“What are you talking about?”

“You’re the goddamn priceless Macallan.”

I scrunch up my nose and look at him. Then our conversation from my doorstep weeks ago comes back to finally make sense of his words. The sincerity in his tone strikes me next, and his conviction has my chest constricting with the emotion I feel for him.

“Well, at least I’m a good one,” I say, earning a smile from him.

“The best.” He nods his head with a murmured appreciation. “I wouldn’t care if you were a Two Buck Chuck bottle … I’ll pick you every time, Haddie. Scars, inability to have kids, bald, sick, emotional … you’re beautiful to me. Every single way. I’ll still pick you every goddamn time.” His eyes bore into mine. They dance with the same emotion his tone reflects. “There’s just always been something about you that I can’t resist….”

Tears flood my eyes—and the overwhelming acceptance he’s just given me is undeserved but gives me the courage to start taping up the boxing gloves for the fight of my life.

With him in my corner.

And it’s funny. All along I’ve told him no strings—pushed him away the minute they even started to intertwine—so I never realized how liberating it would be when I willingly tied them myself.

I start to become comfortable with the idea, accept it, and something he said at the farmhouse hits me.

“It’s the click.”

“Yes, the click,” he says with a soft chuckle. “But you know what? The click’s irrelevant now. The click was our initial connection. Now? Now it’s the clanking.”

“Clanking?” What in the hell is he talking about?

“Yep. It’s the sound the chains are making as I wrap them around your heart and shut the damn lock.” He flashes a cocky grin at me that does ridiculous things to my insides. “Screw the strings. They can be cut. I’m using chains to tie us together because it takes a hell of a lot more to break those.”

I try to mask the girlie sigh that wants to fall from my lips in giddiness. “That sounds kind of kinky.” I raise my eyebrows at him, my heart full and the coil of desire only increasing.

A slow smile spreads across his lips. “They sound a little unforgiving, but damn, City, we just might have to try that out. It kind of turns me on.”

I lean forward and kiss him. “Promise?” I whisper, my lips moving against his.

“I’ll promise you whatever you want as long as you tell me you’re not going to push me away again.” The playfulness in his eyes fades to solemnity. I can tell I’ve hurt him and hate myself for it.

I reach out and smooth a hand over his chest and up to the line of his jaw. “I’m not going to promise I’m not going to push, Becks, because I’m going to get scared. Hell, I’m already scared about what’s going to come … but I promise that I’m not going to run. I’m not going to shut you out. Because we are,” I tell him. He gives a devastating smile. I lean forward and taste his temptation and lose myself for a moment in it.

I rest my forehead against his, my last confession burning on my tongue. “I’ve used sex for so long to make me feel so I can forget, and I don’t want to do that anymore,” my lips whisper against his as I lay all my cards on the table. I can feel the heat of his breath, smell the scent of his cologne as I wait to make sure he hears my words. “You’ve changed that for me. My gloves are on, Becks, but they’re for the one battle I’ve yet to fight…. There’s no need to wear them with you….” I press another kiss to his lips and move my hands to the base of his neck so that my hands can play idly in his hair. “I know how I feel about you, and now it’s time to show you. Let me make love to you.”

I hear his quick intake of breath, his body tensing in momentary restraint before I feel his lips spread into a smile against mine.

“You don’t have to ask twice,” he laughs, and in a swift motion, his hands have lifted my tank top over my head.

The minute it clears my face, I have only a moment to see the fire in his eyes before his lips are on mine. I drown in the intensity of the kiss, his complete dominance of my senses as he uses his mouth to own each and every sound he coaxes from me while his hands skim over the bare flesh of my back.

They graze across my rib cage to my chest, and I can’t help but freeze when he cups both of my breasts. Cold, hard reality pulls me from the eroticism of the moment and the hot sex that’s in my near future. “Becks …”

He brings his lips to my ear, where his heated breath warms my skin. “You are so fucking beautiful, Haddie Montgomery, with or without these.” He flicks his thumbs over my hard nipples, causing me to gasp from the sensation. “These do not make you the woman I love. Not in the least. You got that?”

He presses a soft kiss to the space just below my ear as the emotion and meaning behind his words hit me like a one-two combo punch. My eyes well with tears but I don’t have a chance to comprehend anything else because Becks closes his mouth over one of my nipples and sucks.

