“I’m not going to compare, Des. I won’t. You know why? Because there’s no comparison. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in life. You’re tough. You’re sexy. You’re intelligent and hardworking and you know what you want. You have an absolutely voracious sexual appetite—”
“A voracious appetite, period, you mean.”
He nods. “Yeah, and that’s sexy to me too. You enjoy food. You enjoy life. You don’t play games.” Adam takes my face in his hands. “To me, you are better in every way. You kiss me better, you fuck me better, and yes, you go down better. More importantly, you see me, as you once said. You know me. You don’t just appreciate me for the way I look, or for the fact that I’m famous. You appreciate me for me.”
“Smooth talker.”
“It’s not smooth, Des, it’s the raw truth.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s working.” I can’t help a smile from curving my lips.
“Good.” He touches my chin with an index finger, tipping my face up. His lips graze mine, his tongue drifts delicately across the seam of my mouth, probing, tasting. “Now let’s go watch the premiere, huh?”
And the premiere is fantastic. Adam is incredible. Not just the brutal fight scenes or the heart-stopping stunts, but the way he portrays his character, making him self-deprecating and darkly humorous, yet still badass and utterly, primally alpha.
God, this man is amazing, not just on film but in every possible way.
Chapter 18
I never get nervous anymore. I just don’t. I was nervous the first time I started in front of a packed home-crowd stadium at Stanford, I was nervous the first time I jogged out onto the Chargers field, and I was petrified when my first starring role in a big-budget, high-profile film hit the theaters.
But none of those experiences can hold a candle to the nerves blazing through me at this moment.
Which is beyond stupid. I shouldn’t be nervous. The chances of her saying no are slim to none. I know my girl, and I know she wants this. But I’m still nervous.
I’ve waited a long time for this. Months of traveling between Detroit, L.A., and two different shoots in different parts of the globe. I shot the cop drama in Detroit, and then I did a small-budget, character-driven piece shot largely in a studio in L.A. I had two months free which I spent in Detroit with Des. And then that time was followed by a massive historical project filmed in a studio in London and on-location in Germany and Spain.
And the whole time, I knew what I wanted. I wanted her, in my home. In my bed. No more brutal long-distance flights, no more splitting time between cities, no more nights alone. But I had to wait. She worked too damn hard for her degree for me to get in the way. So I waited.
And now she’s done. She graduated last week. I arranged the shoot schedule in Spain around her graduation and flew in the day before and surprised her with a custom-designed sapphire pendant. She doesn’t let me buy her a lot of extravagant gifts, so when there’s a reason to get her something that she can’t argue with, I go big.
The pendant was only the first part of her graduation gift. The second part is a secret trip. We’re on a private jet right now, flying south out of Detroit. I refused to tell her where we’re going, and I only let her pack a handful of dresses, some shorts and tank tops, and a few bathing suits. So she knows we’re going somewhere warm, but that’s it.
My buddy Dawson and his wife Grey recently bought property in the Caribbean. Now, when I say ‘property’, I mean half an island. And the only reason it’s not the whole thing is because I bought the other half. The salary for the historical war movie I just did was my biggest payout yet, and I haven’t spent much of what I’ve made in the last four years, except for taxes and the penthouse.
So when Dawson came to me with a plan to team up and split the cost of a small island, I jumped at it. Monster, fifty thousand square-foot palaces in Beverly Hills don’t appeal to me, and I suspect they don’t to Des either. The condo is fine, and still more than two people need. But a sprawling tropical estate on a private island, indoor-outdoor living spaces and no neighbors for literally a hundred miles in any direction—except Dawson and Grey on the other side? Hell yeah.
So we bought it at the end of last year and we’ve spent the last six months building the houses. Dawson’s done most of the work overseeing the construction, since he’s taking a two-year hiatus from filming. Everything was finished two weeks ago, and we’re meeting on the island for the inaugural visit.
Des hasn’t met Dawson and Grey, yet. We’ve been so busy and those two have been traveling the world. I think they’ve been in a dozen countries in the last year, and they make a point of staying at least a week in each place. I’m excited for this, honestly. Dawson is great guy, and Grey is sweet as sugar, but she’s tough, too, reminding me of Des in that way.
I glance at Des, who is sleeping beside me, her head on my shoulder. God, I love her.
I pull out the ring and look at it. I spent four months designing it, working with one of the world’s premier custom jewelers. It’s a flawless, one-in-a-million pink diamond, teardrop shaped, two and half carats. The band is comprised of over three hundred individual strands of filigreed platinum woven together, the strands merging and reaching up to capture the stone in an ornate, intricate web.
I hear Des murmur in her sleep and hurry to nestle the ring back in the black velvet box, and tuck the box back in my backpack. She stirs, stretches, blinks up at me. “We almost there?”
I smile down at her, wipe my thumb across the corner of her mouth. “You’ve got a little something here,” I say. “Yeah. We’ll land in about twenty minutes, and then there’s another short plane ride to our destination.”
“And you still won’t tell me where we’re going?”
“Nope. It’s a surprise.”
“I don’t like surprises,” she grumbles.
“Well, I think you’ll like this one.”
We land on St. John, transfer our one suitcase to a Jeep, and sit in easy silence as the driver takes us from the airport to the marina, where a twin-engine float plane waits. The pilot is a grizzled, weathered old man with a long graying red beard. He’s been hand-picked by Dawson and he’s got more flight time logged than any of us have even been alive, Dawson says, and that’s good enough for us.
I take our suitcase and shoulder my backpack as well as Des’s and we cross the dock. I put one foot on the float, the other on the dock, and toss the suitcase in, and then extend my hand to Des. She takes it, steps to the float and then into the plane.