Page 90 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
Never in my life have I ever wanted to get married. Never. Now that it’s here, and I’m faced with the idea without my sisters by my side, I feel lost.
“Darlin’,” Beast purrs at me, taking my plate away, and then putting his hands on either side of my face. “You don’t have to fight the world by yourself.” He wets his lower lip with his tongue. “Not anymore.”
My hands are still trembling when I place them over his.
“I don’t want to get married without Reba,” I repeat, but what I’m really saying is I don’t want to get married without my sisters. Only, I can’t fix that part of the equation. The only thing I can do now is save my best friend. If I can do that, if I can at least protect one person that I love, I’ll call it a win.
Beast releases me, putting my hands in my lap before dropping to his knees in front of me.
My breath hitches strangely as he slides a ring from the pocket of his vest, studying it on his calloused palm for a moment before he looks up at me.
“I will get you Reba,” he tells me, and my brow lifts up in question. “If I don’t, you can walk down that aisle with someone else.” The sheer confidence in his voice staggers me; I want to believe him, I do. My life hasn’t exactly set me up to trust people, but I’m learning. Actions speak so much louder than words, and Beast is not a man who speaks many of them. If he’s saying this to me, he intends to follow it up with real-life consequences.
This is as close to an official marriage proposal as I’m likely to get from Beast.
He takes my hand and, after meeting my eyes and waiting for my choked nod, slips a ring onto my finger.
From Grey’s fancy diamond ring to stories of Crown’s heirloom ring to Beast’s thick gold band with rubies embedded in it.
“I had this made from my UFC championship belt,” he tells me, and now I’ve got two brows up. That’s … sort of a big fucking deal. Those things are made of real gold; their value is like, three hundred K or some shit. He took an heirloom from his MMA days and turned it into a ring for me?
“Don’t you … isn’t this important?” I ask, staring down at the ring with a slight frown.
“Not as important as you, darlin’.”
He takes my right foot and carefully removes the leather boot that I’m wearing. He sets it aside, almost reverently, before reaching for the other.
“What are you doing?” I breathe, pulse thudding in my skull. I want so badly for Beast to break down, to rut me the way he did beside the pool (twice). Is that what he’s up to right now? He sits back on his heels, sliding his thumb across his lower lip and cursing under his breath.
“Taking care of my woman,” he tells me, as if that explains everything. He looks back at me before going for my socks. The way he peels them down by feet, it’s almost pornographic. His fingers tease my skin, sending thrills through me that shouldn’t be sexual, but somehow are anyway. I’m pretty sure Beast could poke me in the arm, and it would turn my clit into a rock.
“But Cat …” I start, and he gives me a look, one blond brow raised in question.
“He might be my president, but he damn sure ain’t gonna tell me what I can or cannot do with my own wife.” Beast stands up, leaving me a confused puddle on the couch as he heads over to one of the doorways, sliding the pocket door closed. He does the same on the other side, flicking off the lights and leaving us in total darkness.
I close my eyes, just so I can listen to his heavy footsteps on the carpet.
I smell him before he touches me, his scent a toxic thing that blinds me to the rest of the world. When he’s near like this, all I care about is him. All I want is him. He is goddamn everything.
His warm hands land on my knees before sliding up to my hips. I make myself relax, leaning my head back against the sofa cushions. With deft fingers, Beast undoes the button and zipper on my leather pants—the ones Cat gave a sharp look to but didn’t comment on—before peeling them down my legs.
Guilt for Reba pricks at the edges of my consciousness, but it’s quickly subsumed by the fire of Beast’s touch, his fingers trailing down my legs before discarding the pants entirely. He pushes my knees apart, and I choke, struggling to breathe past the overwhelming surge of passion, of raw, unfiltered need.
