“How many times have we been together like this?”
I shrugged. “Maybe a million?”
“Are you still nervous?” he asked quietly, lifting my left hand and kissing my wedding ring.
I watched his tongue dart out, licking my finger, and whispered, “Not anymore.”
His expression grew serious. “Are you happy we did this?”
Nodding, I managed a hoarse “I’m giddy.” He bent, kissing me, and I said into his smiling mouth, “I think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“ ‘You think?’ ” Reaching up, he pressed both hands to my face, sliding a thumb inside my mouth. His lips twisted into a dark, teasing smile. “ ‘You think?’ ”
I nodded, pressing my teeth into his knuckle.
“Suck it,” he growled, and then shivered when I wrapped my lips around him, circling him with my tongue.
Between us, he was so hard his whole body was tense, hands shaking at the sides of my face. “Look at me.”
I shivered, unable to break my attention from where his c*ck arched straight up between us.
“Look at me,” he ground out.
I blinked up to him and he slid his thumb deeper into my mouth, pressing down against my tongue. He groaned quietly, watching as he slowly withdrew his digit; I bit down so his skin dragged against my teeth.
A calm silence settled between us. Bennett’s expression straightened and he simply stared down at me, studying every part of my face as he swept the wet pad of his thumb back and forth across my bottom lip.
“Married,” he said quietly, as if only to himself.
I loved his honest, expressive hazel eyes, his smart mouth, and his carved, stubborn jaw. I loved his tousled hair and the heavy dip of his Adam’s apple when he swallowed. I loved his broad chest, sculpted arms, and the world’s best naughty fingers. I loved his abdomen, his hips, and every long, thick inch of him pressing urgently between us.
But more than any of that, I loved his intelligence, his composure, his loyalty, his sense of humor. And I loved how he loved me.
Tilting his head, he asked, “What are you thinking, Mrs. Ryan?”
“I’m thinking how it’s a good thing I love your body so much that I can put up with your disappointing brain.”
He spread his hands around my waist and lifted me, tossing me onto the mattress.
“If you think I’m going to put up with that smart mouth of yours now that we’re married . . .” he began, crawling up the bed and hovering over me.
“Then I’m right?” I finished for him, reaching to wrap my hand around the back of his neck.
He bent to kiss me, giving me a lopsided smile. “Yeah, actually.”
I’d often had this feeling when I was alone with Bennett that time somehow melted and the entire world outside simply dissolved into nothing. I’d been nervous with the anticipation of tonight, but once his weight settled over me—and his mouth moved to my neck, my shoulders, my br**sts—instinct took over. I slid my palms up his back and over his shoulders and gasped as he returned to me, his tongue touching mine, pushing and demanding. The sounds of his excitement vibrated inside my mouth and down my neck as he grew wilder, needing to kiss and taste everything, all at once.
I suspected I knew this man better than I knew my own mind. I knew how to touch him, how to love him, how to get him to do anything and everything to my body. And so when his hands spread my thighs apart, thumbs circling and meeting in the middle to glide over my clit, and his eyes focused on my face as his lips clamped over the peak of my breast—studying, commanding, hungry for my pleasure—I lost any sense of anxiety over the night and knew we would forever be the fevered combination of Bennett and Chloe. Mr. Ryan and Miss Mills. Mr. Mills and Mrs. Ryan. Husband and wife. Bastard and bitch.
Kneeling between my legs, his hands framed my h*ps and he watched as he slid over my wet skin, before resting the head of his c*ck on my navel. I could feel my pulse thundering in my throat, and I lifted my hips, suddenly impatient for this, wanting to feel his weight on top of me, hear his desperate sounds in my ear.
“Should I say something profound before we begin?” he asked, smiling down at me.
“You can try,” I said, scratching down his stomach. “But I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
With a light pinch to my nipple, he bent low, nipping at my jaw. “I love you anyway.”
As he slid into me, I shook, crying out sharply at the relief before gasping, “I love you anyway, too.”
“It feels so f**king good.”
“I know.”
I pressed my palms to his ass, feeling the contracting muscles, pulling him deeper into me and rising to meet his every push. Bennett’s lips moved across my cheeks, aimless, to my ears and my mouth. Down my chin to my neck. His words came out broken and desperate.
