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To have someone you love speak to you that way took the breath right out of you. Took the fight right out of you.
It was not healthy... For me to be infatuated with a man I’d only had a scant amount of interactions with. Who likely barely knew I existed, the intense stare just his default.
“A Kacey vibe mixed generously with a Rip aesthetic,” I continued to blather. “Rip
“I’m Rip, so that makes you Beth?” His voice was low, throaty, but with a warmth threaded through it. A warmth that sparked fire in my belly and places much lower than that.
Especially now that she wasn’t wearing that fuck’s ring. Now that I wasn’t in danger of spending fifteen to life in a state penitentiary for killing him after laying his hands on what was mine.
“Okay, I bake crisis cakes, I spy on hot guys, and then I make a complete ass of myself in front of hot guys!” I huffed, hiding behind my hands.
“Who did this to you?” Rowan’s nostrils flared, his jaw was set in a rigid line.
“Tell me what happened, cupcake,” he murmured softly.
“Rowan,” I said in not much more than a whisper. “Yeah, cupcake?” “What is this?” His mouth turned upward ever so slightly before he leaned in and kissed me gently on the forehead. When he pulled back, our faces were inches apart. My heart thrummed. “This,” he murmured, eyes glued to mine, “is the beginning of us.”
“Where we goin’?” he asked. I looked to my best friend. “We’re going to fuck up the piece of shit who laid hands on my woman.”
“The muscular man who has been staring at you like a lovestruck teenager, who quite obviously finds your weirdness ridiculously cute, who wants to rip your clothes off and do very bad, very good things to you, and who is out there somewhere, defending your honor.”
Yes, Rowan was a beer guy. He could’ve been the face of any and all beer companies. He was what advertisers were trying to sell when they made beer commercials. Masculine. Rugged. The look of a guy who knew how to build furniture and eat pussy like a champ.
“I’m in your life because I want to be in your life,” Rowan answered, still not breaking his devastating eye contact.
“You tell me that you want me to leave, that you really want me to leave, and I will,” he offered in a low, throaty voice.
“Because your cheeks are flushed, because I’ve been dreaming of what your lips taste like. Because I can barely fuckin’ control my need to claim them. Taste you.”
practice. I’d never been with a man who made me feel safe enough to explore that part of myself. Not with any of my long-term boyfriends. Especially not with the man I had agreed to marry.
It was bad enough to try to seduce a man and fail, but to have him see you cry after that failure was something else entirely.
“You’re sexy by fuckin’ breathing. And I should be getting some kind of medal for resisting you right now.”
I’m gonna go to sleep tonight thinking ’bout what it would be like if I was a slightly worse man. If I was the man who took advantage of the woman he’s been wanting for years when she’s had too much wine, when she’s wearing a bruise another man put there.”
The problem was, I knew, even then, my heart wasn’t safe with him around.
I knew she was special the second I first saw her.
But there was no ring on her finger anymore. And I was fucking desperate to make her mine in every way I could.
“You want to go on a… date?” I asked him. “Want to fuck you,” he replied bluntly.
“Wanna do things different with you. Wanna take you on a date. Give you what you deserve. Show this whole town you’re mine.” He lifted his hand to brush my cheek. “And then, I want to show you you’re mine.”
“Need to hear you say you want to be mine,” he requested gently. I tilted my head, eyes roving
“Cupcake, I was yours the second my steel-toed boot set foot in this pink fuckin’ bakery,” he said without hesitation.
“I get you’re a big bad alpha who has… some type of feelings for me,” I explained lamely. “I get that you just saw me almost getting hit in the parking lot, and you’re mad about that. But I was just about hit in a parking lot. Me.” I jabbed my own finger to my chest. “And it is not on me to tiptoe around you because you can’t regulate your anger. And it’s definitely not okay to take that anger out on me.”
Which was incredibly unbelievable, me yelling at Rowan like we were some kind of couple. Him declaring he was going to kill a man for me like we were in some kind of movie or novel.
You are this tall, muscled, incredibly handsome, enchanting man. You’re a real man. Like cut wood with an ax kind of man. Women absolutely drool over you, and you don’t even notice. You have some kind of… power about you, like if we were both on a plane and it was going down, I wouldn’t be scared. Not at all, because I know you would somehow handle the situation. Now, I don’t know if you’re a pilot or whatever, but I know you’d take care of it. Take care of me.”
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice rough, thick, almost animalistic. “Give me your fuckin’ eyes, Nora.”
“Love that you still blush after I’ve seen you come hard and hot, after my cum has decorated that perfect skin.”
He wanted to watch Yellowstone with me.
“Don’t ever want you to stop blushin’ with me.”
“Building your Practical Magic greenhouse,” he answered, as if it were obvious. I blinked at him. “You’re building my greenhouse?”
“You’re building me a greenhouse,” I repeated, but this time it wasn’t a question. Rowan’s expression softened. “Yeah, cupcake. I am.”
The man I was kind of dating, the one I’d been attracted to for years, the one who had fucked me on the counter of my bakery earlier that day was now at my house. Building me a greenhouse.
“I think he’s it. The real thing. My guy.”
Romance, a real, true love, meant roots.
“You are not weak,” he growled. “Fuck, Nora. You are the strongest person I know.
“I love you,” he repeated without hesitation. “I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you. And I’ve only loved you more since I got to touch you, kiss you, make you mine. Every new thing I discover about you is yet another reason why I’m a fuckin’ goner. Why I’m yours for life. Hate that you deal with that shit, fuckin’ hate it. But you’ve been dealin’ with it alone for all these years. Making you a promise right here, right now… From this moment on, you’re not dealin’ with anything alone again.”
You’ve got me. You’re my woman. I’m gonna take care of you. You can relax your grip on the reins, baby. You can trust that I’m not gonna let you go off course.”
“You give me gifts every fuckin’ day, Nora, that are absolutely priceless. Let me do what I can to give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”
The man was in love with me. And I was in love with him.
