What Braxton had revealed spiraled through my mind.
The debt that was left to pay.
What I owed.
The sin I’d committed.
Penny set those dark, dark eyes on me.
Full of trust.
Full of affection.
My spirit thrashed.
Because the only thing I wanted right then was to be good enough.Thirty-OneMiaThere was a knock outside the main door.
Heavy.
Filled with implication.
I couldn’t stop my grin. The speed of my heart that decided it was a fine time to take off at a sprint. The excitement that blazed as I tossed the shirt I was folding onto the bed.
I poked my head out into the living room. “It’s open.”
As if I would ever shut him out.
The door already rested open an inch, and he nudged it the rest of the way, the man filling up the doorway as he leaned against the jamb.
Looking like the most decadent sin.
Smirk riding on his lips while his jeans rode low on his waist. Though today he was wearing a button down, sleeves rolled up his masculine, sinewy arms.
I worried there was literal drool running down my chin.
That gaze raked me over like he was seeing the breaking day. “Trying to wreck me again, I see,” he grumbled in that low voice.
Today it was a tease.
I never knew if I was going to get him gruff and hard or light and playful.
Didn’t matter.
I’d take him either way.
He’d been mine for the last three weeks. No questions. No reservations.
Together.
Our days and nights shared in the most blissful of ways.
Testing and playing in those deep, dark waters.
The fear hanging over our heads had dissolved into vapor.
Back in L.A., an arrest had been made for a string of robberies. All of them had happened over the last month, and all of them within a ten-mile radius of the gallery. The detective was currently working to connect the man to the gallery’s botched robbery and Lana’s death.
Since there had been no more close calls or threats, we had to believe everything that had happened here had been coincidence. Our nerves frayed. Relating every single bump in the night to the trauma that we had sustained.
A sliver of unease rolled through my being.
Honestly, I still couldn’t come to terms if it was right, if it was selfish and self-centered—finding this joy after Lana had been gone so soon.
The bigger part of me had to accept that beauty was born of the ashes.
That healing was found with those that most understood.
This man had suffered the greatest loss.
If he’d let me, I’d spend the rest of my life proving that love could come after tragedy.
I knew we weren’t close to that.
So often, he would get sketched out and withdraw.
But each time, he just came closer.
My blindingly beautiful falling star.
A giggle slipped free as he stalked a foot into the room.
God, he made me feel like I was.
Free.
As if I’d found everything I’d been missing and hadn’t known to look for.
“It’s only fair, since you wrecked me the day that I met you,” I told him.
I shimmied farther out into the room. Wearing a pair of cut offs that were short. A tank without a bra. No shoes on my feet.
A needy growl rumbled in his chest.
“Just what do you think you’re up to, Sunder Princess?” A smirk flirted around his sexy mouth.
I turned, wiggling my butt just a bit, knowing that was all that it would take to get him to follow. I released a roll of light laughter as I talked to him from over my shoulder, “Um . . . laundry. You know, super princess-y duties.”
Leif laughed.
Laughed that sound that was quickly becoming my drug. “So high and mighty, aren’t you?”
I giggled more, a needy breath leaving me when he planted his hands on my hips from behind, his face pressed into my neck.
Tingles rushed.
I slowly spun around in his hold, hiking up on my toes and stealing a sweet peck of a kiss. “I sure hope you don’t want me for my money.”
He nuzzled in deeper, his nose running the angle of my jaw, words a whisper that quickened my heart into a frenzy. “We’ll just have to live destitute together.”
God, I wanted to hold him tight, confess it sounded like the perfect plan. That I would live every day with him however we were going to be. Just as long as we were together.
But I forced myself to ride on his lightness. To play along with his tease. I nipped his chin with my teeth. “What are you talking about, Drummer Dude? You are going to be a superstar.”
Brown-sugar eyes danced, the man taking me by the hand and slowly spinning me around right in the middle of the room.
I nearly fell straight into a swoon.
“That what you want? A superstar?” he rumbled in his rough, magnetic way.
My face pinched in emphasis. “No Leif, I just want you.”