Claimed By The British Rockstar Page 8
We glide into camp and Maddox hops down from the back of the jeep, landing deftly and then reaching up for me. I let out a squeal of excitement as he carries me down.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how easily you carry me,” I whisper into his ear, throwing my arms around him as he holds still for a moment.
“I’ll never get used to anything about you,” he growls. “You’re too beautiful, too smart, too sexy, too Myla for me to ever stop being fascinated by you.”
A glow moves through me as he places me down and slides his hand down my arm and then finds my hand, holding it softly as he guides us through the campsite toward our tent at the back.
Though, calling the large, sprawling canvas a tent is like calling a boulder a pebble. It’s more like a rock star, five star, hotel suite place of luxury transported here, with an enclosure of mosquito nets and a generator for electricity, with window like holes set high up to let in the golden setting sun.
Maddox holds the flap aside for me and gestures inside.
“After you.”
“You’re being so polite,” I say, giving him a playful pinch in his abs.
That makes a spiral of want twist through me when I feel how hard his belly is, so hard I swear I could break my fingernails on it if I squeezed hard enough.
He smirks, his eyes reading me, searing into me.
“After you, Myla. Or you’ll give me ideas and dinner will be spoiled.”
I grab his shirt and pull myself close, staring bravely up at him, feeling like a constellation of stars is blazing in a private universe between us.
“Maybe I want that, huh?”
I squeal and laugh like crazy when he grabs me by the hips and guides me inside, his lips at my neck as he loops his hands around me, pushing our bodies together so it’s like they’re fusing together.
“Open your eyes, Myla,” he whispers in my ear.
“How did you know they were closed?”
He squeezes my ass, causing shivers to run through me, and then smooths his hands up to my hips.
“Because you always close your eyes when I kiss your neck. It’s cute as fuck. But I want you to see right now.”
I open my eyes and then something catches in my throat.
He must’ve had it arranged when we left this morning.
The tent has been completely cleared and in the middle there’s a table and chairs, the ornate, sophisticated sort you find at expensive restaurants, and in the middle sits a flickering candle and two silver platters. A vase of roses sits on the table, too, as vivid and bright and gorgeous as the love – yes, love – I feel whelming in my chest for this man.
“When you said dinner, I was thinking more rations, not Michelin star,” I say, spinning on him. “This is amazing.”
For a brief, silly moment, I think that Maddox has just disappeared into a puff of smoke.
I see the closed tent flap and the canvas, but not him.
Then I look down and I gasp all over again, but deeper, and with a sob underneath it threatening to choke me.
Maddox is on one knee and he’s staring up at me with those gleaming eyes that see through me.
No, into me.
“I love you, Myla,” he growls. “I love you more than I could ever explain in words.”
“I love you, too,” I gasp, almost throwing myself at him now as tears bud in my eyes, clinging to my lashes. “I’m so glad you feel the same.”
“Of course I do,” he says intensely. “I loved you the second I saw you in the crowd. And now that our lives are set on the most glorious path I could imagine, I want to make this official. I want to claim you, properly claim you, so that no other man ever has the possibility of getting his hands on you. Maybe society will call me sexist or old fashioned but I don’t give a fuck. You’re mine. Mine. And nobody but me gets to be with my wife.”
He takes a ring box from his pocket and opens it, revealing a glistening, large diamond set within a glimmering silver band.
“Myla Steele, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” I yell, almost before he’s even finished asking the question. “I love you, Maddox. Of course I’ll marry you.”
He takes my hand and slides the ring onto my finger, the metal cool compared with the heat of the tent.
Then he leaps to his feet and we throw ourselves at each other, a fit of passion taking us over as we forget dinner and search for each other’s lips.
We gasp and moan and finally our lips meet, our tongues dancing around each other as our love blooms like roses between us.
I’m going to be Maddox Copper’s wife.
I’m going to marry the man who proved to me that I don’t have to be self-conscious and paranoid and worried all the freaking time.
My husband-to-be is the man of my dreams.
I sink deeper into the fire of our kiss, feeling like the most blessed woman alive.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
Maddox
I hold little Mikey in my arms as I walk to the door of the study and peer inside, my heart doing backflips and somersault and all kinds of acrobatics when I see Myla sitting at her desk.
She’s so caught up in her work she doesn’t even see me watching her, just bites her bottom lip as she turns the page of her zoology text book and makes a precise note with her pen.
This past year has been an unfolding series of sun bright moments, starting with our return from Africa and the wedding planning.
The thought had struck me that the ins-and-outs of the wedding might bore me, because who the hell is going to get excited about this or that tablecloth?
But when I saw Myla’s face light up, her cheeks blooming with each decision, the wedding mania infected me. By the end, we were as we always are.
In it together.
I remember how she jumped around the suite when the pregnancy test came back positive, the eve of the wedding, breaking the no-seeing-each-other rule and busting into my hotel suite.
“Maddox,” she cried, waving the stick like it was a magic wand.
And it was, because it gave us Mikey, the little bundle sleeping soundly in my arms.
