Chosen by a Stranger (Craved Series #5) Read online

  Chosen by a Stranger

  Hazel Kelly

  © 2015 Hazel Kelly

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, copied, or stored in any form or by any means without permission of the author. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  All characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental.

  “I may not always love you

  But as long as there are stars above you

  You never need to doubt it

  I’ll make you so sure about it”

  -The Beach Boys

  Chapter 1: Jack

  I should never have asked her to marry me.

  Not like that.

  She deserved more. I should've gotten on my knee. And not until I'd planned something extravagant.

  Sure, the evening was amazing, and words couldn’t express how much I’d enjoyed her company, but a proposal shouldn't be an afterthought like that.

  It shouldn't come after a bath and a bottle of wine and a full day of sex when people can hardly walk or speak, much less think clearly.

  And to think I'd been trying not to overwhelm her all evening.

  What a joke.

  No wonder she said she needed time to think about it.

  I didn't regret the sentiment though. Not a word. I knew how hard it was to find a woman as clever and caring as Audrey, a woman who happened to be wrapped up in a package I would never tire of opening.

  And every day she wasn't mine fell short of its potential.

  It was only after I asked, when I was laying there spooning her as she feigned regular breath, that I realized I probably should've asked if she wanted to be exclusive or something first.

  But I'd been out of the dating game for so long that it seemed overly conservative to do that, especially when I didn't just want exclusivity.

  I wanted exclusivity with intent.

  I was too impatient to take my time and let love grow and all that bullshit people pretend the heart needs.

  As far as I’m concerned, those flimsy guidelines are just a load of crap that people rely on when the love isn’t there and they need to buy themselves some time to see if it turns up.

  I didn't need to be coddled by a security blanket made of excuses. I knew Audrey was the answer to the only question I thought I might never have an answer to, and perhaps that realization is what galvanized me into action.

  Meanwhile, I crossed my fingers that she wasn't freaking out. I knew from teaching my class that women sometimes dwelled on one piece of a puzzle to the point that they could no longer see the big picture anymore.

  In other words, I hoped she wasn't focusing on what I proposed to the point that she was failing to recognize what I hadn't proposed.

  For example, I didn’t suggest we get married tomorrow. I wasn’t a kid. I’d never suggest we rush into anything official. We still had a lot to learn about each other before we could really sync up our lives.

  And that was the other thing. Logistically, we had a lot of discussions ahead of us about whom and what might be interested in moving where.

  But even with plenty of money at my disposal, it would still be ideal if we could at least settle on a place to share for a while. Nothing had to be permanent, of course… except for Audrey's proximity to me since the thought of not having her around was what caused me to open my big mouth in the first place.

  The point is, I figured we could have a nice long engagement during which we could do all that behind the scenes relationship housekeeping.

  But at least we'd be together.

  Because I loved her.

  And imagining my life without her was no longer appealing for me.

  Earning her affection, making her laugh, causing a smile to spread across her face and lift her blue eyes- those were the challenges that really fired me up, the goals I had that I could get excited about.

  And being successful at that would trickle into other areas of my life. I knew my desire to impress her and make her proud far exceeded my ambition to impress myself. And I wouldn’t expect her to be wowed by the things I accomplished before she came around.

  I would change for the better, and she would be my inspiration. She already was. After all, nothing had spurred me into action the way she had recently.

  And that was just one of the reasons I knew I was in love with her.

  Which is why I wasn’t worried about moving or getting back to work. Cause that was minor stuff. It was finding someone that made you happy no matter where you were that was the real challenge.

  And I had that with Audrey.

  In fact, craving her had already forced me out of my comfort zone and opened my mind in ways that had me looking forward to the future for the first time in years.

  I just hoped she felt the same way because I was eager to make her comfortable, to make her safe.

  And that was the other reason I knew it was true love. Because I didn't want anything from her. She wasn't a means to an end.

  All I wanted was for her to keep being herself and to let me be around for it. Because I found her positively magnetic, and no one had ever captured my attention- my imagination- the way she did.

  I may have been accustomed to Thai sunshine, but I would rather soak her up any day.

  And as I pulled her warm body against mine, I hoped she was thinking of all the reasons she’d say yes.

  Chapter 2: Audrey

  I'd never felt less relaxed in my whole life.

