Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

I grunted and slammed into her hard as my cock exploded inside of her again.

“Yes!” I growled, my body

shuddering violently, my breath shallow and ragged, sweat pouring off of me as I pulled her close. I buried my face in her hair, falling on top of her and pinning her to the bed. We fell silent as we caught our breath and I reached for her hand, intertwining her fingers with mine.

“I love you so fucking much,” I said, my voice a furious, frantic whisper as I clung to her.

“Oh, baby…” she cooed. “I love you, Bear, I love you so much…”

She was even more beautiful in her sleep. I stared down at her peaceful face, her luscious and healthy body, the vessel that was nurturing and creating a tiny human mixture of the two of us. It was so scientific and yet mysteriously magical at the same time.

She’d fallen asleep with my arms wrapped tightly around her, her head tucked onto my chest, her breathing turning deeper and deeper as the minutes ticked by. After a while, I untangled myself, kissing her forehead before pulling the blanket up over her shoulders. I stared down at her, in awe, bewildered that she was mine.

I put up a tough front, I guess.

I’ve claimed her as mine like a goddamned caveman and I have no shame in that. But if she ever left me, I don’t know what I’d do.

She did it once already, she could do it again. I gave her an out, her safe word and I was damned glad she wasn’t afraid to use it. And when she did, which she had every damned reason to, I respected it. If she hadn’t fainted in front of Harlan—that spineless asshole—causing me to reunite with her at the hospital, I would have come crawling back to her within days anyway. That week without her had been excruciating.

She deserved an apology and it doesn’t make me any less of a man because I gave her one. That’s just being real.

So, yeah, I fucked up. She left and I let her go. But now? Now, that she was pregnant, that safe word meant something else entirely. I wasn’t letting her too far out of my sight. I needed to protect her…them…and nothing was going to get in the way of that.

But what was I thinking? Nobody was going anywhere.

We fit together like pancakes and syrup and that was that.

I stared down at her and while a part of me still couldn’t believe she was real, I walked away, trusting she’d be there when I came back.

When I walked back into the study with a fresh glass of whiskey, I felt like a new man.

Making love to Chloe had become the only thing that made me feel sane, that lifted the heaviness I’d been plagued with since Bruce’s death. I’d taken out a lot of my pain on her body and she’d only opened wider, giving me more.

But tonight was different. I’d released a little more, with the whips, the hard fucking, the demanding words…it was just what I needed. Just enough to take me out of my head and forget, if only for a few minutes.

The break was just the refresher I needed and I sat down by the fire with Bruce’s journals and dug in. I started at the beginning, which seemed to start about the time he graduated from law school and started working his way through the legal system.

One more week and then my career begins. First I have to pass the bar, then everything is going to change. I’m going to change. I want to change the world, do my small part to add to it, to make it a better place. I think I’m ready. No—I know I’m ready! I can’t wait to show everyone what I’m made of.

I smiled, remembering him back then. I’d just met him, at someone’s birthday party on the West side. He was idealistic, ambitious, relentless in his pursuit for justice. He believed in the system, more than anyone I’d ever come across.

My heart ached thinking about how his faith had been shattered by that very system. I often wondered if he was too idealistic, too naive, too ambitious to see the corruption in the beginning. He wanted to believe so badly, he wanted to have faith that everything was just and good, like him.

But it isn’t.

The world doesn’t work that way. It took him a while to own up to it, it took a few setbacks, a few fists thrown his way before he broke through his idealistic bubble.

I kept reading, remembering the old days. Sometimes it seemed like yesterday…

Today is the best day of my life so far. I’ve finally accomplished the first step of making my dreams come true. Despite the fact that my trial experience is almost non-existent and the fact that I only recently graduated, I somehow managed to persuade the DA to bring me on as an ADA. I’m going to be one of the Assistant District Attorneys for Manhattan! I met Jake, the DA, when I was interning and he saw something in me. He said I had a ‘fire’ unlike any he’d ever seen! He told me he was taking a chance, in spite of the advice of his counselors, and I swore to him that he wouldn’t regret it. That means I have a lot of work to do to make up for my lack of experience, but I’m up for the challenge.

