Page 138 of The Wildest One

I surrounded his neck with my arms, a sound of complete awe and semi-deliriousness and laughter coming from me. “What are you?”

“I told you … a man in love with you.” He kissed me, softly at first and then with a little more urgency.

With his lips on mine, I not only heard those words.

I felt them.

And he showed them to me in so many ways, this being one.

When he pulled back, he said, “I had your parents come look at the space to make sure it was as perfect as it appeared in the pictures.”

“Were they shocked you were doing this for me?”

“You mean, because I’m a wild one when it comes to you?”

I poked his chest. “Not just when it comes to me.”

He smiled. “I think your dad was happy I was bringing his baby home.”

THIRTY-FIVE

Beck

Iknew our winning streak would eventually end. There was no way we could have an undefeated season, but losing to Nashville had not been on my fucking bingo card. The blow was devastating. The morale during the flight home was plain old ugly.

My team wasn’t happy, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could say to cheer them up. Even though we’d won our first game on the road, destroying Colorado in a shutout, Nashville had outplayed us—there was no way around it.

And once we landed back in LA, I couldn’t even go home and rest my body because I had an obligation this evening to The Weston Group. From where the team’s plane landed, Jolie and I walked right across the tarmac and boarded my jet, flying to San Antonio for the opening night of Horned.

We changed during the flight, and once we touched down in Texas, we got into the SUV that was waiting for us on the runway to take us straight to the restaurant.

I was holding Jolie’s hand in the back seat, feeling how sweaty it was becoming.

“Are you nervous?”

She looked at me while she messed with her curls. She pushed them up, she slid them back, and she brought them to the front of her shoulder again. “How can you tell?”

“Where are the nerves coming from?”

Her chest rose and stayed high, even as she said, “I have this strange feeling the paparazzi is going to be there.”

“Oh, they’ll be there all right. Hart will have made sure of that. He wants every bit of press he can get for this opening. The more cameras, the more celebrity shots, the more buzz, the more reservations.”

She rubbed her lips together, her eyes so wide that I worried they were going to burst. “This is the first time we’ll be photographed as a couple. Which means, before the night is over, our picture is going to be blasted across the internet.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

She shook her head. “I’m just … anxious.”

“Don’t be. You’re mine. The only person’s opinion that matters is this guy right here.” I tapped my chest. “And you look so fucking gorgeous tonight.”

My stare drifted down her body. She had on a jumpsuit that was black, but the V-neck was cut low, showing a small amount of tit. The material hugged her hips and ass. I hadn’t been able to keep my hands off her when we landed.

“You shot me down on the plane—I get it, you didn’t want to look ‘fucked,’ as you called it. But the second we get back on that plane tonight, you are going to get fucked.”

She smiled without showing any teeth, shaking her head. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”