I hate feeling like I'm catching her off guard without warning, and I can’t help but wonder if she's ever tried to look me up online too. But judging by her reaction when the elevator doors opened earlier, there hadn’t been even a flicker of recognition in her gaze. I wondered what would come up if you looked up thename'Dallas Golden – Los Angeles.' I'd intentionally always stayed out of the media and away from my parents’ fame and fortune to maintain some semblance of privacy. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be tied to them, I just wanted to pave my own path outside of their spotlight, even if that was nearly impossible.
If there is anything online about me, I doubt any of it would tell the true story about who I am and I would be shocked if there were any images. I'd deleted all social media account decades ago and never attended any of the red-carpet events or Hollywood parties with my parents. I'd always despised the superficial nature of those things.
I press the cold bottle of beer to my lips and take another long sip as I hear Stevie sigh in jealousy next to me.
“I can’t wait for this baby to be born so that I can drink again but I also want her to stay inside a little longer. I love being pregnant.”
Stevie might be a fiery spirit by nature, but it's clear that she and Wylie are a perfect match, and I’m genuinely happy for them as they prepare to welcome a little girl into their lives. It makes me wonder if one day, I'll want a similar life with the right person or if I'll continue to find solace among my plants and crops in the middle of nowhere, Texas.
"What's up, shit heads," Wylie's younger brother Clay joins our group, immediately cracking a joke about something he'd witnessed today while working at his brother’s ranch that sends the group into a fit of laughter.
I distract myself by scanning the perimeter again, searching for Dove. This time I catch a glimpse of her a few feet away in the crowd. And damn is she a welcome sight. All five-foot-seven inches of her beautiful, curvy body that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
Tonight, she’s wearing dark black, ripped jeans that reveal both of her kneecaps and when she turns to the side to grab her beer, Icatch another glimpse of a perfectly placed tear right below one of her ass cheeks, just like the shorts she'd been wearing earlier today except now she’s wearing them in a brightly lit bar where strangers are certainly staring at her.
I conceal a groan as I discreetly adjust myself in my pants, remembering the way it felt to have her on my lap, arms wrapped around my neck, holding me tightly for security. A protective surge waves over me while I think about how she trusted me too much and possessed an alarming lack of situational awareness when she first entered the elevator for a popular rock star.
I consider marching over there, scooping her up, tossing her over my shoulder so that I can teach her some self-defense moves in case that situation ever arises again.
What if it’d been some obsessed fan with her in the elevator?
What if she’d been alone?
Worse, what if she freaks out when she knows it was me who was in there with her?
Her thick, auburn hair is in two braids on either side of her head, and her caramel eyes are sparkling with joy as she speaks animatedly to a much taller, blonde-haired male that I realize fits the description she'd given me of her older brother from a few years ago.
From only a few feet away, I can feel the joy radiating off of her. I just hope that once she realizes I’m here, that doesn’t change. Though I can’t hear her voice, the way her lips move reminds me of the soft and sultry tones that had captivated me in the elevator earlier today. I want her voice to become the soundtrack to my life, playing in the foreground and background of my existence.
I’ve faced death more times than I can count, seen the darkest forces take the brothers I cherished most in life, yet none of those things compared to the fear I feel as Dove's eyes shift fromher brother to me. They narrow for a moment in recognition as she continues speaking, while I stand frozen, taking her in.
In an instant, she cuts off her conversation and makes her way easily through the crowd. I know exactly why she’s coming my way and why she spotted me so readily—I’m hard to miss. You don’t overlook a Marine in a crowd unless they want you to, even in a warehouse packed with over three hundred people laughing and dancing. Sure, we’re always scanning for threats and planning exits, blending in, but I’m also staring at her. Obnoxiously so.
But can you blame me? I haven’t stopped thinking about her since we parted ways. Actually, I haven’t stopped thinking about her since I moved to Texas.
Meeting her in the elevator for the first time, under the cloak of mystery and darkness, had been alarming, but this—this is scarier than your sergeant finding a mess on field day.
She positions her smaller frame directly in front of me. She might be five-foot-seven, but even in her clunky combat boots, she has to crane her neck to look up at my six-foot-four. She smells like the cinnamon candies that she was nervously chewing earlier, but now her lips are painted a bright red that pops against her brown skin, reminding me of the blood I’d bleed just to be closer to her.
Just for her to know how sorry I am.
Don’t fuck this up.
“Hey, Cameron fam,” she drawls hugging Nash, Stevie, Savannah, Wylie, and Clay before turning back towards me with a questioning gaze.
I nod at her in greeting, not trusting myself to feel those arms wrapped around my torso again without touching her back.
“You’re staring,” Stevie hisses a little too loudly in my ear.
“Hey, Dove, take it easy on my boy here for staring,” Wylie says,nodding at me. "He isn't trying to make you uncomfortable."
She straightens her back, trying to meet my gaze, her eyes scrutinizing me intently. I can see the rise and fall of her round breasts, her breathing synchronizing with the subtle quickening of her pulse points in her neck—vulnerable spots where I can both kill a man and pleasure a woman.
“Dove, this is my new neighbor. He bought the old farm next-door to Cameron ranch,” Wylie explains.
“I know,” she responds gently.
Wylie raises a brow as Stevie’s eyes shift between the two of us, trying to understand how she could possibly know that.
