Smug Bastard - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,87

mess, and not looking for a relationship after what Becca put me through, you were Baby K… Kyle’s sister,” he rumbled under his breath. “But fuck, woman, from the moment I saw you, I knew I was in trouble. Everything about you has crawled under my skin and consumed me. Made me fucking nuts. I spent so many nights over these past months thinking about you or wondering about if my bike hadn’t broken down or I hadn’t agreed to Kyle’s foolish idea to drive across country with you. The thought I’d never have known you, your smile, or laugh… the way you taste, cry out my name, or feel when I’m inside you.” His fingers gripped my hips, spinning me to him.

I inhaled sharply through my nose, heat blazing down my torso to my core.

“It made me so insane.” His grip tightened. “That trip was the best time I’ve ever had. I had just come from the worst darkest place in my life, bitter, angry. But being with you made it all disappear. I laughed and smiled, no longer hating, but had hope…”

“You just got divorced, barely got over Becca.”

“You don’t get it. Becca never came close to making me feel what you do. In a strange way, I feel all this shit was leading me to you. Deserve it or not, I don’t care. I want you, Kinsley. The thought of losing you made me realize something.”

“What?”

His eyes blazed with hunger as he pushed me into tree, pinning me there with his frame; the feel of his erection pushing against me made me gasp.

“It wasn’t just the idea of wanting to be inside you again.” He breathed against my ear, trailing down my neck to my breasts, flooding my system with desire and need. “It was knowing I never wanted to leave.” His mouth grazed my neck. “I never not want to be inside you… around you. Near you.”

He tipped his head back. “Wherever you are, I want to be.”

“Shhh.”

He blinked at me, his brow furrowing.

A wicked smile curved my mouth. “Too much talking.”

A vibration came from his chest as his mouth crashed down on mine, claiming and demanding.

I had no idea where life would take us or what was ahead. All I knew was I wanted to be with this Smug Bastard.

And a dog named Goat.

Epilogue

Smith

(2 years later)

“Hey.” Her voice floated through the air, snapping my gaze up to the woman in the doorway, a smile on her face, a look in her eyes that usually led to me clearing my desk with her body as I sprawled her naked figure over it.

“Hey.” A smile I could never fight when she was near, curled my mouth.

“What are you doing?” She leaned into the doorjamb of my home office. Most days my office was out at a building site.

“Just finishing up these contracts before we take off.” I straightened in my chair, stretching my back. Sitting behind a desk was my least favorite part of my job, but when you were owner of your own company, it was simply part of the deal.

Only a year and half old, my construction company had taken off. It was growing so fast that I knew I would have to hire more employees and possibly get a business manager. I liked being outside and building more than being behind the desk, but my past left me very hesitant to let anyone else step in.

“You know, I still haven’t gotten payment this month for my residuals.” She sauntered into the room, a coy smile on her face. “The business plan, the PR, the logo.” She arched an eyebrow, prowling around my desk in her tiny shorts and tank.

Fuck, this woman could undo me in seconds. A hum echoed in my throat as I grabbed her hips, pulling her onto my lap, her legs straddling mine.

“You think you deserve residuals?” My thumb rubbed her cactus tattoo, which turned me on every time I saw it, knowing our story was marked on her body.

“The logo itself gets you more work than you know what to do with.” Kinsley leaned into me, her mouth brushing mine, her hand tugging at the buttons of my jeans, getting my dick hard in a blink.

She wasn’t wrong about the logo. The offhand idea she had come up with that one morning in New Orleans more than two years ago was on billboards, magazines, bus stops, and TV. My workers all wore T-shirts with the logo, which got us more