10

Brady had ample time to think about what kind of man he was on the drive out of town.

Amanda was sprawled out across his bench seat, her head on his thigh and the hair she’d tugged out of its ponytail spilling all over his lap like honey. Like a pool of sunlight even though it was dark outside.

He was only human, no matter what lies he told himself about his character or his abilities from time to time. She kept laughing like this was all some grand adventure, and he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do.

He took a bunch of back roads, the better to avoid the center of town, any Harvest Festival shenanigans, and all the citizens of Cold River who knew both of them. And as he drove, he mounted a rousing defense of his own actions as if he were standing up in a Kittredge tribunal.

She’d said she would find someone else, hadn’t she? Brady believed her. She’d moved out of the family home against her brothers’ wishes and was still working at the Coyote, despite outcry on all sides. She’d punched him, for God’s sake. The smart move was obviously not to doubt Amanda.

But all the defenses in the world didn’t matter. If he didn’t want to do this, he wouldn’t be doing it.

That was the part that should have made him feel queasy. Riddled with self-loathing. He tried his best to get there.

But her head was in his lap, and she was singing along to the country song on the radio, and when she looked up at him, Brady didn’t feel like Gray’s endlessly disappointing baby brother. Or Ty’s annoying tagalong.

He didn’t feel like the one Amos had ignored, the one Bettina hadn’t stuck around to raise. Amanda didn’t study him the way everyone else in this town did, gearing up to make snide remarks about his life down in Denver, his degree, or what they assumed he must think of himself because of those things. She didn’t look at him like she was angling for the ranch—or as if she cared about the ranch at all, because why would she? She was a Kittredge. She had her own.

She looked at him like he was just … him.

Just a man.

A man she obviously liked—and it was intoxicating.

If he had ever wanted anyone this much, he couldn’t remember it.

He drove out over the hill and into the wider valley filled with fields and cattle, pastures and horses. The old Douglas orchards and Grandma Kittredge’s goats. Three founding families and the land they’d claimed while the west was still wild, then held through everything that came after. One stubborn, hardy generation after the next. But instead of heading for the ranch house or the Kittredge main house, he took one of the sneaky little dirt roads that cut through the fields but didn’t appear on any official maps. He stayed far away from the main county roads, winding his way down to his favorite spot by the river.

It wasn’t until he saw the rock that he liked to think of as his real parent that it occurred to him to question why he’d brought her here. This was rural Colorado. There were a million places to go where no one could see them—so why the one spot that was shrouded in a haze of his old memories?

But by that time, it was too late to change course.

He parked where he always did, down where the trees that lined the river would make his truck impossible to see until you were on top of it—not that anyone had ever come out this way in all the years he’d come here. Amanda sat up, shoving that thick spill of honey back from her face. He cut his headlights, and she made an impressed noise as she looked around.

“Is this where you took all your girlfriends in high school?”

“The point of dating the quarterback was to be seen, Amanda.” Brady spread his arm out along the back of the seat and settled in, grinning at her when she turned to him again. “I took them up on the hill, where everybody else was. This spot was always just for me.”

“Just for you?”

It sounded like an idle question, but then she fixed that gaze of hers on him, and he didn’t get why she was the only one in this whole valley who seemed to really see him. Who wanted to see him. And who wasn’t rushing to push her version of him at him.

He had the odd notion that she would sit there forever, waiting to see what he’d say. And why that felt a lot like her arms around him, he couldn’t have said. Only that it did.

It was why he actually answered her honestly.

“I spent a lot of time at your parents’ house, but I couldn’t spend every night there. So sometimes, when I couldn’t stay there and I didn’t want to be home, I came here.” He nodded at the dark fields that stretched out in every direction, studded here and there with trees and the odd rock that was too big to move. “It’s too deep into Everett land to be public. And too far away from the ranch house to run into anyone in my family.”

“Perfect for when you had to get away, then,” Amanda said, and it was the lack of pity in her voice that tugged at him. “I’ve heard a few stories about your father being less than awful at times, long ago, but I never knew him that way. He was always mean to me. He must have been terrible to you.”

She was being matter-of-fact. Brisk, even.

