by Ace Gray
“I’m marrying her whether you’re okay with it or not.” I took a deep breath. “But this,” I gestured between us, “means something to her.”
“Did you get her a ring?”
I nodded once, thin-lipped and serious.
“Tell me about it.”
I crossed my arms across my chest and pictured the ring I’d had made. “It’s lots of small stones all off-set from each other.”
“Diamonds?”
“No. A piece of sea glass the color of her eyes. I found it on the beach when we first made it to Mexico.”
He softened. I saw it in the crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes.
“I had a glass cutter cut tiny circles and polish them up. It looks like the edge of the ocean.”
His eyes flicked away, just enough that they seemed to pull on the corner of his mouth.
“You do it right, you hear me?” He pushed his finger against my chest. “I will kill you if you don’t.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“Well?” Conrad asked, his voice ticking up into that only-dogs-can-hear range. “Did you?”
“Not yet,” I said as I shot him a look.
“Busy doing other its, I see.” He arched his eyebrow.
“What are you talking about, Conrad?” Filly asked as she folded into my chest.
“Well I thought you were out here doing one thing, but it turns out you were out here doing each other. Tisk tisk. I hope there was spanking involved because you two are naughty.” He wiggled his eyebrows and true to form, Filly’s cheeks lit on fire.
“Shut up,” she scolded half-heartedly and reached out to slap his chest.
“Well?” Conrad crossed his arms and tapped his foot on the cobblestone path of the garden.
“I might be into voyeurism but not when it comes to this,” I said as I jerked my head back toward the side door.
“Comes to what?” Filly asked.
“Come here.” I ignored her question and pulled her over to the tree in the far corner of the garden. I slid down the trunk and pulled her onto my lap. I nestled her back to my front and let the both of us settle into the view.
“It’s beautiful here,” I said taking in the uniquely Parisian buildings on the other side of the dark greenery of the garden. I could breathe here. I could enjoy the museums and the private collections and the croissants and wine. With Filly… “I think it’s you, but Paris isn’t bad.”
“I’ll remember the way you looked when we walk up to the Louvre for the first time forever. This city will always exist in that moment.” She nuzzled back into me.
“Funny you should say that because that day I learned that all the masterpieces in the world pale in comparison to you.”
“Brye…” She laughed on the edge of my name.
“It’s true. My world will forever exist in that realization.”
She twisted and pressed her lips to the corner of my mouth then rested her forehead against my jaw.
“I’d do it all again, the blood, the bruises, the bad, if it leads me to you. To this moment.”
She reached her hands around and let her fingertips brush my skin.
“The sex is great, but the silence is better, Filly. It lets me hear my heart and how it beats for you.”
“A chuisle mo chroí,” she finally pronounced my Irish words right.
“I can’t live without you, Chroí. I won’t. I’ve seen death, I’m intimately acquainted with it, and it’s all I’ll know if you ever leave.”
“Never, Brye. I’m yours.”
“You mean that?”
“Of course,” she breathed as she turned and slid her thighs on either side of mine, showing just the bit of her brand.
I ran my thumb over it. “I want something a little more permanent than this,” I said softly, stroking the scared skin.
“What’s more permanent than this?” She ducked into my line of site to ask, her eyes the color of the sea glass that was my salvation, my freedom, my future. The sea glass that made the small gem-like bubbles of her ring.
I pulled it from my pocket and grabbed her hand. “Marry me. Marry me because you’re the masterpiece. Because you’re the only thing that keeps me alive. Marry me because you’re mine.” I didn’t ask, I couldn’t take a no. “Hell, marry me because even your father gave me his permission.”
The corners of her smile turned up as I slid the ring down her left ring finger. The only one directly connected to the heart I loved, the heart that beat in bright beautiful colors. The heart that was mine.
“You didn’t even have to ask.”
