Chapter 8
Lucy
Iwoke up slowly while the world was dark, dawn still hours away.
The low rumble of waves crashing on the shoreline kept up the rhythmic churn I’d grown accustomed to over the last few months.
The first thing I registered was warmth. Bronson was next to me, warming up the bed.
The second thing I noticed was his mouth pressing a slow, deliberate kiss to the curve of my shoulder.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” I asked, my voice still thick with dreams.
He didn’t answer right away. He pressed another kiss to my collarbone, then lower, his lips moving across the swell of my breast with a patience that made my whole body feel like it was melting into the mattress.
“I’m making the most of the last few hours we have together,” he growled.
My heart clenched so hard it nearly stole my breath.
But then his mouth moved lower still, and the ache in my chest got tangled up with the heat spreading through the rest of me.
We hadn’t talked about it yet. What it meant.
And I knew that in the next few hours I’d find out if I was something more than a passing love affair for the man.
I wanted more. Ached for it.
But I understood that I might not mean that to him. So I needed to take advantage of every last second I still had with him by my side.
I stopped being able to hold on to the sadness rippling through me, because Bronson was kissing his way down my stomach now, slow and purposeful, his large hands sliding my thighs apart with a gentleness that didn’t match his size at all.
I’d been with so few men.
The only two I knew were Jimmy and Bronson, and they were opposites of each other.
Jimmy had come into my life when I was barely more than a girl, and I’d spent so many years believing that what we had was normal… that intimacy was supposed to feel transactional and rushed. A little lonely.
Bronson had dismantled that belief completely within less than three days.
And when he pressed a soft kiss to the inside of my thigh, I was already trembling for him.
He parted my slit with his tongue, lapping into my moist, wet folds.
I gasped, my hands flying down to grip his hair as he kissed me with the same focused attention he gave to everything.
Then he licked up through my center in one slow, deliberate stroke that made my hips roll up off the bed.
“Bronson,” I breathed, his name coming out like a plea.
He rumbled out a low laugh that landed in my pussy, then set up a rhythm that made me squirm against his lips.
He pinned my legs down and held me in place, as the tip of his tongue circled my clit in slow, maddening loops that wound me tight.
A broken sound spilled out of me as he slid two fingers in and curled them forward while his mouth kept working.
I cried out, bucking my hips against him.
And before long, I came apart so completely that I forgot my own name.
Hunger rolled through me in long, crashing waves, my thighs shaking against his shoulders, my fingers twisting in his hair, his name on my lips.
When I came back to myself he was already moving, crawling back up the length of me and pulling me into his arms until I was tucked against his chest.
I lay there in the dark and let the quiet settle over me.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt free of my past.
Jimmy was in a holding cell. The divorce would finalize quickly now.
And everything he’d tried to take from me: my music, my future, my life, had all been pulled back out of his hands by the man sharing my bed tonight.
I was free. The concept felt enormous and simple all at once.
But then I thought about Bronson leaving, and the freedom didn’t feel so good anymore.
I’d never meet anyone like him again. I knew it deep in my heart.
I’d fallen in love with this steady man, solid as a rock, and the thought of him driving away toward Red Oak Mountain without me sat heavy in my chest.
I tipped my head back to look at him.
“Are you really ready to leave Tidehaven?” I asked, keeping my voice careful and light. “Like, as soon as possible?”
He held me with his dark, steady eyes.
“I was only supposed to be here on vacation. I don’t even work for Cal.” He paused, and sadness streaked his face for a moment. “But I’m glad I stayed. I never would have met you otherwise.”
The bedroom was charged with everything we hadn’t said.
“What about you?” he asked, as he stroked my breast slowly, perking my nipple up. “Does this place still have a hold on you?”
Tidehaven had never been my home.
It was just where I was right now. There was nothing to give up here.
“No,” I said. “I don’t really have… a home. My life up until now has been nomadic. Touring ten months out of the year and resting for a few months in between. I haven’t been in Tidehaven long.”
Bronson studied me, and then one corner of his mouth curved up slowly.
“Is that how you’re going to keep living your life? With all the tours and the fame? I imagine it’s hard to walk away from.”
I met his eyes and told him in no uncertain terms, “I can see myself touring again. But… not the way I have in the past. I want a real home. Roots. Maybe even… a family.”
I waited to see what he’d say, feeling like I’d just put my heart out there, tender and fragile.
He waited a beat before answering, his face turning serious.
“You know,” he rumbled. “I kind of like the idea of keeping an eye on you. Just to make sure you’re really safe. Red Oak Mountain’s got good people and a quiet life. Plus, there’s all those lakes we could fuck in.”
I laughed, all the tension disappearing from my chest. “Is that your way of asking me on a date, Bronson Hale?”
He broke into a full grin then, just visible in the moonlight filtering in through the window, a rare sight that sent up a spectacular fireworks display from my chest.
“How about more than a date,” he said. “I’m not done with you. Not even close. I’d love it if you wanted to come out there with me. You could see how you liked it… how you like me.”
I snuggled closer into his chest. “I think I might like you more than you know.”
That’s when he kissed my hair, a gentle touch from a giant man. I could get lost in his arms forever if he wanted me to.
He reached for his phone on the nightstand and turned the screen toward me, and there we were. A series of grainy photographs. From the recording studio and the parking lot outside. Then the little fish restaurant we’d stopped at. And another one of us kissing on the beach the next morning.
“The whole world already thinks we’re dating,” he drawled.
“Lucy and Ben” were trending across the entire internet.
And the comments were full of hearts and question marks as people lost their minds completely. Everyone wanted to know more about the hottie I’d snagged.
Bronson kissed me again, slower and deeper this time.
Then he rumbled, “Looks like the nickname stuck. And that means we know the leak came from the recording studio, because that’s the only place we used that name. Marcus might not be as trustworthy as he said.”
That didn’t surprise me.
The music industry could be cutthroat. He probably got paid a thousand dollars to tip off the paparazzi that I’d be there.
I looked at the photographs for a moment longer.
We did look like a couple. Like a couple in love.
“We look like a fine couple,” I murmured.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “We do.”
There was something in the way he said it that settled deep in my bones. A truth I didn’t have to question.
He set the phone down and pulled me back against his chest.
I closed my eyes and felt the steady rhythm of him all around me, and thought about farmer’s markets and dirt roads and a small town with one stoplight and three hundred acres of Arkansas land where people might let me forget I was famous.
Jimmy was gone.
The life I’d been trapped in was over.
And for the first time, the future didn’t feel like something I had to survive.
It felt like something I could choose.
And then I thought about Bronson.
I turned slightly in his arms, looking up at him.
“I don’t want Tidehaven,” I said softly. “Not anymore.”
His gaze sharpened, his eyes piercing straight into my heart.
“Good,” he said. “Because I want to show you what my life looks like. We’ve already seen yours.”
“You’re going to show me Red Oak Mountain?”
That gorgeous smile of his flashed across his face, and I saw ‘Ben’ then. The man who Bronson really was when he wasn’t busy trying to save the world.
“I’d love to show it to you, but I have to warn you, once you’ve been there, you might never want to leave again.”
“And I might even play dirty to get you to stay,” he growled as he pinched the nipple he’d been playing with.
I gasped and realized Bronson had more tricks up his sleeve. It had only been a few days, and I was already addicted to his touch.
He pulled me closer, his hand sliding into my hair as he kissed me, slow and certain and nothing like a goodbye.
And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t stepping into a future someone else had built for me.
I was walking into one I’d chosen for myself.
With him.