Half Buried Hopes – Jupiter Tides Read Online Anne Malcom

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Angst, Bad Boy, Contemporary Tags Authors: Anne Malcom Advertisement

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I swallowed down my nerves, not taking my eyes off Beau, whose expression was unreadable.

“And this isn’t going to be just sex for me,” I added. “It won’t work that way. I understand that there are a million and one ways for this to fail, turn messy. But it’s already plenty messy. And I’m prepared to deal with the fallout if it doesn’t work out. But I’m not going to be just the nanny you fuck. I want to be yours.”

I sucked in a huge, painful breath as I hadn’t so much as inhaled during that entire spiel.

Where I’d gotten the courage to lay out exactly what I wanted, what I needed, was anyone’s guess. But I was proud.

And equally terrified.

Beau could say no.

It was the sanest, most realistic answer to my proposition.

He wanted me, yes, sexually. But wanting to fuck me and pursue a very tangled, most likely doomed relationship was an entirely different kettle of fish. Beau was a man who took no risks, who made sensible, measured decisions.

I was not a measured decision.

He didn’t know all my secrets, not yet, but what he did know likely told him this was going to be complicated.

I prepared. For the rejection that I was half expecting. For the disappointment. For the validation that I wasn’t worthy.

Instead, Beau was across the room in two strides, tagging the back of my neck and yanking me to him. Our lips crashed together in a soul-destroying kiss. It was hunger, it was dedication. Devotion. Worship. Ruin.

All in one kiss.

You would think that given all the buildup, the indescribable energy between us, the kiss would be frantic. If I had been leading the charge, I knew it would’ve been. A desperate mix of lips, tongue, teeth.

But I was not in charge. Beau was. And I instantly surrendered to him.

I expected him to kiss me with the hunger that was painted in his marrow.

But his lips gently met mine, coaxing them open. His fingertips caressed the underside of my jaw, moving against my lips like we had all the time in the world. Like he was savoring every second, every tiny area of my mouth.

It was romance. It was reverence.

I was barely breathing by the time he broke it, maintaining his hold on me.

“Hannah,” he whispered. “You’ve been mine since the moment you smiled at my daughter, since you talked about Kurt Cobain’s poetry, since you shook my fucking hand.”

All I could do is blink at Beau, my breath leaving me in a whoosh and my ears ringing at the admission. I might’ve hoped for it, dreamed for it. But never could I have thought my hopes and dreams would come true. I’d long buried them in damp dirt in Virginia, along with scraps of my childhood innocence and joy.

Beau wanted me.

I was his.

I had been his.

Since the very start.

twenty-three

HANNAH

I was Alice, tumbling down a rabbit hole into a whole new world where Beau Shaw kissed me like I was the most precious thing on the planet, like I was irreplaceable.

Just as I was about to open my mouth to tell him he was mine too, that he had been mine, the fire that I had been expecting caught hold.

Not a fire.

A firestorm.

A volcano.

His lips caught mine again, his strong hands at my hips, lifting me. When I wrapped my legs around him, his palms found my ass, and he pressed me tighter against his body, his hard length, our mouths still moving desperately.

I knew we were moving through the house, but I only faintly registered it. Time and space ceased to exist. All there was was Beau.

Then there was the soft sound of a door closing before my back hit a mattress that smelled of Beau’s all-natural fabric softer, juniper, and him.

Beau’s bed. I was on Beau’s bed. In his room.

I had never been in Beau’s room. That would’ve been crossing boundaries. Boundaries were now a thing of the past.

At least I hoped to hell they were.

As much as I wanted to take it all in, there were more pressing things demanding my attention.

Beau. Kissing my neck. My collarbone. His hands clasping my hips before rolling my pants and panties down at the same time. No hesitation, no devastating slowness. Only pure, frenzied passion.

My intention from the moment I crawled toward him on the couch was to end up naked in his bed.

In that moment, I was halfway there. The scent of his sheets already seeping into my skin. I immediately felt self-conscious at my pussy essentially staring at him while he was still fully clothed, my knees instinctively knocking together. Beau’s hands met my knees right away, exerting gentle pressure to pull them open.

“No.” A thread of dominant desire hummed beneath the single word.

I found the courage to look at him. He wasn’t looking between my legs as I’d expected. His eyes were glued to mine.


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