Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 37270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
She’s just perfect.
Tracing her hair back as she sleeps, I watch a little smile playing on her lips—lips I’m obliged to kiss gently enough not to wake her but to let her know I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere that she isn’t from now on. My mind floods with all the things that matter most to me now. This fancy house with all its empty rooms could be a family home. Our family home. The babies I’ve vowed to fill her with. The house and security I know I can provide for all of us forever.
Her dad, Steve, is almost just a passing thought. Knowing Melissa feels the same things I’m feeling sets my mind at ease on the one hand, but I feel a defensive reflex with anything to do with her.
Her dad’s buy-in on my business proposal means I’ll acquire his house as an initial investment. He’s in New Zealand raising the rest. It seemed like a win-win deal the past few months we’ve discussed it. Steve’s a nice guy. I’m bending some of my rules to ensure he can get in on my business idea, which is more property ironically for Steve, who’s giving up his home to get a head start.
I hadn’t factored falling for his daughter into the equation, and Melissa seemed to look concerned at any mention of her staying in Australia longer than a holiday. I know she lives—lived—with her dad, so I can’t help figuring he hasn’t exactly told her everything about his reasons for coming to Australia. Or if they’ll have a home to return to once he’s sealed our deal.
That was before last night. Things are different now. As much as I could see our future within these four walls, I’d go anywhere as long as it was what Melissa wanted. I’d love it if she stayed here in Australia. We could raise our kids here and make me feel like I’ve righted some wrong—this thing I have about being adopted.
It’s given me a dad-sized chip on my shoulder, one I thought I’d have to carry for the rest of my days until Melissa came along. Now it’s all I want. She’s all I want.
It’s after ten, unspeakably late for me before I catch the faint sound of the phone in my office pulsing out a low ring, but work can wait. The whole world can wait. I’ve staked my claim on my girl, and I’m not focusing on anything but her until she’s all mine. Mine forever with a baby in her belly and a ring on her finger. That’s the only project that interests me right now.
I’m still watching her when her lids finally flutter open. A little mew of sleepy pleasure is the first sound from her lips that I instantly kiss.
“Morning…” I rasp in her ear, making sure she can feel all of me leaning into her body curled up under the covers. She breathes in sharply, followed by a low purr, telling me she can feel just how good a morning she could be having.
Feeling my arousal honing its way toward what we both know she needs most, I watch her eyes widen and can literally see the thought pulsing in her mind. I shake my head gently, making her pout.
“I want your first time to be special,” I remind her, though I could bury myself in her now and not leave this bed for a week. A bigger part of me knows it has to be special.
“This is pretty special,” she observes, glancing around, having the confidence to trace her fingers through my hair and stroke my face—things that make her more special to me by the second.
“I guess I’m just a little old-fashioned,” I confess, which I am.
I mean, staking my claim and proving she’s mine is a nice sentiment, but down here in Australia, a ring on a finger is the only true sign of “She’s taken, so go look someplace else, mate.”
I also know that neither of us can wait much longer for me to claim her properly, but it’s the ring and the life that goes with it I’m craving equally right now. It’s the only thing I want as much as I want to be inside her. A ring will seal this forever deal once and for all. The first vows we’ve taken are the only ones that count. We want each other, and I can provide her with everything she could ever want or need.
“Plus, I haven’t even shown you the house… or any of Sydney yet,” I add, knowing that, like me, it’s the last thing she’s interested in right now.
Her hands run up my arms and hook around my neck, pulling me down to kiss her again and telling me what she’d rather do all day. My hand finds its way under the covers, cupping her already-wet sex and making her gasp before she winces a little.