He lays his head against my chest and breathes quietly, making the occasional cooing or snore like sound that just about makes my heart about burst.
Before Myla, I didn’t even know if I had a heart.
Or if I did, I thought it was destined to stay locked away, a part of me that could only live in my music, open to interpretation but never belonging to anybody.
But now my heart belongs to Myla, my wife, the best goddamn wife a man could ask for.
And Mikey, the little man who I just know is going to fill our lives with love and laughter and happiness, even more than he already has, and that’s a giant gleaming mountain of joy already.
Myla’s hair is tied up in a bun and the Saturday morning sunlight streams in behind her, making it gleam even more golden. I smirk when I hear her voice in my mind.
That’s called post-pregnancy sweat.
She seems to think that the extra weight and the sweat and all of it will put me off, but part of me wonders if she’s only teasing, because she just looks too damn womanly for me to be put off, her curves enhanced, her fertility screaming from her every pore.
She looks up and spots us, a smile lifting her lips in a bright display.
“Are you sneaking around, husband?”
“I was just explaining to the little man here how you’re going to be the best zoologist in the world, and he was telling me that he’s already very proud of you.”
She giggles. “That’s funny, because I didn’t hear a thing.”
“I know,” I say, striding into the room and bringing Mikey close to her. She leans over and kisses his head. “That’s because you were so absorbed with your work. Kenneth has prepared a mighty breakfast, by the way, and if we’re not careful, Tyson’s going to devour the lot.”
We both smile and I know what we’re thinking.
/> The day we got him at the shelter, the time I made up that excuse because I thought, stupidly, that there was even a remote chance I’d be able to fight the budding desire I felt for her.
I’ve since told Myla about the reason for visiting the shelter, and after lots of laughing and teasing, she agreed with me that it was the best thing we ever could’ve done, starting our relationship by caring for another life.
Now, the little terrier is full haired and full of life, a two year old ball of writhing energy that doesn’t know how to stop or quit.
“I love you,” Myla says, standing up and placing her pen on her notebook.
“I love you, too,” I smile, leaning across our son’s head to kiss her on the cheek. “And let me just tell you, wife. You’re damn lucky I’m holding our son right now.”
I give her the look that means my body is roaring at me to take her again, to claim her in every way I know how, to push our bodies together in rioting lust and searing want.
She gaps at me and then waves a dramatic hand down at her body, still clad in the grey sweatpants and the baggy I Heart Lions T-shirt she wore to bed last night.
But even if the clothes are baggy, they can’t hide the heavenly perfection that is my wife’s form, made even more shapely and appealing from the pregnancy.
“Um, have you seen how absolutely grotesque I look right now, Maddox?” she teases, a sassy note underlying it.
She knows how supremely fuckable she looks.
Holding my son carefully, I reach over and touch her necklace, drawing it out of the T-shirt.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her. “And S-E-X-Y.”
She laughs like she always does when I spell things in front of Mikey.
“And after breakfast, I’ve got half a mind to give Mikey to the nanny for an hour or two. You’re driving me insane.”
“You’re insatiable,” she thrills, her cheeks glowing that shade of red that’s like a signal straight to my manhood.
“Yes,” I growl, “I am. Now, breakfast, bed. What do you say?”
“I say that sounds like the most perfect Saturday morning I could possibly think of.”
She takes Mikey from me and cradles him close, rocking him back and forth as we leave the office and head toward the smell of bacon, Tyson yapping happily the closer we get.
I stare at my wife as we walk, and at my son, my heart thumping hotly and an irrepressible rictus smile stuck to my lips.
And I’m just so happy I followed my heart.
I’m just so happy I get to call Myla my wife.
I’m just so damn happy.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
EIGHT YEARS LATER
Myla
Mikey trails after me in his Wellington boots, a bag of feed in one hand and a trowel in the other. It’s a rare rainy day in California, but it’s a light, warm spray that’s welcome more than resented, and when I look to my right and see little Tina, named after my mother, and Isabella, who’s named after Maddox’s mother, I feel so much joy blossoming in my heart I’m glad it’s raining.
That way, if I cry, I won’t upset the children, even if they’re happy tears.
Get it together, girl.
We walk through the sanctuary and I nod at two of my interns, smiling when I think that I get the chance to gift two people the chance to work with animals, the same way I was given the opportunity at the start of my career.
“Mommy, I don’t even mind digging the poo-poo,” Mikey says, and then laughs in a musical singsong way.
“That’s because you’re gross,” Tina teases, but with her characteristic gap-toothed smile to show that she’s joking. She dances over to her big brother and puts her hand on his shoulder. “Only kidding.”
“Mommy, is Daddy going to be here soon?” Bella asks. “I miss him.”
“About twenty minutes,” I tell her. “In the meantime, you’re poor old mommy will have to be enough.”
“You’re silly,” she giggles, wrapping an arm around my leg as we walk, clutching onto me and hugging tight so that I have to guide her with my hand. Not that I mind. Heat infuses every part of me. “I love you, Mommy. I just love Daddy too. I even love Mikey and he loves poo-poo.”
