Devotion: The Beauty in Between (Beautiful Series book 4.5) Read online

  Devotion: The Beauty in Between

  Beautiful Series

  Book 4.5

  by Lilliana Anderson

  Copyright 2014 Lilliana Anderson

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. Any actual places, products or events mentioned are used in a purely fictitious manner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various places/products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission and is by no way sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Contents

  Contents

  Beautiful Series Reading Order

  Foreward

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dedication –

  For Tammie and Lindsey – the reason this book exists

  True love is not a strong, fiery, impetuous passion. It is, on the contrary, an element calm and deep. It looks beyond mere externals, and is attracted by qualities alone. It is wise and discriminating, and its devotion is real and abiding.

  ~ Ellen G. White

  Beautiful Series Reading Order

  (includes The Beauty in Between)

  (Too Close)

  A Beautiful Struggle

  (Phoenix)

  A Beautiful Forever

  (Commitment)

  A Beautiful Melody

  A Beautiful Rock

  (Devotion – Jun 27, 2014)

  A Beautiful Star (November, 2014)

  Find more books by Lilliana Anderson on the Kindle Store

  Foreward

  At the beginning of the year, two of my wonderful readers, Tammie and Lindsey, who have now become great friends of mine, got together and starting a conversation with me about how wonderful it would be to see Theo and Naomi’s wedding.

  I had already been thinking that they deserved to have their special day written down and seeing these two women’s enthusiasm for a story that makes you smile, and sigh, and believe in true love, really spurred me on.

  They were the first to see their vision realised, and they loved it. So, in the end, I hope you really enjoy reading Devotion too.

  For those of you who are new to my Beautiful Series, I’ve tried to make Devotion readable without having read the books it’s the companion to. However, I do urge you to at least read A Beautiful Melody and A Beautiful Rock before you read this one – just so you get a more understanding over who the main characters are.

  For those of you who have been with me all along, you will be happy to see all of our other Beautiful Couples within the pages of this novella. They are still together and still very happy.

  Enjoy!

  Lilliana xoxox

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to say a huge thank you to Tammie, Lindsey and Billy for dropping everything to read this for me and give me speedy beta feedback. Also, a great thank you to Kristine, Dusty Dawn, Kassandra, Natasha, and Crystal for proofreading for me. I appreciate every moment of your valuable time that you give me. Thank you!

  Thank you to my editor, Maria Johnson, I always seem to send you manuscripts when you’re extremely busy, but you do a brilliant job anyway.

  Thank you to my family for always understanding my deadlines. I am the WORST procrastinator in the world, and you all love and support me regardless.

  Thank you to my street team and to everyone who has agreed to review for me – I love you all.

  I’d also like to thank the wonderful team at Apple and Smashwords, who set up all of my preorders and trust me to upload my books on time – I truly appreciate your support!

  Thank you to all of the beautiful authors out there in Indie Author Land who share for me and keep me company. I love chatting randomly to you all throughout my day to help keep my sanity in check!

  And to the Misfits – you rock my world while holding my hand.

  Thank you to my kids. You are all so patient and understanding of your work-obsessed mother – you’re all beautiful!

  And of course, thank you to all of my readers - especially those of you who have been here since the beginning. Without you, my characters would be nothing more than a daydream.

  Mwah! xoxox

  Chapter One

  “Hey Naomi, when are you and Theo planning on getting married?” Stephanie asks, as she fills up my glass of wine and offers a top up to both Paige and Katrina, who are sitting on the wicker chairs surrounding Stephanie’s patio table.

  We’ve all come together for one of Stephanie and Gary’s famous weekend barbeques. Above us, the summer sun shines brightly, and below us, a hose attached to a spinning sprinkler keeps four children entertained, while their fathers grill the meat and keep a watch over the children.

  “You’ve been engaged for three bloody years now, right?” Paige adds, as she glances down from the patio at her two children from her marriage to Elliot - Grace, who is five, and Adam, who is two. They are dancing around under the spray of water with Katrina and David’s three year old son, Zachary, and Stephanie and Gary’s little girl (and also my god daughter) Amanda, who is four.

  Everyone here is married with children. Except for Theo and I. We’re engaged and we live together. But that’s about as far as we’ve gone.

  A sigh escapes my lips as I look over my shoulder at one of the kids as they squeal delightedly. I catch Theo’s eye from across the lawn where he stands talking to the men with a bottle of beer in hand. I smile at him, loving the way he seems to pause mid-sentence to smile back at me. He still makes my heart flutter.

  Even though we work and live together, we haven’t lost that spark that’s between us. We don’t get on each other’s nerves – we’re cohesive. We get each other. It’s a rare thing in this world to feel that close to someone, I’m sure.

