Listen to Your Heart

Chapter Six

"Sorry," Bradley mumbled, shifting away from her slightly. "I didn't mean to—"

Flushed and out of breath, she shook her head at him, bringing a finger to her lips and knocked on the driver's window. "Hi, excuse me," she said when he lowered the glass. "Could you give us a few minutes before we head to The Thompson, please? We need to discuss some business. I'll let you know when we're ready."

She was laying it on a little thick, but she had to assure discretion. The instant the window went back up, she was in Bradley's personal space, as close as her elaborately designed dress would allow. "C'mere," she said softly, her hands on his face, fingers splayed over his jaw.

"Stefani..."

"Shhh, no more talking."

Climbing into his lap, she kissed him.

She didn't know if it was the champagne or the events of the night or years of repressed tension making their way to the surface, but it wasn't something she wanted to examine any further. Not when Bradley's lips were on hers and all she could think about was the delicious heat, his open palm flush against her waist, the other hand cupping her cheek. His tongue met hers and she moaned into his mouth.

He was not Jackson and she was not Ally and it was treacherous.

She'd felt the electric energy on set when they had filmed the love scenes, she knew Bradley had too. The temperature of the room shifted during those moments. He was nothing but the consummate professional, always, but she could tell in the way he looked at her afterward that she wasn't imagining things. She'd brushed it off as just having incredible chemistry, resigned herself to the fact the day would end, and they'd go home to their respective partners.

But when she was alone, she thought about the little things; the way they would linger seconds longer after the assistant director called cut; their lips still pressed in a kiss, how his chest in the bath felt against her breasts, the way the breath seemed to leave him when his hands slid over her skin for the first time.

Bradley broke away to trail tiny kisses down her neck, alternating between small bites and gentle licks and unabashedly, her hands went to his hair, tugging a little. He groaned low against her throat, his fingers skimming her bare knee.

The gesture was both hot and intimate and a fierce sense of possession overtook her as she found his lips again.

My Bradley.

It should have disgusted her, this line of thinking. She didn't believe in ownership, especially when the person in question in no way belonged to her, not even close. But it was difficult to reconcile the notion. She knew him. She knew everything about him, there was nothing they hadn't shared in the months leading to and during the film. They finished each other's sentences. She had cried in his arms; they knew one another's hopes and dreams and fears. He was who she called when being Gaga was too much to take, when she was afraid of slipping back into the dark fog she knew all too well. She was who he talked to when Irina had walked out of the house with Lea after a fight for the fifth time that week, slamming the door behind her. They'd cooked dinner together, they'd sang on her patio, watching the sunset, they'd attended concerts and plays together. He'd become irreplaceable in her life.

He's mine, she thought selfishly. In every way that counts.

And she was his.

"Stefani," he murmured into the recesses of her collarbone, almost reverently and she grabbed his face again, kissing him as though she needed him to breathe.