Emotions mix with sensations and tackle me from every angle as I move my hips to try to relieve the ache he’s adding to with his alternating sucks and scrapes of teeth. “Sweet, sweet Haddie,” he murmurs to me, followed by a satisfied grown in the back of his throat.

He takes his time enjoying my breasts, all the while removing my shorts, his clothes, and I’m so taken by his thoroughness and adept skill that it rather shocks me to find that he’s also repositioned me. My ass hangs half off the couch, my shoulders against the back of it, and my legs are spread wide.

He begins to kiss his way down my abdomen as I feel the featherlight touch of his fingertips skimming from my knee up the inside line of my thigh. Soft and gentle. Thorough and attentive.

So damn addictive.

I exhale when his fingers brush over my sex, a teasing taunt that causes me to tilt my hips and physically ask for more. He chuckles softly, his fingers parting me at the same time he blows softly on my clit. “Becks …”

“Mm. I want to taste you,” he murmurs a second before I watch him lower and then feel his mouth on my bared flesh. And it’s not like I’m not watching him do it, but the warmth of his mouth still shocks me, makes me tense up.

His fingers slide back and forth once, then twice, before he tucks them into me. I’m wet instantly, my body so primed for him as he begins to slide his fingers in and out of me at the same time his tongue laves my external center of nerves. I weave my fingers in his hair, a gentle way to tell him when the sensations are just too much. And when I tug on his hair, he just laughs softly, the vibration of it an added element to his ministrations as he completely ignores my request.

He looks up at me, eyes hungry with a carnal sensuality. “You said you wanted to feel for the right reasons … so sit back, do anything but shut up—hell, scream if you want—and let me make you feel to remember … not to forget.”

He presses a kiss to the top of my sex before using his tongue to part me as he slides back down. This time, though, his fingers pull out to part me so that his tongue can plunge in, driving my need to levels that render me senseless.

Soon the ragged cry falls from my mouth, and I push my hips toward his mouth and my head falls back against the couch while I absorb the seduction of his tongue. I force myself to open my eyes so that I can watch him manipulate me, own me … love me.

And there is something so raw and real in the moment his eyes raise to meet mine, my taste on his tongue and my body at his mercy, that I begin to tremble as the first strains of my orgasm begin to pulse through me.

“Oh God!” I cry out when it hits me full force, lost to him and the moment because this may be a physical release, but it’s also the emotional offering of my heart. My body slowly liquefies as the spasms abate, Becks still groaning with desire as he tastes my pleasure.

I swear I hear him say, “That’s one,” but I’m so lost to the world beyond that using energy to respond is nearly impossible.

I let my head fall back, eyes closed, muscles still riding the orgasmic aftershocks. His mouth leaves the V of my thighs, and the cool breeze is a slight shock when it hits my swollen flesh. His body brushes against my thighs, and then I feel his smooth crest positioned perfectly at my entrance.

“Look at me, Haddie.” His words pull me from my pleasure-induced coma. The mixture of authority and compassion in his voice tugs my insides in every direction imaginable, giving me a glimpse of what I’ve always gravitated toward and what I now find incredibly sexy.

Only Becks could pull this mix off.

The only thought I can manage before he pushes his way into me at an achingly slow pace is what a lucky, lucky woman I am to have found him.

And not to have lost him.

Our eyes lock while we both succumb to the slow, sweet burn of pleasure as he bottoms all the way out. He stills, his hips flexing in a show of restraint from driving in me at the thunderous rhythm his eyes tell me he’s dying for. And that little movement of his hips seems like nothing, but it causes his dick to press against the exact place I need to feel it.

My breath hitches, and my fingernails dig into my own thighs when mindless pleasure takes hold as he slowly pulls out, every single nerve paid perfect attention from the pace he sets. I look down to where we are joined, the head of his cock buried inside me, but the remainder glistens with my arousal. He begins to slide back in, the hotter-than-hell image of him becoming part of me in all ways possible is the only thing I can focus on.

I’m lost to the thought and the sight until I look up and meet his eyes. He’s inches from my face, so I can’t mistake the emotion swimming in the aqua pools in front of me: love, desire, need, want.