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“What if I told you I don’t want to be engaged to you?” I drop my lips closer drawn in by the heat from her skin. We breathe each other’s breath. “Then I’d call you a fucking liar, sugar.”
“I’ve been doing impulsive shit, hoping one of those things might make me feel something. And not a single one of them did. Until you. So if this thing with you makes me insane? I’ll be happy to wear that badge.”
“Bailey Jansen, I love you,”
He devours me. My legs wrap around his shoulders and eventually work their way up to the back of his head, tugging him closer. His strong arms wrap around my thighs, big hands splayed, holding me open so he can feast on me.
“Still not letting my guard down. Not when I’ve got you to keep safe.” A shiver races down my spine as I stare back at him. All I can offer is a nod. I don’t think anyone has ever prioritized keeping me safe.
I’m so caught up in him, in us—he’s all I see.
“Hottest fuck of my life,” he growls, then he shouts my name against my shoulder before biting down hard. His body goes taut, and his cock jumps and pulses as he spills himself inside me. “I love you, Bailey Jansen,”
I have never felt more cherished than I do with Beau Eaton wrapped around me.
This girl has brought me back to life without even trying. All that time I searched for someone to make me feel something, and she was right fucking there.
“My pain disappears when I’m with you. I get to be a new version of myself when I’m with you. I sleep. I laugh. I have something—someone—to look forward to at the end of the day. I feel . . .” I peer back up at her again, swallowing as I run my hands up the column of her spine. “I feel whole again with you.”
“Do you know what brats get?” She bites down on her bottom lip, but she’s not worried. She’s trying not to smile. “Hopefully spanked.” I groan and let my eyes fall shut as I rub my lips over the apple of her cheek. “You’re going to be the fucking death of me.”
She’s just an easy target for them here in Chestnut Springs.
Well, she was an easy target. Not anymore.
I check every door and window on the main floor and set my barely ever used alarm system before trudging
upstairs to the girl who feels like she’s the part of me that’s been missing for too damn long.
But me? I stay up listening. Until the sun comes up and I know she’s safe.
Sex with Beau is hot, and fun, and emotional all at once. I can’t get enough of it.
I want her with a violence I’ve never experienced, with a ferocity that shocks me.
I watch a woman who was so alive and so sure of herself mere moments ago turn back into the girl she’s trying so desperately to grow out of.
An angry whimper lodges in my throat, and I drop the card on the perfectly polished hardwood floor before spinning on my heel and getting the fuck away from Beau. The fuck away from my fiancé. The fuck away from my boss.
I feel foolish that I let myself believe someone could love me so honestly. And yet, I ache for him. I only want him. His arms. His words. His smell. I know it’s the only thing that will make me feel better, but. . . I’m furious.
“I don’t know, Bailey. I guess I’ve always been impulsive where you’re concerned. Because I walked into the back and made Fred an offer on the place that he couldn’t refuse. It just didn’t feel right. Knowing what he was going to do to you.”
He takes all my frustration and swallows it. Like a man. Like the flawed but good man that he is. Like a flawed but good man who loves me.
And then I head back to the bed, where I lie awake all night long, analyzing my life from every angle and wondering how the hell I got here.
Beau: Gary wants me to tell you he’s on your side. Bailey: He fucking better be. Beau: I’m on your side too. Bailey: You fucking better be.
“Some people from town dropped by with cash to help with your new unemployment status. Gary wrote the hashtag.” “People from town? Gave me cash?” “It would seem you going off on them had an effect. You may have inspired some . . . remorse?”
“You’re relentless, you know that?” And I just give her a salute and a wink. Because yeah, I am. No one has ever showed up for Bailey, but she’s about to get the full experience. “No, sugar. When it comes to you, I’m downright hopeless.”
To say I complete fell in love with this book , is an understatement 🥹
You keep saying that leaving is what’s best for her, but what about what’s best for you?”
Truthfully, I’d rather be the one behind the wheel, but I also just want to be near her. And if sitting in her shitty little truck while she gives me the cold shoulder is what I can get, then so be it.
“Told you I love you, Bailey. And I meant it.”
“Make sure whatever house you pick has room for us to host family dinners. You know the Eaton clan will visit more than we want them to.” Us. We.
I drink a coffee that tastes bland and watery. The ones Beau makes me are better.
I miss Beau more intensely in this moment than I have in the past three days. I wonder what he’s doing. I wonder how he’s feeling. I wonder if he knows what he’s doing. I wonder if he’ll regret changing his life for me. And the weight of that is downright crushing.
What I want is to crawl into bed with him and have him hold me.
It feels like my brain is just an ode to Beau Eaton. I think about him all the fucking time. Worry about him. Crave him.
“Baby, please don’t cry. I’ll do anything to make you not cry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“You’re not used to anyone showing up for you, Bailey. This is what that looks like.
“It’s like I’ve been searching for something, something to tie me to this new reality. I wasn’t looking for love; I was looking for a purpose. I just didn’t expect my purpose to be you.”
You don’t recognize the highs without the lows, sugar.
“You fill me with purpose. Lifting you up gives me a reason. Seeing you smile makes me feel whole. And I’m never going to apologize for that. We’re symbiotic, you and me. Without you, this version of me doesn’t exist. Without the next version of you, the next version of me doesn’t exist either. We’re going to grow together.”
“I love you, soldier,” she whispers as she pulls away. “You fuckin’ better.”
My family has become hers.