  “Soon,” I reply when I turn back. “We’re just waiting for our schedule to calm down a little.”

  Katrina places her glass on the table and takes a breath to speak. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do or anything. But you know that it will never calm down. There’ll always be something going on that seems more important than planning your wedding. It’s what happened with me and David. He wanted me to set a date, and I was always finding a reason not to do it. I wanted to marry him, but I was scared to have the wedding. I dreamed about what I wanted for years. But dreaming and doing are two very different things. I was afraid that my reality wouldn’t be as good as the dream.”

  “Well, how was your wedding in the end?” I ask her, knowing that she obviously got over her fears because she and David have been married for most of the time I’ve known them.

  “Her wedding was amazing,” Paige interjects. “David did this whole surprise fairy tale thing for her. She thought she was going on a New Years Eve cruise, but
it was her wedding. It was so beautiful.”

  I glance back at Katrina as her smile widens at the memory, and her cheeks colour a pretty shade of pink. She turns to me. “It was. It’s a bit of a long story, but in the end, David planned everything. I knew it was coming, but I didn’t know when. I think I waited for almost a whole year, wondering when the hell it was going to happen, and just when I’d stopped expecting it, it happened. All of our friends and family were in on it. But they all kept it a secret. It was such a beautiful surprise.”

  I can’t help but smile in return. “That does sound really wonderful. Theo and I have plans. We know what we want, but we just haven’t had the time to sit down and set a date. Work and family keeps getting in the way. We wanted to get married when he reconciled with his brother, but then Marcus went off and eloped, and Theo’s parents were devastated. So, we thought we should wait until everyone had settled down, and now that they have, we have a tour coming up. So, I don’t know. Maybe we can get married in about twelve month’s time? As long as nothing else gets in the way in the meantime.” I glance back over at him where he stands, ready to reach out and take a tray of cooked meat from the side of the barbeque where Gary has been cooking with Elliot. “Looks like lunch is almost ready,” I say, purposefully changing the subject.

  “I guess we’d better get these kids dry and fed,” Paige says, uncrossing her legs before she stands and places her glass on the low table top.

  I stand with everyone else, even though I don’t have a child to corral, and follow them down the steps to the grass. Elliot is already turning off the hose, and the kids are complaining that they just want five more minutes.

  Moving over to Theo, I wait for a moment while he places the tray of meat in the middle of the large outdoor dining table. Then I slide my arms around his waist for a quick hug. He kisses me on the top of my head. “Having a good time?” he asks me quietly.

  I glance over at the happy families as they try to contain their children’s excitement. Despite the chaos, not one of them looks even slightly unhappy.

  I give him a slight shrug. “I am. I just feel like we’re behind the eight ball when we come here sometimes. They’re always asking when we’re getting married. But once we are, they’ll all be asking when we’re having kids I suppose.”

  He slides his arm around my shoulders. “We can’t live our lives to other people’s timetables, babe. But, in saying that, we can get married whenever you want, you know?”

  “It takes time to plan, Theo. Time we don’t really have right now.”

  He moves to hook his finger under my chin to tilt my head up so I meet his eyes. “I love you. I want to marry you, and I am happy to wait until we can have the kind of wedding you’ve dreamed about. I’m also happy running off and marrying you tomorrow if that’s what you want. I just want you to feel happy. That’s my goal – happy wife, happy life.” He winks, dipping his head as he presses a soft kiss to the end of my nose.

  My mouth curves into a smile as I tighten my grip around his waist. “You wouldn’t be happy running off and eloping, Theo. If we do that, what was the point of waiting for you to work things out with Marcus?”

  He presses his lips together. “That was before he ran off and got married without thinking about any of us. I love my brother. But he doesn’t consider anyone else’s feelings. I’ve got to stop worrying about people who aren’t you. You’re the one who’s most important to me. You’re the one who will always be my family.”

  I rise up on my toes and press my lips to his, just as Elliot and Paige walk over with their two kids in tow. “Whoa, get a room you two,” Elliot jokes, picking up his son and swinging him easily up onto a chair.

  I glance at Elliot and smile, then turn back to Theo and whisper, “We’ll talk about this later.”

  He nods, pressing a kiss to my forehead before we break apart and help the others to unwrap all the salad bowls before we sit down to enjoy lunch with our friends, while thoughts of our wedding still plague my mind.

  Originally, Theo and I put our wedding plans off because he and his younger brother, Marcus, weren’t talking to each other after a bit of a love triangle ensued between the three of us.

  When I chose Theo over him, Marcus lost his shit on stage, left the band and embarrassed the lot of us. Our band, Matiari, survived with Theo as our new lead singer, but Marcus became a mega star when his outburst went viral.

