One Wild Night (Hollywood Chronicles #1)(31)

I headed into the bedroom and into en suite restroom, toed off my shoes, and let my hair down.

I tugged my shirt over my head, then gasped a little breath when I looked up into the mirror to find Pax standing right behind me.

“Pax.”

Really, I shouldn’t have been all that surprised. But I guess what had caught me off guard was the look in his eye right then.

I thought maybe it was different than anything that had ever been there before.

Intense and determined.

He edged forward and my heart hammered.

His gaze never wavered from mine as he looked at me through the mirror as he reached up and unwound the shirt I had clutched in my hand.

“Let me help you with that,” he murmured, his breath skating the bare flesh at the crook of my neck.

Chills rushed down my spine.

He inched even closer, his chest grazing my back as he let his palms slide down the outside of my arms as he leaned in and whispered at my ear, “I saw what just flashed through your eyes, you know.” His words sounded like a quiet demand. “I saw exactly what you were thinking.”

“And what was that?” I barely managed around the thick knot that rose in my throat. A knot lifted by the sudden intensity that had gathered in the tiny space.

So fierce I was sure the man’s presence had become an entity of its own.

His hands skated back up my arms, running over the caps of my shoulders before he was winding my hair in one hand, angling my head to the side as he pressed his mouth to my pulse that was thrumming wildly in my throat. “You were thinking about the end, Kaylee Rose. You were thinking about the night when I don’t get to make love to you before we fall asleep and the morning I don’t wake up with you in my arms.”

“I’d be a fool if I didn’t think that day wasn’t coming.”

Then why did the thought of that rip me apart inside?

God, I’d let myself get so damned deep, coming here with him, getting swept up by the whirlwind that was Paxton Myles.

Being with him made me feel as if I was the only woman in the world. As if when he looked at me, I had become his focal point.

I shrugged a shoulder, though it took about all the energy I had to do it. “We don’t even know each other, Pax. Today was…”

Wonderful.

Amazing.

I want to do it over and over and over.

Never let it go.

Never let you go.

“…Unforgettable. But you and I? We’re from very different worlds.”

He gave my hair a little tug. “Who says those worlds can’t become one, Kaylee Rose? Who says?”

An incredulous chuckle escaped my lips. “I’m pretty sure about every person in the whole damned world.”

“And I say fuck the whole world because I want you to be a part of mine.”

I blinked at him through the mirror. “We barely know each other.”

He released my hair and set both his hands on my waist. He pressed himself against my bottom. “And that doesn’t change the way we feel, does it? These last few days…”

He paused, his tongue darting out to wet his lips, as if he were gathering himself, trying to find the right words. “The last few days have been the best of my life, Kaylee. The best. I invited you to come with me because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Because for the first time in years, I was actually excited about something. About someone. And I don’t want that to end.”

“What are you saying?” I asked him, the words breathless.

He cocked one of those grins. The kind that captivated the world on the screen. And tonight …it was fully directed at me. “I’m saying I want us to figure this out, Kaylee Rose. That when I step out, the whole goddamned world knows that I’m taken. That I belong to you and you belong to me. That you’re mine. No speculation or questions. We just are.”

Flooded with emotion, a tear slipped free. “You want me?”

He groaned and pressed himself closer to my back, and he buried his mouth in my hair as he muttered the words at the top of my head. “God, yes, Kaylee. I want you. That’s obvious enough, isn’t it? I want all of you. What do you say? Do you want all of me, too?”

He was back to flashing me that grin through the mirror.

So confident and sweet.

“As if you don’t already know the answer to that,” I said, swatting at the tear staining my cheek.

“You’re willing to try this out with me?” he prodded.

I spun around to face him. “God, Pax, of course I am. How could I not? You are so different than I ever could have imagined. I’ve never felt like this.”

He hugged me against him and pressed a kiss to my temple. “Good. Now that that’s settled, get your fine ass in that bed.”

Leaning back, I grinned up at him. “Always ordering me into your bed, huh?”

A chuckle rippled from his strong chest. “I think you’d best get used to it, Kay. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in it.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” I let the tease wind into the words, my happiness too big to contain.

Because Paxton Myles had just become mine.

He stepped back and jerked his shirt over his head, one side of his mouth quirking up in a delicious grin, mischief playing in his eyes. “Both.”