EXCLUSIVE BONUS SCENES
Haven’t gotten your fill of Filly and Brye? You’re in luck. Click here for access to an exclusive bonus scene. Someone might even be wearing white…
If you follow me on social media you may have seen some of the All Twisted Up bonus scenes. These scenes take place between A Twisted Love Story and this book, Twisted Secrets. They are glimpses into the Ryan family’s day to day life. Some are swoony, some are downright steamy, then of course there’s just the sweet… The only way to get all fourteen scenes is by clicking here.
a sneak peek of PRETTY YOUNG THINGS
My next release is entitled Pretty Young Things and it’s coming Fall 2018. This contemporary take on The Count of Monte Christo features all the things we love about the classics like lust, love, betrayal, and vengeance. The only other thing I can tell you is that I. Just. Can’t. Wait!
*Dantè*
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. I leaned over and kissed the five freckles on Mercy’s bare back. Her silken skin was warm in the sunlight and I nuzzled in as I studied the dots near the slope of her spine. They were each different colors, a spectrum of chocolate etched in my memory, and placed just so in the shape of the constellation Cassiopeia. I couldn’t help but trace the shape as she slept naked on her stomach.
“Mmmmmm,” she purred as she tensed then melted into the mattress. Her eyes fluttered open, staying lazy and hooded as she found mine.
“She was the most beautiful woman on earth. So beautiful, the gods placed her in the heavens for all of eternity to see.”
Mercy smiled as she curled her hands beneath her chest and nuzzled into her pillow. “She was so vain they put her upside down.” Sleep still hung on her beautiful soft voice.
“Zeus wouldn’t make the same mistake twice,” I murmured as I bent back down to kiss the skin I worshipped in a way Olympus had never known.
“You make me blush.” She giggled.
“The second most beautiful thing about your skin.”
“Tey…” Want transformed my nickname into a moan and pooled in the pit of my stomach.
I gently pressed on her shoulder and turned her flat to her back. Her legs spread and I slid between as if it was the only place I belonged. I grabbed each of her wrists and slid them from her chest and pinned them on either side of her forehead. She twisted to one side and let her eyes close and her smile spread just before she reached to kiss my hand where I squeezed. Her knees rubbed up along my thighs then her legs wove around me.
My lips wandered down her breastbone and between her teardrop tits until I couldn’t arch any further without losing the feel of her against me. I moved slowly back up her body, capturing one of her rosebud nipples in my lips then letting the edges of my teeth nibble on her sensitive skin.
“Tey,” she groaned.
I pulled her nipple taut then let her slip from my mouth at the last minute. She gasped only for me to swallow her sounds up with my kiss.
Her hips bucked against mine, coaxing me to move, to grind in the way that would make both our bodies tremble. Between morning and Mercy I was hard enough it hurt, but I held back, letting the slickness between her thighs build where her skin grazed the head of my dick. Pleasure jolted me but I forced myself to move steady. Against her lips, against her body.
I buried my face in the crook of her neck to kiss her sensitive skin while I teased her. While
I breathed in the sweet tropics of her scent. Her trapped fingertips flexed just enough to brush my shaggy hair where it fell into my eyes.
“I love you,” she murmured.
“Have mercy,” I growled into her ear as I finally slid into her.
She giggled then gasped like we hadn’t done this a thousand times before, like she didn’t know the shape and size of me. Like we hadn’t been fucking fashioned to fit together like this.
I knew her every curve, her every inch. The velvet of her skin and the depth of her eyes. The goodness of her soul. I knew I would make her mine. With every action of my body today and all of my words for every tomorrow. The boys didn’t believe in soulmates, but me? I knew that about her too.
Her moan lapped at my shoulder as I pumped into her again and again and again.
“Fingers,” she begged. “Fingers and then kiss me. Kiss me till I die.”
I let her wrists go and slid my hand between us. Mercy threw her head back and bucked her hips up into my hand, meeting my thrusts with her slender hips. I stroked her with firm fingers, creating the friction that drove her nuts.
“I thought you wanted kisses,” I taunted her with a smokey voice as I slid my nose along her jaw.
“Aaaaggghhhh,” she cried out then tucked her chin to reach up for me.
