Bespoken: An Opposites-Attract Standalone Romance (Carmel Cove Book 2)

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  His tongue swiped over the seam of my lips like a sign of permission that set mine free. Cautious, but determined, my own darted out to meet his, dueling with desire before searching for his lips.

  Much to my surprise, they were so unbelievably soft compared to the hard line they were always pulled in. It was a small thing, but it felt like I’d been let in on a secret he didn’t want many to know, that there was a delicious tenderness lying beneath the hard exterior designed to protect it.

  My arms twined around his neck as my body draped against his.

  I felt my glasses pinned between his fingers and my back while his other hand drifted down to sink into the swell of my ass through my dress, pulling my hips firmly against his.

  The ache between my thighs intensified, and I acted before I thought; my body took over and rolled my hips against his. There was no mistaking the hardness of his erection that I ground against—no mistaking how much he wanted me in return.

  And a thrill of power coursed down my spine.

  Maybe in my story, the princess did find the prince.

  I whimpered as the kiss that started soft drifted easily into demanding. Of course, I’d felt desired before, but never like this. Never from him. It made every cell buzz with too much lustful energy to be contained.

  His hand on my ass dragged up and buried in my hair, angling my head so his tongue had access to every corner of my mouth—every inch that he had no other goal but to devour.

  “Miles…” I murmured, my head swimming in pleasure.

  This was it.

  This was what love started as—something too big to be contained.

  “Come home with me,” he rasped against my skin and the words triggered the one thing inside me that was stronger than my desire for him… what was what I wanted for my future.

  “I can’t… I don’t…” I shook my head, willing the words to come out clearly. “I don’t do casual, Miles. I don’t do one-night-things or one-off dates,” I blurted out, needing to make this clear and wishing I could see his response. But he still had my glasses—he still left me blind when it came to really seeing him.

  “I want you.” I let out a weak laugh. Like that wasn’t obvious, Eve. “The way you make me feel… I’ve wanted you for a long time, but I want you for more than one night.”

  The way the energy changed around us was as subtle as a heart attack, and I felt the pain in my chest right about the time that breathing became a struggle.

  As he pulled away from me, my arms dropped to my sides like they didn’t have the strength to hold themselves up.

  “I don’t do forever.” The words lashed at me like a whip, stinging as he pressed my glasses into my grasp.

  He wanted this part to be crystal clear.

  “I-I know, you said that,” I started, fumbling with my glasses before tugging them back onto my face.

  I should’ve left them off. The harshness in his face had returned, and it wasn’t the shadows of the night that made his expression more ominous.

  “But… I mean… don’t you feel it? Whatever the connection is between us? For months now, the looks, the butterflies.” I laughed nervously, hearing myself admit to things I really shouldn’t be only five seconds after our first kiss, but I was unable to stop the words before they tumbled from my mouth.

  He had to know. He had to understand.

  “I’m not asking you to marry me right now, of course not.” I gasped and clapped a hand over my mouth.

  Oh my God, Eve. What are you doing!

  This was going downhill fast. Like a metal sled coated with non-nutritive food varnish fast. And the embarrassment it was sending me head-first into would be of the caliber that belonged in a National Lampoon movie.

  “I didn’t mean that. I’m not asking you to marry me at all. If you don’t want to that is.” Crash. Burn. “I’m saying all the wrong things. I just mean that I can’t do one night if it’s not going somewhere serious. Plus, forever has to start with one night, right?”

  After all of that wreckage, my question remained hopeful. It still ended with a little bit of a lilt, held up by the butterflies that had invaded my stomach and made a home.

  After a kiss like that, who could take forever off the table?

  If a kiss like that wasn’t the curse-breaker that Disney advertised, then I’d rather suffer the curse, because if that kiss didn’t change my world, I wouldn’t survive the one that did.

  His head ducked for a moment, and I noticed how one strand of hair had come free from the tie that held the rest. I gripped my fingers together to stop them from reaching out and tucking it behind his ear.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned marriage.

  Okay, I definitely shouldn’t have mentioned marriage.

  But I wanted him to know I was only interested in something serious. I didn’t want him to put a limit on something that felt like it could be limitless if we let it.

  His eyes returned to mine, no longer hard but with a carelessness that made me even more worried.

  “Sorry, Evie. I only do one night.”

  My body revolted. Torn between the endearment that made it feel warm and the subsequent truth that shattered it like ice.

  “But… our kiss…” I stammered like a lovestruck idiot.

  He shook his head with a small laugh, pulling out a flask from his pocket and unscrewing the top. “Just a kiss, doll.” He sighed heavily before taking a long swig. “I’m goin’ back in. I’ll send Jules out to check on you.”

  The desire in my body turned to anger, especially when he tried to be caring in the middle of being so careless.

  “Are you serious?” I blurted out, demanding an answer. “You tell me I’m beautiful. Then you kiss me. And just like that, you walk away?”

  His shrug was a perfect synchrony of nonchalance. “Didn’t realize you were stuck on being that kind of girl, Evie. My mistake.”

  I bristled, crossing my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling the chill in the air.

  “And what kind of girl is that?”

  The hardness returned, glinting off the gold in his eyes. “The kind I’m not interested in anymore.”

  He lifted his flask up to me in some sort of twisted salute and walked away.

  I stared at the perfect picture of his retreating form, hating how my body still called for him to come back… hating how my body was willing to forego forever for one night in his arms.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to work.

  One dance. One kiss. And they lived happily ever after.

  Instead, Miles wanted only one night and a happily never more.

  I stood tall, unwilling to crumble at the slight. I tried to make him out to be the villain—I tried to tell myself he was cruel. But he wasn’t. He’d given me his truth just as honestly as I’d given him mine.

  And, like day and night, it was possible for both our truths to exist, just not together.

  I hated how the fragile hope that had been building over the last many months—months of sharing the same friends, of seeing each other most days when he stopped in for coffee, of side glances and lingering looks, of a growing fire that refused to be doused—crumbled in an instant.

  And under the weight of his reality, mine became crystal clear.

  I was besotted with Miles Madison, and in return, he’d broken me.

  Grab your copy of BESOTTED here.

  Standalones

  Reputation

  Redemption

  Revolution: A Driven World Novel

  Carmel Cove Series

  Beholden

  Bespoken

  Besotted

  Befallen

  Beloved

  The Odyssey Duet

  The Fall of Troy

  The Judgment of Paris

  Country Love Collection

  Tequila

  Ready to Run

  Fastest Girl in Town

  Last Name

  I’ll Be Your Santa Tonight

  Winter Games
Series

  Up in the Air

  On the Edge

  Enjoy the Ride

  In Too Deep

  Over the Top

  The Gentlemen’s Guild Series

  The Artist’s Touch

  The Sculptor’s Seduction

  The Painter’s Passion

  The Passion & Perseverance Trilogy

  (A Pride and Prejudice Retelling)

  First Impressions

  Second Chances

  Third Time is the Charm

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  So, you want to know a little bit about me and my writing? Awesome! Even though I write *a lot*… writing about myself always proves to be difficult. I wonder if my ‘About Me’ could just consist of memes… that would be fantastic!

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