24. Adam
ADAM
The music pulsed low at Edge, our crew’s favorite club in the heart of The Luxe Hotel.
Brandon and I were the first to arrive, and we snagged a spot on a velvet couch that the ladies loved.
With scotches in hand, we talked about his favorite neighborhoods in Paris, then the best new restaurants in Vegas, before we segued to interesting stories in the news and the world.
Books, politics, work, life—we touched on all of it, and more when Jake and Finn joined us.
Jake covered drinks as he’d promised to do, and we toasted when the waiter brought a fresh round.
“To new business,” Jake said, then tipped his forehead to me. “And to doing business with friends. May it always go so well.”
I clinked my glass to his. “And even though you always give me shit, there’s no one I’d rather have inking my deals.”
Finn cleared his throat, chiming in, “So proud of my protégé. I taught Jake well.”
Jake laughed, shooting Finn a look. “Yeah, I’m your business partner, asshole. Not your protégé.”
“Details. Details,” Finn joked, then dropped the teasing. “Best damn business partner ever. And friend.”
Brandon raised his glass. “And let’s drink to old friends.”
“Hear, hear,” I said.
We all toasted to that once more. Finn and Jake had been good friends for years, like Brandon and me. And good friends were the guys you could ask to do anything, as I’d done with Brandon earlier.
A few minutes later, the ladies arrived. Lily strode in first, and Finn stared hungrily at his wife.
Kate followed Lily, and Jake gazed at the tall, willowy brunette like he wanted to tear off her clothes. Nina appeared next, and when my eyes landed on her, my heart hammered against my chest.
This woman had turned my mind upside down in forty-eight hours. The night I’d found her list, I’d still been stalled in my Rose-induced time-out. I was Mr. Thanks But No Thanks when it came to trust. I didn’t want to take a chance with anyone who could stab me in the back.
But then Nina showed me what trust truly was. By opening her innermost thoughts and deepest fantasies to me, and only me. By letting me be her guide through her wild, dirty dreams.
I’d thought I was the teacher, showing her how to have all her filthy fantasies.
Turned out, she’d been teaching me all along.
How to trust again.
How to fall again.
How to open my heart to the woman who was meant to be mine.
Vulnerability.
Intimacy.
Love.
I’d never seen that trio coming, but as Nina walked toward me, exquisitely sensual in an emerald dress that hugged her curves, I saw all that and more.
I saw everything in her.
Before she could reach us, I rose, walking past the other patrons, my eyes only on her. When she was inches from me, I held her face. “You,” I whispered, then I kissed her lips, tasting forever on them.
I’d intended to ask her for number eleven.
I had it all mapped out. How I’d tell her, how I’d let her know she’d stolen my heart.
But when you’re kissing the woman you’ve fallen madly in love with, you don’t always want to wait for the perfect time to tell her.
Not when she’d roped her arms around my neck as she gave her mouth to me, asking with her body to be kissed fiercely, passionately.
And with ownership.
That was what my Nina had wanted from a man.
That was what she wanted from this man.
To be taken.
And hell, was I ever taken with her. So damn taken that when I broke the kiss, I couldn’t wait.
“I’d like to think that kiss made it clear, but I’ve learned from you that words matter.
That spelling out wishes and wants is so damn important.
” I took a beat and gazed into her deep brown eyes as I clasped my gorgeous woman’s face.
“So let me say this—I broke the rules of engagement.”
A grin played across her pink lips, and she whispered, “Me too.”
That emboldened me, but then, I was already feeling bold tonight. “I broke the most important one of all.”
“You did?” Her voice was a little flirty, but full of so much hope—a hope I felt deep in my soul.
“I broke it, and I don’t want to fix it because I don’t want to go back to friendship with you.”
“I don’t either.”
“I want to have everything with you. I want to be your man, your lover, your person, and your friend at the end of the day.”
She trembled, her voice hitching. “I want all of that too.”
I ran my thumb across her cheek. “And in case it wasn’t clear, I am wildly, madly, deeply in love with you.”
“Oh, Adam, I’m so in love with you.” One lone tear slid down her face, but before I could kiss it away, she brushed her lips with mine in a soft, tender kiss.
A kiss only she could give me.
And in it, I felt her ownership.
Of my heart and my soul and my whole damn mind.
It was everything I couldn’t live without.
When she broke the kiss, my head was hazy, and my mind was racing to where I wanted to go, to what I wanted to say.
But she beat me to it, surprising the hell out of me when she said, “But there’s one more thing on my list. I want number eleven.”
I’d never left a place so fast in my life.