SHE’D SAID THIS wouldn’t happen again, and he had taken her at her word. Hell, he needed to. The last thing that he wanted to do was spend even one night pining over Lila Frost.
He had woken up hard and aching more times than he could count over the past month, and he had gritted his teeth through it every time. Hadn’t allowed himself to find pleasure at his own hand, because it was a damn travesty that this woman—who had once been a girl he’d known—had begun to obsess him in a way that he couldn’t really afford.
But she was here. And she had kissed him. And maybe, just maybe, another taste would be okay. Maybe this was actually what they needed. What they both needed.
Just a little. Just for now.
His body was all in. For a man who prized control it was a strange experience. He wasn’t sure he could stop now if he wanted to. She had done something to him.
Reached inside of him and rearranged things that had been carefully placed over the course of his life.
And he didn’t understand how she had the power to do that.
But it didn’t matter. Not now. Because her lips were soft, and so was the rest of her body. Because she fit perfectly in his arms, and she melted into him like she wanted to stay forever, and it was what he wanted, too.
But forever was hell. Forever was being tethered to land that couldn’t give you a damn thing. A commitment to misery and, even worse, to death.
Forever could never be.
Because eventually they would just end up holding each other back. And that wasn’t feeling sorry for himself, it was just the damn truth.
And if they didn’t hold you back, then you held them back.
He had lived it. The way that farm had been an albatross around his father’s neck, and the way it had dragged them all down right along with it. The way that that kind of deep sentimentality could ruin a person.
And not just one person—everyone who touched him.
That, at least, Everett had got right.
It had been the better thing, the more practical thing, to let go of a relationship that didn’t work. That didn’t fit with the life he had chosen.
Whatever he wanted to do, he would do it. But he would never, ever bring somebody else down with him if he was going to make a mistake.
Not anyone. Certainly not Lila.
Forever. Not for them. Not for him.
But for now...
She moaned softly against his mouth, and his arousal pushed him right over the edge.
He didn’t do this. Ever. He didn’t do impassioned encounters...anywhere. He hadn’t been a hookup guy before he’d been married, and he hadn’t pursued any since.
Everything he’d done, he’d done with measured control, and in the end, that was why his failed marriage offended him so much. Not because he had loved Tonya so passionately. But because he had chosen that relationship so carefully.
This was something else entirely. Kissing Lila was like that glimpse of sun breaking through the autumn leaves. Bright. Vibrant. Igniting everything it touched with a golden glow that shimmered all around him.
The closest thing to magic that he had ever witnessed, and the kind of deep, hard-to-define beauty that a man like him would usually say was frivolous. The kind of thing a truly practical soul didn’t need on this side of eternity.
But just now he wanted to bathe in it. Submerge himself completely. A baptism in gold, red and fire that was Lila Frost, who was anything but her name. She was warm and sweet and inviting a rest for his soul.
A soul he hadn’t realized was weary until she had touched him.
As a man full of practicality, a man who valued the things that he could touch, the things that he could see, he would have said that sex served a physical need. Like eating or drinking. But this was reaching somewhere it never had before. And she was reaching parts of him that he had long denied. He moved his hands down, cupping her denim-clad ass, then gripped her thighs and lifted her so that her legs were wrapped around his waist and he could carry her over to the nearest surface.
Booth number seven.
He set her down on top of it and stripped her top up over her head.
She had made him give her a strip show during their first time together, and now she owed him.
He stripped her bra off, revealing pale skin, round, lush breasts and rosy nipples that made his mouth water.
Then he moved down to the button on her jeans, undoing it, taking the zipper right along, too. He worked the jeans down her hips, grabbing the waistband of her panties along with them, and cast them onto the floor.
Her cheeks went fiery, a blush that spread down her neck.
“What?” he asked. “Are you embarrassed?”
“A bit,” she said, locking her knees together primly.
He chuckled and spread them apart, stepping between them and consuming her mouth. By the time he was through tasting her, she was panting again. He put his hand between her thighs and stroked her, finding that however embarrassed she was, she was also ready for him. As into this as he was.