  On the contrary, I was completely freaking out. The only reason I managed to stay in bed was because Jack had his arms around me and was curled up with his knees behind mine. So for ages, I just tried to hold still and clear my mind by focusing on taking deep breaths so the rhythm of my breathing would match his.

  Eventually, though, his breath slowed to a pace I could no longer match, and I realized he was sleeping.

  I was simultaneously jealous and outraged.

  I was jealous because I wanted to be sleeping, too. After what had been the best day of sex I'd ever had in my life, I was exhausted. And while I was pleasantly sleepy after our time in the tub, my tiredness seemed to have evaporated as quickly as the tub had drained.

  And I was outraged at him, too, because how could he be sleeping at a time like this?! When he'd just asked me to marry him?!

  I swallowed and opened my eyes, staring through the dark at the far wall to confirm that I wasn't actually dreaming the whole thing.

  But no. It was real… as unlikely as it was considering the fact that twenty-four hours ago I was a single, unemployed woman in my mid-twenties with zero job or relationship prospects.

  And now here I was in bed with a millionaire who was smart enough to be a doctor, sexy enough to be an underwear model, and skilled enough to be- I don’t know- some kind of sexpert professor with a marriage proposal hanging over my head.

  It was unfathomable. In fact, if it had been any other crazy situation, I would've pushed it to the back of my mind and left it alone for a few days.

  Unfortunately, that wouldn't do in this case because the gorgeous man in question was waiting for an answer based on the entirely unreasonable suggestion that I just sleep on it.

  I mean, what the hell? In all my life, I'd never heard of such a thing!

  “Oh you're not sure you can marry me now? Well, why don't you sleep on it?”

  It was absurd.

  If anything, the whole situation proved that he was just as drunk and sexed up as I was and had no idea what he was saying. And yet, when I attempted to laugh it off because that was my awkward default setting, he almost seemed offended.

>   Like it should've been obvious that he was serious!

  But how could it be? There was nothing even remotely rational about the situation. He hardly knew me!

  For all he knew, I was a complete weirdo. Shit, for all I knew, he was. And even if neither of us was off our head, it didn't mean we should lock ourselves into this thing and have a go of it.

  Right?!

  Was I totally unromantic and without any sense of adventure that I was having this logical reaction? I mean, I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea that a guy like him could even be interested in me, much less want to commit to being interested in me forever.

  He didn't even know what my pet peeves were or how short tempered I could be when I was hungry or about my age inappropriate weakness for boy bands and how embarrassingly bad my credit card freezing experiment had gone last year… not that I would ever admit that last one to him anyway.

  The point was, he was mature enough to know that I had a list of terrible traits and habits whether he knew what they were or not. And I guess I was shocked that he was willing to overlook all those wild cards just to be with me.

  Me?!

  Sure, I had relatively healthy self-esteem and everything, but compared to him I wasn't exactly accomplished or rich or particularly impressive. I was a regular girl. The most I ever hoped was that I'd capture the attention- maybe even the imagination- of a regular guy, and we'd see what we could do with a regular amount of chemistry.

  But here I was with this exceptional... specimen whose mere touch sent fireworks through my body and my brain, and the only thing that wasn't exceptional about him was the fact that he couldn't see how totally plain I was.

  It almost made me wonder if there was something wrong with him.

  Though after the day we'd had together, I was pretty confident that he was flawless.

  And yet, he'd never even told me he loved me!

  At dinner he'd said my creativity was one of the things he loves about me, but that's not really the same.

  And it's not like this was the Middle East or something where a marriage might be arranged long before love ever even came into it. This was the Western World. I couldn't marry someone who’d never said he loved me.

  Plus, I couldn’t marry someone I wasn't sure that I loved, and with Jack, things were complicated to say the least. Obviously, there was no denying that I loved everything about him.

  He was kind, funny, smart, sexy as hell, and he made me feel like I was the greatest catch in the world. Any woman would thank their lucky stars to have a date with him, much less the opportunity to wake up next to him every morning.

  But that was my heart talking, and my heart had been wrong more times than I could count. As a result, it couldn't be trusted.

  What could be trusted was reason, and my logical side was telling me that it was too soon to love him even if I felt differently. Besides, love at first site wasn't a real thing. It was just a fantasy that people believed in so they could make rash, unfounded decisions.