“That was a joke,” Mikey grins. “I’m just not scared of hard work, that’s all.”
I smile at them, their banter making me want to record it, every moment, so that when they’re older and grown I can replay it over and over. I think of Maddox at home with the twins and Tyson, Tyson probably yapping up a storm, even as he gets older, and my heart tugs like there are actual strings attached.
I’ve heard that phrase before, of course.
Heart strings.
But that’s what my family – my life – does for me. It tugs and plucks and strums like freaking music.
We go to the enclosure that needs cleaning and get to work and, afterward, I let the children feed some specially made treats to the animals and then I hand it over to my manager, before herding the children out to the front of the sanctuary to stand in the pleasant, warming rain and wait for their father.
But Maddox is already there as we walk into the drizzle, leaning against the van with his arms folded in his steel grey suit, his face dusted with a light salt and pepper five o’clock shadow and his eyes gleaming so intensely when he sees me I almost run over to him and leap on him right away.
He looks as sturdy and muscular and Maddox as the day we fell in love.
“Daddy, Daddy,” Bella cries, running over to him. “Where’s the little monkeys?”
Maddox chuckles as he sweeps Bella into his arms, hugging her close and kissing her on the forehead. “With Grandma and Grandpa. They’re having dinner with us today. Isn’t that great?”
“I love Grandpa. His hair is funny, Daddy. It’s blue.”
I roll my eyes and let out a laugh as I lean across Bella to give Maddox a kiss on his bristly cheek.
“Ew,” Bella jokes, giggling.
“Are Mom and Dad already at the house, then?” I ask.
“Yeah, keeping the little monkeys company.”
Bella laughs like crazy when he says that, like she always does when he calls the twins monkeys, and then we all pile into the van and Maddox sits behind the wheel.
I look across at my husband, my hand straying to my necklace and turning over the metal, my mind flitting back to the day he reclaimed it for me.
We’ve come so far since then, my zoology degree being a skyrocketing success, the sanctuary just the same. Maddox has signed five global superstars and plenty of smaller bands, and all in all our lives just keep going up, up, and up.
Just as Maddox starts the engine, the rain stops and a ray of late day sunlight breaks through the pale clouds, shining brightly directly down on just us.
That’s what it feels like as we sit there, the sun illuming our whole private universe, shimmering with a heavenly glow.
Maddox looks across at me and gives me a twitch of his eyebrow and a smirk, and after nine years of marriage I can read him as easily as I can read my own reflection, as though I can see right into his thoughts.
Can our lives get any brighter?
I smile and reach across, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze, feeling his wedding band pressing against my skin.
I don’t know, I say silently. But we can try.
He smiles and then starts the engine, backing the car out of the lot and joining the highway.
“Daddy,” Mikey says.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think one day we could go paint-balling?”
“I’m not sure,” Maddox muses. “Is there an age requirement for paintball?”
“I already checked,” Mikey says quickly, his excitement getting the better of him as his words rush out and he bobs up and down in his seat. “I’m old enough.”
“Then yeah, sure,” Maddox grins. “I’ll look into it, pal.”
“Awesome.”
I smile and glance in the rear view, letting my eyes flit
to each of my children, my heart thumping with a thousand angel songs as I think about the evening that unfolds ahead of us.
Dinner with Mom and Dad, tucking the twins into bed and listening to the sleepy noises they make.
And then, once our mansion is quiet and everybody is asleep, I’ll crawl into the man of my dream’s arms where he’ll kiss me, kiss me hard, and before we know it we’ll be a mess of limbs and lust and want.
And life will just keep on getting better, and better.
Forever.
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A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS
Book 1: Baby Lust
Book 2: Veteran
Book 3: Built
Book 4: Bambino
Book 5: Rescued
Book 6: Leader
Book 7: Professor
Book 8: Burned
Book 9: Worldly
Book 10: Pistol
Book 11: Policed
Book 12: Driven
Book 13: Lucky 13
Book 14: Lumberjacked
Book 15: Protector
Book 16: Carpenter
Book 17: Italian Stallion
Book 18: Gardener
Book 19: Budapest Billionaire’s Virgin
Book 20: Billionaire’s Babysitter
Book 21: Cocky CFO
Book 22: Fireman’s Filthy 4th
Book 23: Mechanic
Book 24: SEAL’s Secret
Book 25: Police, Pooch, and Smooch
Book 26: Fireman’s Fake Fiancée
Book 27: Billionaire’s Virgin Ballerina
Book 28: Bitcoin Billionaire’s Babysitter
Book 29: Veterans Day Daddy
Book 30: Cowboy’s Christmas Carol
Book 31: Police Officer’s Princess
Book 32: Statham
Book 33: Bodyguard
Book 34: Greek God
Book 35: Billionaire Single Dad's Babysitter
Book 36: Mountain Man
Book 37: SEAL’s Justice
Book 38: Royal Romance
Book 39: Doctor Mountain Man’s Special Delivery