“Drawing you.” Her eyes follow her fingertips’ path. “I’ve drawn you so many times. In my mind, in my sketchbook. But this is better than all of that.”

My hand slides down her back, sweeping along the fabric pooled just above her backside. “What do I look like, in these drawings?”

“Beautiful,” she whispers. “Frequently naked.”

I swallow roughly. “I hope the real thing lives up to what you’ve imagined.”

Her eyes meet mine, soft and warm in the faint light illuminating the drive. “You won’t. You’ll exceed it.”

“How do you know?”

She presses the gentlest kiss to my lips. “Because you’re you. You’re wonderful, Jamie, A truly good, beautiful, wonderful person who I can’t get enough of.” Her eyes search mine, reading my unease. “I hate that your asshole dad made you grow up doubting how incredible you are. I hate that your family, except for Sam, go along with it. Fuck them, okay? You are enough—more than enough—just as you are.”

I swallow roughly. “Thank you, Bea.”

As her mouth meets mine again, tender and reverent, my heart thunders in time with the words I can’t stop saying to myself.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

We bump off the private drive onto the main road, snapping me out of it. “Beatrice. Seat belt.”

“Jamie—”

“Safety first,” I tell her, already lifting her off my lap.

“Fine,” she pouts.

Gently, I set her beside me, buckling her seat belt. Then I slide my hand up her ribs, my thumb sweeping the soft underside of her breast through warm, ink-black silk. I tease her nipple with my thumb and feel it harden to a sharp, delicious point. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun on the way.”

“Jamie Westenberg,” she says on a coy, heated smile. “Wonders never cease.”

I smile back and press a long, slow kiss to the hollow of her throat. “Just wait until you see what I have planned next.”

· TWENTY-NINE ·

Bea

“Karaoke?” I stare disbelievingly up at the dive bar, its neon light flashing against the night sky.

The limousine pulls away as I unspool my flimsy wrap and throw it around my shoulders. Jamie tugs open another button of his shirt and peers up at the building. “Karaoke is one of those universally fun things, right? I don’t know who doesn’t like karaoke.”

I bite my lip. “I’m a terrible singer.”

He laughs. “So am I.”

“This is going to be iconic.”

He steps closer, cupping my face and stealing a gentle kiss. “We don’t have to. I just . . .” His thumb sweeps over my bottom lip. “I wanted to give you some fun after all that misery with my miserable family at their miserable house with all the miserable stuffed shirts.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

He arches an eyebrow. “It was. And I knew it would be. So I planned this.”