Bad Bridesmaid (Billionaire's Club Book 11) by Elise Faber (important books to read txt) 📕

closed a few times, sounds rumbling up from his throat but not coalescing into actual words.

She took pity on him. “I get keeping people at a distance, honey. I have a fucking PhD in the subject myself. My parents . . . well, my dad is great, if sometimes a bit distant, and my mom . . . she’s not so great, even though I keep telling myself that she always means well. It’s just . . . she’s not like your mom, and she’s given me some wounds that run deep. So trusting people doesn’t come easily for me. So I might push you away to stay safe.” She trailed the fingers of her free hand along his jaw. “The thing is you say you’ve used avoiding connections like a shield. And I get that. I feel that sentiment in my bones. I’ve had my heart broken, have that baggage with my mom, and those hurts, they fucking suck.” She swallowed. “But when I saw how happy Kate was with Jaime, when I saw the relationship Kels has with Tanner, I knew that I wanted that.”

She rested her palm on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath. “I was fucking terrified to take that first step, to even admit that what I had in my life wasn’t enough, but I did it. I promised myself that I would try, would hold tight to the truth that I was worth finding something as special as they had, and I did find it.” Smiling up at him, she said, “Also newsflash, what I found was you.”

He inhaled sharply.

She pressed a kiss to his lips. “Because you’re good and smart and caring and so much more than I could have hoped for, even with that armor on. But you know what’s better?”

He shook his head.

“I think we’ve both come to the conclusion that whatever this is between us is different, is more. That it has the potential to be what Kate and Jaime have, what Kels and Tanner do, too.”

She released a breath, laid the resolution she’d come to just before calling Kate and waking her friend up in the middle of the night on her honeymoon, who’d then had to wake up Jaime to get Brad’s address, on the table (also, yes, she knew that she’d rung the alarm at the gossip committee and that her friends and all their nosiness would be descending shortly . . . but also, she didn’t care, because Brad was important. Maybe it was something in the Huntington gene pool, maybe it was just the power of Brad himself . . . or maybe she was digressing when she really should be focusing on telling this man what was in her heart).

“So what I’m trying to tell you is to bring that armor, carry that big ass shield, try to keep me at a distance because I won’t stay away. Because . . . my armor is gone,” she said. “Or maybe when it came to you, honey, I never had any.”

He was still as a statue, hardly breathing, his eyes locked on hers.

Meanwhile, she was breathing heavily, her heart pounding, her lungs working hard after that long-ass speech.

And he was frozen, shock written into every line of his face.

“Did I break you?” she asked, jostling his chest lightly.

Her question seemed to snap him out of whatever trance he’d stumbled into, because he blinked, his hand slipped from hers, his arms banded around her, and he drew her flush against him. “No,” he whispered. “You didn’t break me. You turned the key, made me see exactly what I was missing.”

Her heart pulsed, happiness welling within her. “Great,” she said, wrapping her arms around him in turn, bringing their mouths close so the barest millimeter separated them. “So now, will you get back to kissing me?”

She had one quick glimpse of that slow, sexy smile of his, the one that always melted her from the inside out.

Then his mouth was on hers.

Nineteen

Brad

Kissing.

It was all back to kissing.

Only this time, it was without the cloud hanging over him, the tendrils of dread in his gut. He was able to just be in this moment with the woman he loved and really fucking enjoy kissing the hell out of her.

There was no hesitation in their touches, in the strokes of their tongues.

They’d gotten that all out of their systems months ago. Tonight was about leaning into those caresses, holding tight to the passion, embracing the need that made his hands shake and sweat break out on his back. It was about remembering every single thing that had made this woman moan, her breathing hitch, her eyes glaze over in desire.

And then he was doing them all on repeat.

One quick movement had their positions reversed and moved down on the bed, her head hitting the pillow, her back on the mattress, her body sprawled out beneath him.

Then he was kissing her again, stroking his tongue along the seam of her lips, tasting the mix of sweet and tart that was only Heidi. She opened, and their tongues collided, waltzing around each other, a frenzy of movements that had him groaning into her mouth.

But his hands weren’t stationary. They were busy, remembering every curve, slipping beneath the fabric of her sweatshirt and finding the hot skin beneath. Her breathing hitched when he traced up and over her rib cage, before that hiccup of air turned into a soft, low moan that had his blood going molten. He traced higher, slipping beneath the band of her bra, fingers grazing the underside of one breast before moving to the other in a steady back and forth that had her head falling back on the pillows, their lips pulling apart.

He didn’t want to stop kissing her, didn’t want to lose that taste on his tongue.

But he supposed there were plenty of other places demanding to be kissed, beginning with the hardened tip of her nipple that was beading against