1
Present Day
Hope Falls, CA
“It’s you,”Ava whispers as the man that she only knew as tall, dark, and dangerous approaches her.
She takes two steps back and stops when she hits a wall. His long, powerful legs eat up the space between them in two steps. His gait is purposeful and the gleam in his eyes is predatory.
“Are you okay?” she breathes out when he stops mere inches in front of her.
Her hand trembles as she lifts it and touches his chest. What she finds isn’t a wound, but a strong, chiseled body. Her fingertips dance on his heated skin. She feels a scar beneath her touch and looks down to find a scar where the bullet that he’d taken for her had exited his chest. She traced it with her fingers.
“You saved my life.”
His hand cups her jaw and tilts her head up.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you, wanting you, needing you.” The admission comes out as a rough command. Her lips part as he lowers his head and captures her mouth with his. The kiss consumes her, engulfing her entire body in fiery flames of lust.
“Ava.”
A faint sound of someone calling her name drifted into her consciousness, but it sounded like it was hundreds of miles away.
She squeezes her eyes shut doing everything she can to ignore it. Soon, the voice is gone and she loses herself completely in the masterful massage of his tongue against her own. She wants him. All of him. She surrenders completely to the feeling of being swept away as his large, powerful hands roam her body.
“Ava!” the voice is louder now but she still does everything she can to block it out.
Tall, dark, and dangerous breaks the kiss and growls against her ear. “It’s you. It’s always been you.”
Suddenly they are both naked. Their bodies line up perfectly, and she feels the pressure of his erection against her neediest part.
“Yes,” she whimpers. “Yes.”
“Ava, wake up!”
Ava’s eyes flew open and she saw faces staring down at her. Three familiar faces. Her sisters.
“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty!” Grace, her oldest sister instructed.
“It’s your wedding day!” Audrey clapped her hands excitedly.
Vivien was less enthusiastic about it than the other two sisters. She tilted her head to the side, narrowing her eyes. “What were you dreaming about?”
It was a dream, Ava realized at her sister’s question.
She couldn’t help the disappointment that settled deep in her chest. It was the same dream she’d been having for the past seven years. Or a version of it, that is.
Sometimes, it started with her in the hospital bed right after the shooting. The man who saved her life entered her room, climbed into bed with her and they made love.
Sometimes he’d shown up at her job, interrupting a session she was having with a patient and declaring his love for her. They’d go at it completely unfazed by the person she was treating sitting and watching them.
The last few months, the dream had taken place on her wedding day. She’d be standing at the altar with Ian and after the preacher says, “If anyone objects, speak now or forever hold your peace.” Tall, dark, and dangerous bursts in and says, “I object!” Then he rushes to the front of the church, sweeps her off her feet, and carries her out to his getaway car where they make love either on the hood or in the backseat.
The dream she’d just had was the one that most commonly occurred. She was in a nondescript location, and tall, dark, and dangerous appears and tells her that he hasn’t stopped thinking about her. That she’s the one. That it’s her. It’s always been her.
“I can’t believe you’re finally getting married,” Grace shook her head back and forth.
Neither could Ava. After twenty years together, she and Ian were finally making it official. She tried not to think about the fact that she’d been disappointed that the dream was fake and the day she’d told herself she’d been waiting for was finally here.