“Still embarrassed?” he murmured against her mouth.
“No,” she panted.
He stroked her deep, until she went rigid and let out a harsh gasp, climaxing hard around his fingers.
She tore at his shirt, stripped it up over his head, taking his hat along with it. They both went down to the floor, and he unbuckled his jeans, freeing himself as he reached into his back pocket to take hold of his wallet and hunt for protection.
“Do you just carry that with you?” she asked.
“No.” And then he laughed. “It was...just in case. Just for us. I suppose it was the first truly optimistic thing I’ve ever done.”
“Apparently,” she said, taking the packet from his hand, “it was realism.”
She tore the package open and protected them both with shaking hands. His breath hissed through his teeth as that delicate hand took hold of him and squeezed gently.
He pressed himself to the entrance of her body and flexed his hips forward, entering her slowly, achingly so. What he wanted to do was take her hard and fast and obliterate all the strange, aching sensations that had spread from his chest down to his bones. But he tortured himself.
And he took it slow.
Let himself feel.
It was more than just pleasure, more than just the building climax that he thought might break him apart. It was something else. Something that surged through him like an electrical shock, made his teeth hurt. Made his chest hurt. It was something he didn’t have a name for. And it didn’t fit anywhere into the plan that he’d made for his life, or into one of the acknowledged practical needs that he possessed.
Because it wasn’t something that he could easily define, wasn’t something he could hold in his hands.
Wasn’t something he could see with his own eyes.
It simply was.
Stretching from the top of his head, through his fingertips, and down to his toes. As inevitable and undeniable as the seasons changing.
Which didn’t feel right or fair, because how could something he couldn’t grasp with all his senses possibly be this real?
But it was.
And it consumed him.
Then, he was just lost. In the bone-deep pleasure of being inside of her, in the rhythm of claiming her. Each and every thrust, each and every gasp of pleasure on her lips.
She grabbed hold of his shoulders, fingernails digging into his skin, and she cried out her pleasure in his ear. And then, he let go. Let himself fall over the edge into nothing.
Into everything.
They clung to each other, and she kissed the edge of his mouth. “Okay. Maybe just the twice.”
“Hell, no,” he said, gathering her up and setting her down on her feet in front of him. “Until the season ends. But as long as you’re here. You’re mine.”
He didn’t know what possessed him to say those things, because a practical man certainly wouldn’t have ever uttered those words.
Nothing wrong with it. It’s concrete. And what’s concrete is real.
True enough.
Yes, that was real. But he could have her until she left. That they could be together without that unraveling, that degradation of what had once been good.
“Okay,” she said. “Twist my arm.”
She looked up at him with those luminous eyes, and he traced a line along her jaw. “You’re beautiful, Lila.”
“Thank you,” she said.
And he realized that she accepted that praise with the kind of ease that a lot of women didn’t. But then...why would Lila ever doubt her beauty? She had always been pretty, and the fact was, waiting to be with a man had very much been her choice.
Lila had plenty of insecurities, but her beauty wasn’t one of them.
So he looked around the barn, and then he looked back at Lila, and he pressed his forehead against hers. “You’ve done a good job on this. And June must’ve known that you were the right one to do it.”
Her eyes went bright then, a sheen of moisture clouding them. “Thank you,” she said, this time more softly.
“You should do flowers,” he said. “If you have time. As great as the scarecrows are, and as much as keeping the tradition alive matters, she gave you this job. So don’t be afraid to be you.”
Much like being the one he confided in, this...being someone he believed in, felt like glowing, too.
She wanted to do this, to find a way to make it hers. But she’d been afraid. Like it might not be right or good enough. Not what she’d been left behind in the binder.
She gave you the job. Do it your way.
“Okay,” she said, her voice scratchy. “I guess I better talk to JJ.”
And when she moved away from him and began to collect her clothes, he felt like a piece of him had gone with her.
And he had no idea what in hell to make of that.