  After a couple of years travelling the globe, Marcus finally returned home and met a girl who managed to break him of his man-whore ways. He ended up marrying her in secret on an island somewhere.

  The news really upset Theo. He acted like it wasn’t that big of a deal toward Marcus. But privately, it really hurt his feelings. We’d waited all that time for our own wedding just so Marcus could be there, and then Marcus finally comes back to the family, and the first thing he does is run off and get married without us. It was a bit of a kick in the guts to Theo. Once again, he was the only brother who gave a shit, even though he constantly questioned why he did.

  So, in the end, the brother who never wanted to settle down is married, leaving Theo and I, who wanted to get married all along, still waiting. I suppose if we suddenly felt a desperate need to marry, we’d set a date and everyone else could go to hell. Besides work, touring, and limited funds, there really isn’t anything in our way. I guess we’ve just been happy the way we are. We’re together and that’s what’s most important right now.

  The wedding will happen when the time is right. I just don’t know when that time will be.

  Chapter Two

  When we get home from Gary and Stephanie’s, it’s only four in the afternoon. Most of the time, we don’t have free weekends like this. But leading up to our tour, most of our weekends are free, instead of being booked out with local gigs. Theo takes the time to head into the studio to work on a song he’s been trying to piece together lately.

  Like a lot of artists, when a song hits him, he struggles to stop working until he’s finished it. So it was a big thing for me to get him out of the house, and to the barbeque today.

  I know he wants to get some work done, but he’s been working tirelessly of late. And since we have the night to ourselves, I think tonight is the perfect night for him to relax. We can work on the song together tomorrow. Tonight should be about us.

  Giving him a good half hour to himself, I enter the bedroom to prepare for my distraction. Then I quietly enter the studio.

  “Theo,” I coo, standing in front of him as he pauses his guitar playing to scribble something down.

  “Huh?” he asks distractedly, with his brow creased as his uses his pencil to scratch out some notes.

  “Theo,” I repeat, keeping my voice soft as I wait for him to look up.

  He finishes scribbling out his thought then looks up at me with only half his attention.

  “Oh, wow,” he says, doing a double take as the pencil falls from between his fingers. Quickly, he sets his guitar to the side, his eyes travelling up the length of my body as I stand before him in nothing but my matching purple lace bra and panties and a pair of black stilettos. I’ve got his whole attention now.

  “It’s time to take a break, my love,” I tell him seductively, stepping toward him before I kneel between his legs. Reaching out, I run my fingers over the firm peaks and valleys of his chest until I reach the waist of his jeans. “You need a night off. Sit back and relax.”

  He grins, meeting my eyes as I reach out to undo the buckle of his belt, slowly popping the button fly of his jeans, one at a time. Reaching in, I return his grin as I feel his cock, hard and ready for me. I free it from his boxers and run my hand down his smooth shaft as he inhales deeply.

  Running my tongue gently around his tip, I continue to move my hand around his length, loving the soft moan that rumbles from within his chest as I slowly take him into my mouth.

  Working him with my hand, and my mouth and tongue, I hum gently as my own arousal zings between my legs. Reachin
g down, I slide my hand into my panties and find my hard nub, knowing that Theo is watching me. He loves to see me pleasure myself.

  As I moan around his cock, touching him, touching myself, Theo’s hands thread into my hair, guiding my rhythm as we both move toward our climax.

  “Dio mio!” a voice that doesn’t belong, calls out in shock.

  I freeze, my eyes going wide as I realise there’s someone in the room. And not just anyone – an Italian speaking someone. Theo’s mother. Fuck!

  All at once, I remove my hands and pull my head back, releasing Theo’s cock as I turn toward the voice in horror.

  “Fuck!” Theo calls out at the same time, his orgasm shooting out of him, hitting me in the face.

  “Oh god!” I cry, stumbling backward as I try to wipe at my face and grab for something – anything – to cover myself up.

  Frantically, I wipe my hands on an unused piece of paper before grabbing for the only thing in reach and holding it in front of me. That thing is Theo’s guitar.

  I’m dying. I’m dying inside. What the hell is she doing here?

  “Oh god!” Theo yells, quickly tucking himself back inside his jeans as he stands and gathers me behind him to hide my state of undress. “Mum! What the hell?” he yells at his mother who is madly crossing herself and mumbling something incomprehensible.

  Still holding the guitar against my body, I bury my face into Theo’s back, wishing I could just melt into him and never return. I am so embarrassed that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at his mother again.

  Chapter Three

  They converse for a while in Italian, and I once again kick myself for never taking the time to learn more of it. I can’t understand a thing they’re saying. Normally, she speaks in heavily accented English, so it’s never been an issue unless she’s upset and slips into her native tongue. But from their tone, I can gather that neither of them is saying anything nice.