Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Brand settled his hands on Ash’s hips with a borderline offended look. “No.”
“…shorts?”
No borderline about it, this time. Offended, horrified, absolutely incensed. “No.”
Ash laughed and leaned in, pressing his nose to Brand’s. “You can’t go to an amusement park in a suit.”
“I most certainly can,” Brand grumbled, “and I most certainly will.”
“…oh my God.” Ash couldn’t help stealing a quick kiss, nipping at Brand’s upper lip. “You are the cutest, stuffiest thing.”
“There is nothing cute about me.”
“There is everything cute about you.” God, Ash almost couldn’t stand how…everything Brand was. He didn’t have words for it, for the way Brand made his every emotion turn up to such intensity he could nearly drown in them. Including in the fond warmth that swelled inside him, as he touched his nose-tip to Brand’s. “You’re almost lovable,” he admitted shyly.
Brand stilled, his scowl easing. Darkened green eyes locked on Ash, the curl of his hands turning possessive. “Almost?” he repeated softly.
“Entirely,” Ash corrected, heart in his throat.
Brand’s sharply inhaled breath was like a gunshot cracking across the room, leaving trembling silence in its wake. He leaned in closer—such strength, such heat, the way his bulk enfolded Ash, turning the man into the entirety of Ashton’s self-contained world.
“So you love me,” Brand whispered.
Ash bit his lip, his pulse a thing of wildfire, his heart a vessel of fragile glass so full he thought it would break its seams and shatter. “You said it, not me.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“You first.”
A slow, warm smile spread across Brand’s lips, softening the stern lines of his face. “I should think I show it in everything I do.” His mouth ghosted across Ash’s. “And the fact that I have not quit yet.”
That smile cradled Ash’s heart in delicate fingers and stroked it until it trembled; he couldn’t help smiling back, feeling like he would burst with it. “Say it and I’ll let you get out of the amusement park.”
“Yet suffering through the amusement park is how I intended to show it.”
Ash burst into delighted laughter. “Brand,” he chided, and Brand echoed with a husky, rolling chuckle.
“You are a petulant, pouting child,” Brand said, “and I love you, young Master Ashton.”
He barely got the words out before Ash kissed him—needing to taste those words, needing to feel how Brand’s mouth softened when he said them. That kiss tasted like a promise made months ago, whispered in words he hadn’t known how to understand, then.
He understood, now.
And understood the pull on his heart, every time Brand touched him, spoke to him, whispered his name. Fate or no fate, every pull on his heart was the tug of the red string tying him to Brand, a contract deeper than any employment document. He was tangled in Brand, and Brand was tangled in him, the knots so inextricably twined they’d never come free.
And he never wanted them to.
He couldn’t breathe for the brightness inside him, and he broke back, leaning his brow to Brand’s with a giddy little smile. “And I love when you indulge me,” he teased. “I also kinda love you.”
Brand arched a brow. “Kind of?”
“Oh, come on. You’ve got to let me deflect a little.”
“I will allow it this time.” Brand’s splayed fingers slid over Ash’s back, molding them together, jerking him in roughly until his thighs ached to span Brand’s bulk, until he couldn’t escape the shivering reminder that he was naked beneath the oversized pajama top. “Kiss me again, you unrepentant brat.”
Ash chuckled, eyes lidding as he slid his fingers into Brand’s perfectly slicked hair, mussing it into a tangle and drawing him in to trace his tongue along Brand’s upper lip. “You are the bossiest, cockiest, biggest asshole of a valet on the planet.”
“And that, young Master,” Brand said, already tumbling Ash back to the bed, hands sure and steady and knowing on his body, “is why you love me.”
THE END