Page 104 of The Heartbreaker

My knees were weakening.

My arms were no longer locked, my hands threatening to give out.

“I’m filling you with my fucking cum.”

Why was that image so incredibly sexy?

I could feel it—the extra wetness. Especially as he began to slow, both of our bodies needing a point of stillness.

And when he finally gave it to us, I was still looking at him.

Gazing.

Taking in that face, those eyes, the Cole nose, and his scruff that I just couldn’t get enough of.

He’d done everything I’d asked of him.

And now, tonight wasn’t even a bad memory. Tonight, aside from this, hadn’t even existed, as far as I was concerned.

He gently pulled out, wrapped an arm around my stomach and another behind my knees, and flipped me around after he lifted me into the air, carrying me back into the bathroom, where he stepped into the shower. He set me in the corner while he turned on the water, adjusting the temperature to the heat he preferred before he pulled me in to join him, guiding me under the stream.

“You awakened a fucking beast inside me.” He squirted some soap in his hand and gently washed between my legs, rinsing me off, along with his fingers, before he cupped my cheeks and pointed my face up at him. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Because you don’t have to wear a condom?”

“You would think that.” A smile moved across his face. “But, no.” He rubbed his nose against mine, and then his lips brushed my pout. Somewhere during one of the passes, he kissed me. “It’s because you gave yourself to me.”

I’d just found my breath, and yet it was still so hard to breathe.

So hard to think.

So hard to believe that this was the man who wanted me. Who had waited for me. Who had done everything in his power to protect me tonight.

“What’s going to happen when I tell you I love you?” I didn’t know where the question had come from; it just fell out of me.

“Why don’t you say it and find out?”

TWENTY-FIVE

Ridge

“Do you know what I love?” I said to Addison as I walked with her on the beach in Malibu. The sun was just starting to dip as the ocean lapped our feet, the sound of the waves and birds a harmony that I would have paid top dollar for if the water wasn’t so close to LA.

As she looked at me, the wind was blowing her auburn hair into her face, and she did nothing to move it away. It was almost as though she enjoyed it. “Tell me.”

“That no matter how many times I bring you here, you look at the beach like you’ve never seen it before.”

Her smile tonight was warmer than normal. Enticing. And addictive as hell.

I swore her eyes were lighter brown than they typically were, and they almost matched the beige sweater that hung low on her shoulders, baring most of her upper back, which wasn’t covered by her dress.

“This is going to sound funny,” she said, “but in a way, every time I come here, I see it so differently. That’s because of you, Ridge.”

“What do you mean?”

With our fingers linked, she swung our arms. “My emotions affect the way I see things. The sky, for example. In the past, when I was having a hell of a day, I’d see the clouds that were about to turn into a storm. But given that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, I only notice the big, billowy white ones or the thin, wispy streaks of fluff. And every time we’re here, I see something new that I’ve never seen before, and it shocks me—in a breathless kind of way.” She pointed toward the water. “Like that break over there, about a football field away, where the waves move in opposite directions as if the tides are changing in that exact spot. Do you see it?”

I’d stopped listening after she admitted her feelings. I could focus on nothing else, not even what she was referencing with her finger.