So much
Oh, God, Chlo, I don’t
Let me hear
Let me hear you
Tell me what you’re feeling, tell me
Tell me what you want
I sucked at his neck, watching his shoulders bunch as he moved and moved and moved over me. “I want faster. Closer. More. Please.”
He pushed up onto his knees between my legs, gripping my thigh and pushing my legs farther apart. “Fucking hell, Chloe, you’re so beautiful.”
I groaned, feeling the heavy drag of him sliding inside me; the pleasure was amplified by the way his eyes seemed to caress my skin.
“Reach down,” he whispered. “Feel where I move in you.”
I did what he asked, letting his c*ck move over my fingertip as he slid in and out.
He bent low. “Tell me what you feel.”
“Wet,” I answered, looking up at him. “Hard.”
His gaze burned and he stared down at my fingers on him. When he smiled, he looked dangerous, and it made my heart slam into my chest.
“I know,” he said. He took in my tangled hair, picked up one of my dirty feet, and slid my ankle up his hip. “You’re a mess, you greedy f**king girl.”
He slowed, pulling almost all the way out until I panicked and wrapped my legs around his waist. It felt like a match had been lit inside my belly and it burned, spreading like wildfire down between my legs, serving only to increase the impatient need I felt.
As if sensing how close I was, Bennett pushed back into me, focused now on getting me there. He was sweaty, his hair damp from exertion, and a drop fell from his forehead onto my chest, and then another.
“Tell me how good it is,” he said, his voice low and commanding.
“I . . . I . . .”
With a sharp jab of his hips, he thrust harder into me. “Tell me, Chloe, how good the f**king is.”
I couldn’t answer, already starting to dissolve. He was wild: rough touches and punishing thrusts, flipping me on the bed and taking, taking, taking. My eyes closed, my cheek resting against the cool blankets when his hands fisted in my hair, forcing my head back as his mouth found my neck, each labored exhale sending waves of warm breath across my dampened skin. He kissed along my shoulders, his tongue reaching out to taste me, his teeth nipping and dragging along my skin. I arched my back, angling my h*ps to meet each push of his hips. My arms reached out, hands twisting in the sheets, my entire body shaking with the need to let go.
But he didn’t give me what I needed. Instead, he teased and took, and took some more, and then finally, with a determined set to his jaw, and more desperate need in his eyes than I’d seen in days, leaned in close, circling over me and giving—giving, giving—me an orgasm so intense it left me shaking and near tears in his arms. What had built in my belly to a low, heavy ache exploded up my spine and spilled like liquid heat into my limbs until my toes were curling. Fuck, it had been so long since I’d felt that: my body coming around him, trying to draw him in, greedy for every commanding inch. I worried my heart might smash through my ribs with how hard it was beating.
The relief in the epiphany—he wouldn’t change, he could only ever be this greedy, demanding Bastard—was such intense relief that I finally did give in to my emotions, shaking in his arms, clutching him until I caught my breath. But when I asked him what he wanted, and he groaned, “I want you to take over. I want you to wreck me,” I smiled, slowly climbing on top of him.
He was sweaty, hair dripping onto the pillow beneath him, and muscles bunched and coiled beneath smooth, tan skin. His eyes saw nothing in the room but me, flaring hotly at the anticipation of what I’d do. I looked him over: freshly f**ked hair, blazing hazel eyes, lips so wrecked from my mouth and skin they were red and chafed. His pulse hammered in his neck, and I dragged one finger down the sweaty center of his chest, over the vulnerability of his solar plexus, down to his belly button, and then followed the trail of hair leading to his cock, still wet from me, still hard and perfect and practically pulsing for my touch.
“No,” I said, running my hands back up his torso, reveling in the feel of him. It really wasn’t fair. In a perfect world, Bennett Ryan would be a manwhore so that more women would get to appreciate this body.
But let’s be honest: Fuck that.
“‘No’?” He repeated, eyes narrowing.
“You wore me out,” I said, shrugging. “I’m tired.”
“Chloe. Put the f**king dick in your mouth.”
