Page 68 of My Heart Still Beats
My tastes in the bedroom run dark. Though I recently left the BDSM lifestyle, I’m not the kind of lover who is soft and gentle.
I like to fuck, and I like to fuck hard.
“No, you don’t.” I remove her arms from around me and step back. “And I’m not looking for a bedwarmer tonight. If you are, maybe you’d better find another dancing partner.”
“What if I’ve found the dancing partner I want?”
“If you can be content to just dance, maybe you have.”
“I think I can convince you otherwise,” she says.
I smile. “Don’t let my friendly personality fool you.”
“Oh, I don’t.” She wiggles her boobs. “I like things dark.”
I dance with her for a few more moments, but then I let her go. “Thank you for being here, Amy. Thank you for helping to make my brother’s bachelor party something to remember. But I think I’m done dancing.”
I head back to the table where Braden still sits. He’s not dancing with any of the women, but heiswatching them intently.
“Fuck,” he says. “They’re all so gorgeous. Where did you find them?”
I laugh lightly. “I’ll never reveal my secrets, brother.”
“Do you like that one you were dancing with?”
“She liked me more.”
“You’re not attached. You left the club, and you left the lifestyle. What the hell are you looking for, Ben?”
My brother doesn’t realize it, but he just asked me a loaded question.
I want what he and Skye have. I long for it. But I’m not looking for anyone because I already know who I want. I need to go slowly for her. And for me, because there are things I have to take care of first.
If Braden knew what I’ve been hiding all these years, he’d disown me. It’s so much worse than him asking our mother to go back into a burning house to get his comic books. Indeed, that was our mother’s fault more than Braden’s. He was just a kid. She should have known better, but that was Mom. She’d do anything for either one of us.
She was an amazing woman, and she was taken away from us way too soon.
Braden and I often wish she were here—that we could give her everything that our fortune would allow.
But then I wonder, if shewerehere, would we even have made the fortune?
If she’d been there when I was seventeen, would I have gone down those paths best left untrodden?
That dark time.
Something I thought was resolved, but clearly is not—at least not as of three months ago.
This is a road I must travel alone.
Without Braden. Without my father. And certainly without Tessa Logan.
Chapter Nineteen
Tessa
One of the male dancers heads to Skye, pulls her out of her chair, and leads her away from the table and onto the soft white sand.
Skye, who is normally shy around strangers and loves control, has apparently had one too many of her eponymous cocktails tonight. She gyrates along with the handsome man, sliding her hands over his broad shoulders and sculpted chest.
