the bedroom.”

Cam nods, and before he leaves, he comes over to give me a hug. “I’m happy for you, sis, even if you are stealing my best friend.”

“Please. You’re opening a bar together,” I tell him. “You’re going to get more time with him than I will.” “Rightfully so. He was mine first.”

“If you ever do her wrong, I will kill you,” my dad tells him. Hayes looks at me with nothing but admiration in his eyes, but his words are meant for my dad. “If that ever happens, I’ll let you.”

“Laiken. I don’t know how I’m supposed to put how I feel for you into words, but you wanted us to write our own vows, so I’m going to try.”

“Yeah, nothing on that would do you any justice. There aren’t any words for how much I love you, because my God, it makes me dizzy. You are the reason I get up in the morning. The first person I want to go to when I’m having a bad day, and when I’m having a good one. We may not have started like any other couple, but I think that only makes us stronger. You were the

biggest risk I’ve ever taken, and you were the best risk I’ve ever taken.

“There’s no one else who loves the way you do—so unforgivingly and without anything holding you back. And to know that I get to sit in your light and admire you for the rest of my life is all I could ever ask for. So, this is me promising to love you, to be there for you, and to support you with everything I have until the world explodes, ...

“Hayes. I stand here in front of you and our families, tasked with explaining how much you mean to me, but you were right. It’s not possible, like taking a picture of the moon—the outcome is never anywhere near as good as the real thing. “Three years ago, I fell in love with the boy who insisted on wearing a backward hat instead of a helmet during hockey. Since then, my feelings for you have only grown, never lessened. You’re the one I want to share my good days with, and the one I want holding me through the bad. “I promise to spend the rest of my life believing in you and supporting your dreams. I promise to cheer you on at your games, only ever wearing your jersey. And I promise to always put you in your place, the way you love so much.” He chuckles, and I can’t help but smile at the sound of it. “The fact that I’m going to spend forever loving you is nothing new to me. I’ve known that for years. But knowing I get to do it while having your last name is a dream that I never

thought would come true. It’s always been you for me, H. That won’t ever change.”