Page 106 of Imperfect Arrangement
I swallow, my throat dry. “Doyou?”
There’s a pause. And then his hands still, palms spreading over my waist, thumbs brushing soft, barely there strokes against my ribs. “There are things in life we can’t prove. Things we don’t know if they are real or just stories, and yet, our heart wants to believe them anyway. The same way I’d like to think there’s someone out there meant just for me. Someone who’s loved me in another life, loves me in this one, and will love me in the next.” His voice dips even lower, rumbling against my spine. “Wouldn’t you want that too?”
A sharp pang of longing pierces straight through me, unexpected and unwanted. Because if this were a fairy tale, I know exactly who I’d want my soulmate to be.
But thisisn’ta fairy tale.
Raymond and I collided by chance, not destiny. We weren’t written in the stars, and I’m not naïve enough to believe that we are.
Before I can find words, any words, he squeezes my waist gently.
“Shooting star.” His breath is warm against my ear. “Make a wish, Firefly. Don’t think. Just wish.”
And out of all the things I could wish for, I wish that if soul mates do exist…he’s mine.
“Do you want to know what I wished for?” His voice is a whisper against my skin, and then his arms tighten, big palms settling against my bare stomach.
I can’t think, can’t breathe.
“Raymond—”
“I wish that every year on my daughter’s birthday, you and I will bake a cake for her after we put her to bed,” he says, his voice thick and gravelly. “And unlike this year, you don’t have to show up at my bedroom door pretending to check on the cake when what you really want is for me to make love to you. Over and over again.”
My entire body clenches at his words, but he doesn’t stop.
“I wish that when I’m in the shower, you’re with me,” he continues, and the way he says it, like a promise, has me burning from the inside out. “I’m pounding into you hard, making you forget all your anxieties about how perfect everything will be the next day. After that, I’ll take you toourbedroom and eat you alive until you’re screaming my name. I’ll make sweet love to you before I do you dirty.”
I press my thighs together, heat thrumming low in my belly.
“Then,” he breathes against my ear, dragging his nose along my jaw, “I’ll bring you here, every year, under the stars, where we’ll wish upon a shooting star before I take you again, slow and deep.”
My chest is rising and falling fast, my breaths uneven. I feel like a thousand butterflies have made a home in my belly and flutter to escape at his words.
This version of him, the one so few people get to see, doesn’t belong in this world. He reminds me of some kind of prince or a Greek warrior, the kind who would fight to the death for his woman. The kind who would worship her between the sheets and lay his life at her feet if she asked. He might be ruthless to the world, but he’s also the man who believes in soul mates and miracles. A man who doesn’t justwantlove—helivesfor it.
Butwho am I?
I’m the girl who secretly believes in fairy tales but pretends she doesn’t. The girl who just wished on a star thathe—this man—could be my soulmate and now I’mterrifiedto admit it.
But isn’t tonight about being fearless, Wills?
“If the idea of soulmates is real, I’d want you to be mine, Ray.” The words slip from my lips, raw and unfiltered, my heart hammering so loudly I can barely hear my own voice. I’ve never felt this vulnerable, like I’ve ripped my chest open and handed him my still-beating heart, trusting him not to crush it.
Raymond doesn’t hesitate.
In a blink, he turns me, and suddenly I’m straddling him. His hands clamp on to my waist like he’s anchoring himself, like heneedsme as much as I need him. A deep, guttural groan rumbles from his throat a split second before his mouth crashes against mine.
It’s desperate. It’s wild. It’severything.
His hands are all over me, greedy and unrelenting, like he can’t decide which part of me he wants to touch first, and my body responds in kind, pressing into him.
He’s so freaking hard, his cock straining through his pants, twitching beneath me as I shift. A pulse of heat surges through me. I press my palms against his chest, feeling the solid plane of muscle flex beneath my fingers. I want more. I need more.
As if he can read my mind, Ray shrugs off his jacket and pops open two buttons of his shirt. With shaky fingers, I reach for the rest, undoing them one by one before peeling the fabric away. The fairy lights in the gazebo cast soft shadows over the ridges of his abs and the defined lines of his chest, and for a brief second, I forget to breathe.
I swear, this man was carved by the gods.
“My turn now,” he murmurs, voice thick and teasing as his fingers find the hem of my shirt. I don’t stop him, because in this magical night under the shooting stars, I want to witness the full force of this attraction.