“You’d like that?”
His nostrils flared, h*ps arching up into me seeming without intention on his part. “Now, Chloe.”
“Say please.”
Sitting up beneath me abruptly, he growled, “Chloe, please choke on my dick.”
I burst out laughing, curling into him and sliding my hands into that mess of sweaty, amazing hair. Leaning forward, I covered his mouth with mine, sucking and wet, hungry for the taste of him, the feel of his sounds. I kissed him for making me laugh, for making me scream. I kissed him for being the only person who truly understood me, for being so impossibly like me in some ways it was a wonder we ever agreed on anything. I kissed him for being Bennett Ryan, my Beautiful Bastard.
Against my lips, I felt him smiling, heard the quiet vibration of his laugh, muffled by my mouth. “I love you,” he said.
Pulling back, I nodded, whispering, “Me, too. I love you a scary amount.”
“Then seriously, Mrs. Ryan,” he said. “Put my dick in your mouth.”
Acknowledgments
It’s surreal to be done writing the Beautiful series less than a year after we sold it to Gallery. We’re excited to move on to something new, but it’s bittersweet because we’ve really had the time of our lives writing these saucy books. We’re going to miss these crazy characters.
We want to begin by thanking everyone who has made the journey with us in these books—from Beautiful Bastard to Beautiful Beginning—we have had the most fun doing this with you. Thank you, truly, for buying and reading our books. We’re still writing with just as much silliness and passion as when we started this adventure. We sincerely hope you love what comes next.
Our agent, Holly Root, had a sixth sense about Gallery’s Adam Wilson; we think she just knew that he would be a perfect fit for these books, and for us. We’ve said it in every book, and we’ll say it again: thanks to both of you for being exactly who you are, because you’re exactly what we needed. Holly, you’re hands-on whenever we need you, and hands-off when you trust us to do our thing. Adam, you’ve made these books so much better and distracted us from your plethora of margin notes by making them hilarious (and spot-on). Look for the petal cupcakes heading your way. We like you. We like you
a lot.
What Jen Bergstrom said to us in Orlando is true: Simon & Schuster’s Gallery imprint works like a big family, and we’ve felt that from day one. Thanks to Adam for bringing us to the table. And to Carolyn Reidy, Louise Burke, Jen Bergstrom: thank you for taking us on with such investment and enthusiasm. Thank you, Kristin Dwyer and Mary McCue in publicity, for your tireless work on these six novels in only ten months (and also for just being badass and irresistibly adorable and our preciouses). Thank you, Liz Psaltis and Ellen Chan, for the amazing work on the marketing side. Thank you, Carly Sommerstein, our production editor, who we’ve sent into the trenches with our quick turnarounds. We’ve loved every single cover—thank you, Lisa Litwack and John Vairo!—the Gallery art department really hit it out of the park designing them. Thank you to our first copy editor for the joke that will never stop being funny. And a preemptive thanks to whoever volunteers to always ensure Adam eats the cupcake with the candy bone on it. Yes, we’re twelve.
Lauren Suero, you’ve been so good to us and to Team Beautiful from day one. Thank you for running our social media, following every bit of Beautiful news, and keeping us buoyed in our text box. Jennifer Grant, thank you for help on the promo side and with the website. What you’ve done for us is seriously amazing. Thank you to every blogger who has reviewed us, recced us, tweeted us, and talked about us. Your support means so much!!
To our Beautiful pre-readers—Erin, Martha, Tonya, Myra, Tawna, Anne, Kellie, Katy, and Gretchen—thank you for giving us your eyes, your time, your thoughts. These books have been ridiculously fun for us to write, and we hope they’ve been even a fraction as fun to read. We really do love it when you fill our box with happy reactions and constructive criticism. Hopefully your eyes aren’t tired, because we have lots more books to
come.
Of course, we want to thank the fandom, because it’s where we met and where we remain. In the past nearly five years, you’ve become more than a community we joined to read and write fanfic. Collectively, you have become some of our closest friends and a group of women about whom we care very deeply. Thanks for being excited for us and for sharing your own victories with us along the way. We hope you feel pride in our happiest moments the way we feel it in each of yours. We adore you all.