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“We always end up where we’re meant to be,”
I was a rule follower by nature. It was how I’d survived most of my life. But for Bridget, I would break every rule in the book.
Bridget von Ascheberg was mine and mine alone. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t mine to take. I was taking her anyway, and if I could tattoo myself onto her skin, bury myself in her heart, and etch myself onto her soul, I would. Her eyes widened, but before she could respond, I closed the distance between us and grasped her chin with my hand. “But first, I want to make one thing clear. From this point on, you’re mine. No other man touches you. If they do…” My fingers dug into her skin. “I know seventy-nine ways to kill a man, and I can make seventy of them look like an accident. Understand?”
“Remember. In public, you’re my princess, but in private, you’re my whore.”
I was addicted. Me, the man who’d avoided most addictive substances all his life—drugs, smoking, alcohol, even sugar, to an extent—had found the one thing I couldn’t resist. Strength, resilience, and light, wrapped up in five feet nine inches of creamy skin and cool composure that hid a heart of fire underneath. But fuck, if she was an addiction, I never wanted to be cured.
“Trust me, Princess. I would rather end my own life than ask you to do anything that might hurt you.”
Bridget was mine. She wasn’t mine to take, but I was taking her anyway. Her laughs, her fears, her joy, and her pain. Every inch of her body and beat of her heart. All mine.
“Keep your underwear, gloves, and heels on,” he said, still in that deceptively soft tone. “And crawl to me.”
“I don’t need a happily ever after. I need to be by your side. I need you happy and healthy and safe. Goddammit, Bridget, I need you. In any way I can have you.”
“You asked me if I’d ever been in love. I said no.” He pressed a soft kiss to my mouth. “Ask me again, Princess.”
“I never believed in love. Never wanted it. I didn’t see the practical value, and to be honest, I was doing just fine without it. But then I met you. Your smile, your strength, your intelligence and compassion. Even your stubbornness and hardheadedness. You filled a part of my soul I always thought would be empty, and you healed scars I never knew existed. And I realized…it’s not that I didn’t believe in love before. It’s that I was saving it all for you.” A half sob bled through the hand pressed to Bridget’s mouth. I took a deep breath. “Bridget, will you marry me?”
We always end up where we’re meant to be.