I can’t wait to get started…

I remember Bruce calling me, completely elated about landing that first position. We’d gone out that night, just the two of us, and gotten completely smashed on whiskey. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen him that happy again, and I couldn’t.

He started that job right away, working his ass off, sleeping in his office if he had to, pouring over legal documents and briefings and whatever else was necessary, always going the extra mile. He knew what it took to get the job done, but more than that, he always kept his eye on the prize, the end goal. And that meant doing more than everyone else, learning more than everyone else, and sleeping a lot less than everyone else.

I scanned through a few more entries. He talked a lot about those first cases, about his co-workers, who he seemed to be thoroughly impressed with. He was finally surrounded by a group of peers that helped him grow. He sounded satisfied, fulfilled.

I went to bed after finishing my whiskey and tucking the journals back into his backpack. Chloe was sleeping soundly, her hair fanning out around her pretty face. I smiled down at her, loving her, my heart swelling as I gazed down at my soon-to-be-bride.

This weekend, she would officially be mine.

And I would officially be the luckiest man on Earth.

Chloe

I smoothed the dress over my slowly swelling hips and looked in the mirror. I couldn’t help but smile. It was perfect.

The soft white silk clung to my curves as I swirled around, the skirt fluttering around my legs. I walked into the great room and out onto the terrace, imagining how everything was going to play out. We’d decided to get married out here and my heart skipped a beat as I wandered around, the wind whipping the dress around my ankles.

I felt pretty. I felt excited. I felt hopeful.

I took a deep breath, playing out all the details in my head.

The flowers will be everywhere. The altar would go at one end and there’d be a few chairs set up nearby. It would be a tiny ceremony and I couldn’t be happier that Bear had agreed to that. I knew the only person he really wanted to be there wouldn’t and I wished there was something I could do to fix that.

But I couldn’t.

So, Max would be his best man instead of Bruce.

Marie would be here tomorrow.

Mom promised to arrive early to help set up, but there wasn’t really anything to do. We’d have a nice candlelit dinner afterwards and that would be it.

We were going to spend the night at a hotel tonight and then we were jetting off to Paris for a short honeymoon. After that, I just wanted to get on with our life.

Since I’d met Bear our relationship had been full of a bunch of quick starts and stops and I was beyond ready for smooth, consistent sailing from here on out.

I walked back inside, quietly drinking in the simplistic majesty of Bear’s penthouse. Our penthouse, I corrected myself.

I shook my head, running my fingers through my hair as I tried to accept it all. It was the hardest thing I’d ever had to wrap my head around, the fact that all of this was suddenly half mine. But it was.

I’d stopped expecting to wake up from this dream and reality was slowly sinking in.

I walked back into the bedroom and

slipped the dress over my head. Carefully, I hung it back up and then took it back to the studio and hung it in the closet there. I didn’t need any bad luck and Bear catching a glimpse of my dress in our closet wasn’t something I was going to risk.

We’d had enough bad luck so far, I wasn’t about to add to it.

Suddenly, I wished Marie was here. I couldn’t wait for her to arrive tomorrow, so that I wouldn’t be dealing with all of this alone. I needed her opinion on the dress, the flowers, the cake, the dinner, all of it.

The old Chloe would be surprised I’d made all of these decisions alone, and I gave myself a mental pat on the back, reminding myself that this was all a part of growing up—making decisions, getting married, having babies.

Look at me go!

I laughed, in spite of myself, at the whirlwind I’d found myself in.

Bear had given me the number of a business manager that he’d worked with a long time ago, insisting I call her and meet with her. He was begging me to hire her and insisted we’d get along great. I’d been hesitating, not ready to admit that maybe I couldn’t do everything all on my own.

The lists I’d been composing only seemed to be getting longer, no matter how many tiny things I managed to crossed off.

I sighed and picked up the phone.

A little help couldn’t hurt, right?

She answered on the first ring.

“Violet Balducci!” she barked.

“Ms. Balducci, hello. My name is Chloe McDonnell. I was given your name by my fiancé, Bear Dalton, and I—.”

“Bear! Of course! I ran into him last week and he mentioned you might call, Ms. McDonnell.”

“Please call me Chloe.”

“Of course, and you can call me Violet. How can I help you, Chloe?” Her voice was all crisp business.