I took her lips roughly and nibbled on the bottom on the same way I had with her nipple. Her hips gyrated against mine, against my fingers, as I moved in and out, in and out. Her moans were warm puffs against my skin, heating me in a way not even the sun could. The thin sheen of sweat building between us was only salt added to this overwhelming sweet.
My tongue swept across the seam of her lips, waiting for them to open again, to moan to beg, to call my name, so I could breathe whatever she deigned to give me.
Her soft cry echoed in my mouth and I knew that I was about to get her best. Her orgasm always pressed her chest firmly to mine and made her knees clench on my hips. I kissed her open mouth, desperate for the taste of her as she fell apart breath me.
When her body stilled beneath me and she sighed a bold and beautiful smile, my world went as bright as the sunshine pouring in through my beat up blinds.
“Come on my tits.” Her smile spread, knowing what that demand did to me.
A shiver ran down my spine and fisted in my balls. I slid out of her, missing her already, and shuffled my muscular thighs along her delicate body. I fisted on myself once, twice as she preened her nipples into hard peaks.
“Fuck,” I swore through clenched teeth.
She reached for me and wrapped her hand around my dick, taking my place to pump. Her hand on me, framed by her tits, I found my release all to quick and jizzed across the sun kissed skin I called home.
Mercy bit her lip as I shot onto her chest, making my own type of constellations. And when I sagged, my shoulders rounded and chest heaving from the effort, my weight pressed her deeper into our bed.
“I love you,” I managed between tortured breaths.
“Have mercy,” she used my line back on me with her devious smile.
“I’m hoping I do.”
“Forever,” she said softly.
In that moment I believed her. And when she shimmied out from between my legs and threw on one of my t-shirts without cleaning up, I believed the whole world would see it too. Today with my pearl necklace and someday soon with the diamond I was saving up for.
“You’re gonna go out there like that?” I asked with an easy smile as I rolled onto my back and crossed my hands behind my head.
“I think they already know.” She winked. “It’s not as if either of us are silent. Never have been, never will be.”
She walked to her set of drawers and pulled out a bikini bottom. The cut showed off her ass and long lean line of her legs. I would have been jealous if I didn’t know her heart was mine completely. Her body too.
Besides the guys had all walked in on her—or us—in the three years since she adopted a space in my bed. And then. our house.
“I’m gonna make breakfast burritos. Will you wake them up?”
She still hadn’t completely gotten over walking in on Danger passed out in the top half of a clown costume, make up running down his face. The cocaine smattered across a mirror on his pillow and two stark naked chicks—one of which was still holding the double sided dildo in Danger’s ass—hadn’t helped.
“Anything for you.” I smiled.
And for the version of her in front of me, with wild tumbled hair, fresh freckles across her cheeks and my shirt stuck to her chest, I meant it. She had me whipped. In the worst way. But then again, who didn’t like it a little rough from time to time.
She tiptoed out of the room, leaving the door cracked. I was propped up on my pillows basking in the afterglow, when Rousse crept by, sporting serious morning wood.
“Hey Mercy, Rousse is up. Literally,” I yelled.
“Fuck off, Dantè.” He twisted toward our room and flipped me off, managing a glare even though he tented his gym shorts enough for an entire troop of Girl Scouts. “We don’t all have a perfect chick—” He started to threaten me but then rolled his ankle over his size fourteen feet and the same dipped floorboard that had caused him trouble since his parents bought the house.
I couldn’t help but laugh as I stood and reached for a pair of my boxer briefs from my pile of clean laundry. I grabbed Rousse by the shoulders, helping him regain his footing in the hallway then patted his back as he rolled his eyes and smiled.
“She’s making breakfast burritos.” I nodded toward the kitchen. He tucked his tip into his waistband and turned toward the faint waft of bacon.
I turned down the hallway and dodged the few beer cans left scattered on the floor. “Diego.” I pounded on his door. “Get the fuck up, we’re going surfing.”
Only a groan answered from the other side.
