Surge: (#7 The Beat and The Pulse) (19 page)

T
hree months later
…

W
e’d left
the blinds open last night.

My eyes cracked open as the sunrise crept across the bedroom, waking me from the best sleep I’d ever had. Wiggling against the warm body asleep next to me, I breathed in the distinctive male scent I’d come to love.

Three months of uncomplicated bliss had passed since that night at the arena. That meant it was three months to the day I’d been with Dean Hayes. Happily and completely. Two halves of a whole.

From the day he’d taken the middleweight title from Gabe O’Connell, we’d just fallen into each other’s lives like we’d never left one another. Things just…
clicked
.

I was beginning to understand all the things Violet had told me that day at lunch when she’d finally managed to get me to spill that Dean and I were a thing. I was also beginning to understand Ash and Ren and who they were together. It was all a little bit too introspective for first thing in the morning, so I allowed my eyes to droop, and I dozed next to the lump of muscle that was my man.

My phone dinged, sounding the arrival of a text message, and I fumbled for it, sleep still clinging to my body. Picking it up, I saw it was a text from Hamish, and my gaze raked over the words he’d sent.

Thanks for your advice the other week
, it read.
Happy endings all round.

Biting on my bottom lip, I thought over the events of the past few months since the title fight. So much had happened, not just with Dean and me but in all our friends’ lives, too. It was easy to become caught up in our own drama since we had so bloody much of it, but the world still rotated.

I was devastated to hear about Hamish’s mother passing, and Dean and I had dropped everything to be there for the funeral. I hadn’t known anything about what he was going through while we were together, and maybe I should’ve been angry, but I couldn’t find it in my heart. Not after the roller coaster that was Dean’s and my ride to happy ending-ville.

Hamish had filled me in on the story about him and Lori after the funeral but not without some prodding. Once upon a time, he’d imparted some wisdom on me that was hard to hear but desperately needed, so I returned the favor. My story allowed him to find peace of his own it seemed.

Smiling like a fool, I opened the message and began to type in a reply.

The mound of muscle that was Dean Hayes began to move beside me, and his big paw of a hand found its way between my legs. Squirming, I laughed and attempted to kick him away without much luck.

“What are you smiling at?” Dean asked, his voice husky from the lack of sleep we’d had the night before.

I glanced at him, still grinning like an idiot, and turned my phone around so he could read the message from my ex.

“Good for them,” he said, plucking it from my hand and tossing it onto the bedside table.

“Hey, I was replying to that,” I complained, attempting to reach over him.

“Reply later,” he said, rolling on top of me. “If he’s anything like us right now, he won’t have time to read it.”

I ran my palms over his back, feeling the ripple of muscle as he moved. “You know, I love that you don’t feel threatened by Hamish and I being friends.”

“After the fucking shit we went through to get here?” he asked, his eyebrow rising.

Yeah, the wall of shit. Who could forget? Monica Miller, Gabe O’Connell… Those names were like an afterthought, a footnote on a story that was much bigger than all of their meddling combined.

Letting my gaze wander over Dean’s face, I studied the tiny scar that split his eyebrow. It was the mark he’d gotten fighting for the middleweight title against He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named—who was disgraced, banned, and never coming back. It was a battle scar.

Talk about a totally watertight happy ending.

“How’s Lincoln going with the rise to heavyweight?” I asked, totally trying to delay gratification. “How’s he handling the training?”

“Ask him yourself,” Dean grumbled. “You are his PR manager.”

“Oh yeah,” I murmured. “Two hundred and fifty thousand a year, all the sex I want with my hot boyfriend…and half his apartment.”

“
Plus bonuses
,” he said with a growl, grinding his erection between my legs.

“I thought three quarters of the bathroom space was the bonus?” I asked, walking a fine line between having all the power and giving him everything he wanted…which was
in
.

“Jo,” he complained. “We have to be at the gym in half an hour.”

“Then I better let you in,” I murmured, acquiescing to his desires. “
All the way
.”

As he took me, I knew I would never be anywhere else but right here with him. Living together, working together, and in complete and total love.

Finally, we were in sync.

J
ust like that
.

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A
mity Cross
is
the International Bestselling author of wicked stories about rock stars looking for redemption, gritty romances featuring MMA fighters and dark tales of forbidden romance. She loves to write about screwed up relationships and kick ass female leads that don’t take s**t lying down.

Amity lives in a leafy country town near Melbourne, Australia and can be found chained to her desk, held at ransom by her characters.

Don’t send help. She likes it.

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