  And it would be one thing if the rash decision was to go away with him for a weekend or to go visit him in Thailand or something else more… transient. But marriage wasn't the kind of thing people with college degrees and level heads jumped into.

  This wasn't the fifties for god sakes!

  I had more to worry about than finding someone who was willing to put a ring on my finger. And just because I never imagined that someone as amazing as Jack would ever take interest in my long term happiness- or even my short term orgasms- I didn't want to be foolish.

  And most of all, I didn't want to get hurt again so soon, especially by him. Because I feared I might not recover if I lost the best thing that had happened to me in ages.

  Then again, if I didn't say yes, I still risked losing him. Or disappointing him. Or giving him doubts about me that he didn't currently have.

  But surely he would understand if I needed more time. I mean, as romantic as it was that his emotions had gotten the best of him, he was probably having second thoughts, too.

  Maybe he even fell asleep wishing he knew how to take it back without sounding like an ass.

  If only I could slink to the other room and call Megan. I feared many of the thoughts I was having were so outrageous I probably shouldn’t decide whether to take them seriously until I heard them aloud.

  Of course, I couldn’t because I risked waking Jack whose clear headedness I would need to rely heavily on in the morning.

  Plus, I wasn't ready to call Megan yet, not when I hadn’t even had a chance to sleep on it. After all, she might tell me not to blow it. Or worse, she might tell me the whole thing was ludicrous.

  And part of me wanted to believe in it.

  At least for one night.

  Chapter 3: Jack

  Her slightly parted lips were so full and gorgeous I wanted to reach out and drag a finger across them.

  But I didn't dare wake her up, not when her eyes were closed so softly and her whole face looked so peaceful.

  When I was finally able to tear my eyes away from her face, I noticed her shoulder was sticking out of the covers. It looked shiny and smooth. If I hadn’t touched it so many times now, I would've sworn it was made of silk.

  And it was pretty overwhelming- the feeling of waking up in bed beside her. I could feel a warm swell of pride filling my chest like a balloon, and the fact that she was such good company even when she was asleep seemed unfair.

  When I’d woken up next to women in the past, I usually found that they appeared to be a slightly inferior version of the woman I believed I went to bed with. Granted, the cheap Thai rum I drank most nights that happened probably had something to do with it, but with Audrey, it was different.

  She was every bit as beautiful and enchanting as she'd ever been, if not more so. And I was pleased when I remembered the effort I put in to showing her a good time the previous night.

  When she woke up- hopefully feeling as rested and optimistic as I did- I imagined how she might smile at me, knowing I was waiting for her answer.

  God how I wanted her to say yes. I knew it was all happening so fast, that there were people who would say it was ridiculous that I'd proposed. But how could I take things slow when she made my heart beat so fast?

  And the longer I watched her sleep, the surer I became.

  She was the woman for me, and nothing excited me more than having the opportunity to spend my days becoming a man worthy of her affection.

  Because now that I'd seen that smile, now that I’d made her melt in so many ways, I couldn't walk away.

  And if she would just wake up and say, “yes, Jack. The answer is yes, I will marry you,” then she'd make me the luckiest, happiest, richest man on Earth.

  When she finally woke, she didn't open her eyes right away. Instead, she took a deep breath and stuck her legs straight out under her before curling back up into a little ball.

  A moment later, she opened her blue eyes and smiled. "How did you sleep?"

  "Good," I said. "You?"

  "Fine," she said. "Once I got to sleep anyway."

  "Sorry if I kept you up-"

  "Don't apologize," she said, her voice still quiet and creaky. "I'm not sorry."

  I reached my arm out and pulled the covers up to cover her shoulder.

  She sighed. "I had the craziest dream."

  "Oh?" I asked, genuinely interested in hearing about what someone else dreamt for the first time in my life.

  "I had a dream you asked me something crazy."

  "Go on."

  "You asked me to marry you."

  I smiled. "And what did you say?"

  "I didn't answer you."

  "Because you didn't think I could handle the good news-?"

  "No," she said. "Because I didn't think-"

  "What?"

  "That you were serious."

  "Audrey."

  "Yeah?"

  "I've never been more serious about anything in my life."

  S
he pursed her lips.

  "The obstacles that are in the way of us being together are minor compared to how much I care about you."

  "So you were serious?" she asked. "Because if you wanted a take-back-"