“Mercy’s making breakfast burritos.”
The slow creak of the floorboards on the other side of the door barely preceded him appearing in a crack at the door. He wore his comforter like he was Mother Theresa and his wild chin-length curls shot out like an insane and overgrown Chia Pet.
“Mercy’s what?” he croaked.
“Making breakfast.”
“Mmmmmmm,” he purred as his eyes lit up and he shuffled past me, blanket get-up and all.
I smiled as I caught a glimpse of both him and Rousse slide onto stools at the breakfast bar and watch as Mercy flipped bacon and then her hair.
“Life ain’t so bad sometime, am I right?” Danger emerged and leaned up against the doorframe, his thick arms crossing his tank.
“Life is fucking great.”
He side eyed me over his thick, plump lips then they pulled into his trademark sideways smile.
“A promotion huh?”
“Monday,” I answered as I leaned against the wall.
“Things are going to change.”
“You mad?”
“I’m just pissed I won’t have anyone to skate with any more. You’re leaving me with Lifeguard Barbie and Baby Bambi.”
“No one wants to grow up less than me, but…” My eyes ran up Mercy. I had reason enough to leave the all-night ragers and hungover surf and skate kick around days behind. The money this software company was going to offer me didn’t hurt either.
“I’m gonna miss mornings like this.” I sighed.
That same distant look pressed in behind Danger’s eyes. His smirk turned up and he glanced over again. For a second, fear percolated inside me. Because of the unknown but also because of something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on.
“I bet you are.” He spoke as I shivered.
add Pretty Young Things to your Goodreads TBR now!
Believe it or not, this is the hardest part of writing a book – well it’s between this and choosing a title. I mean, how do I ever capture all the gratitude I have for people? How do I list all the names? I’m not good with real life feeling and emotion as it is but
thank you is a good place to start…
First to my husband who has never read a word of my books but who is my biggest cheerleader. He believes wholeheartedly I’m going to be successful at this one day and for now I’m going to let that be enough for both of us. He reminds me to be soft enough to chase dreams and to be strong enough not to chase tequila.
To Harloe who listens to me every day. You guide my books, my characters and my career by endlessly sharing your wealth of knowledge with me. I would literally be a nobody if you hadn’t found me, you’ve been an untold blessing on my personal and professional life. I love you, and please note I put you second, you put me like eighth, so I think it’s safe to say I love you more.
Oh Sarah…this book would not exist without you. I don’t know why you agreed to beta read for me, or to be my friend – I’ve been a pain in the ass to deal with on both. Your honesty, kindness and generous heart are things I never expected but have come to cherish. Brye and Filly will forever be yours, you shaped them, molded them and guided them in a way I desperately needed. You shaped me, molded me and guided me in a way I didn’t deserve. Thank you for making me live up to my potential on this one.
Emma I hate to do this, but I have to tell people you have a heart and it is so beautiful. You are my longest, most true friend in this book world and I’m pretty sure some sort of lost soulmate/sister or something. You are the foundation I build my books on and I don’t even know how to write them without you anymore. You are in every drop of ink. You are in my thoughts every single day. I’m sending you a care package soon, I swear!
Mix, Dyllan, Karrie, and Megs you guys are the best team a girl could ask for. I know I can message you anytime, day or night and you will all tell me I’m pretty. Well Megs will probably tell me something disgusting and then to fuck off but that is her version of “you’re pretty” and I love it. I love you guys. You have my back always. You stop your lives for me. The value of your friendship is truly immeasurable.
Marley Valentine, Christine Besze, Jess Bryant, Cassandra Magnussen, Haley Jenner, Christy Anderson, Maren Lee, JC Grant, M Andrews, BB Easton and Staci Hart, you guys ROCK. Like an insane amount. You always help, you always guide, always support. You guys are everything the indie book community should be. You are a kick ass group of women and I’m forcing you to be my tribe. I have no problem saying I’m a stage five clinger, and you are all inspirations so I’m doing whatever I can to keep you.