“He didn’t smack me around or anything,” Brady heard himself say, when this was a subject he barely talked about with his brothers, much less anyone else. “Ty got it a lot worse.”

Amanda didn’t look away. “There are a lot of ways to be terrible.”

“And my father knew them all.”

Her gaze remained so kind and steady that his ribs hurt.

Brady had to remind himself why they were out here in the dark of a September night, and it wasn’t to reminisce about his father. Or even his adolescent attempts at independence for a night here and there.

“In other words, this place is perfect for our purposes,” he said gruffly.

Amanda straightened at that, as if she’d also forgotten why they were here. Brady didn’t know whether to be oddly touched by that, or insulted.

“Right.” She cleared her throat. “Sex. Let’s get to it.”

He watched, amused and something like tender despite himself, while she reached for the hem of her shirt. Then tugged it up like she meant to tear it off, right that minute.

“Slow down, killer,” he drawled. “There’s a process here. An art, if you will.”

“That’s definitely not the feedback I’ve gotten from a lifetime of cultural sources. Everyone’s pretty clear that the whole ‘doing it in a car’ thing is less than ideal.”

“That’s what makes it so much fun. My advice? Embrace the frustration.”

He reached over and traced the line of her neck, down to the collar of her T-shirt and back. Idly. Easily. He felt the way she trembled. He saw her swallow, hard.

“I … don’t actually know what that means,” she whispered.

God, she made him ache. Everywhere. Inside and out.

“Don’t worry,” he promised her. “You will.”

There was still the possibility that he could call things off. Brady didn’t have to do any of this. There was no gun to his head. There was nothing around for miles. There was the river, the trees, the September night—and a thousand excellent reasons to extract himself from this mess before he made it much, much worse.

But he didn’t do the right thing. He noted it and ignored it.

Then he reached over, got his hands on her, and pulled Amanda into his lap.

“Brady.” Her voice was barely a wisp of sound. And she was shifting around on his thighs in a way that made his eyes want to cross. “You really should know … I … I’m afraid I won’t do this right.”

“There is no right or wrong.” He kept his gaze steady, no matter how much he wanted to react to all her artless wriggling. “There’s only us and what works. Okay? If you don’t like something, tell me. That’s it. That’s all you have to remember to do.”

She pulled in a breath, then let it out, unevenly. “I can do that.”

Brady settled back against the seat, holding her and letting her get comfortable. Letting her find her seat like the cowgirl she was.

He could feel her relax, inch by inch. And when she finally slid her arms around his neck, he figured she was doing fine.

“We’re not having sex tonight,” he told her.

“What?” Amanda tensed again, but this time, it was clearly from outrage. Not uncertainty. “The entire purpose of being in this truck is to have sex.”

“I’m getting that this is going to be hard for you because you seem to take so much pleasure in being impetuous.” He shook his head at her. “But you’re not in control of this, Amanda. I am.”

“I’m not sure I signed up to be controlled.”

“You don’t know what you signed up for. That’s the problem. And that’s why I’m telling you.”

“But…”

She never finished her sentence, or uttered more than that single, plaintive word.

Because he slid a hand around to the back of her head, then guided her mouth to his.

Maybe it was because he’d set the boundaries already. Maybe it was just Amanda. Whatever it was, there was no rush. No drive to get somewhere. He kissed her lazily, thoroughly.

He kissed her as if he could spend all night doing nothing but learning what she liked. What she loved. And what made her squirm in his lap, testing his restraint.

Brady had told her he would control this, but that word didn’t seem to have much to do with an arm full of Amanda Kittredge. Because whatever his plans, she wasn’t content to simply be kissed.

She experimented. She moved closer, then away. She let her hands roam where they liked. And when she got really excited, she moved so she could straddle him there on the bench seat and rock herself against him.

God help him, but it cost him something to hold himself in check. Especially when it felt so good.

Because the other key thing about Amanda Kittredge was that she was magic. Sheer magic, pouring through him. Light and heat.

Her hair fell like a curtain around them, smelling like lilac and mint. And when he was on the edge of breaking, he traced his hands down the length of her back instead. He found the hem of that T-shirt she’d so desperately wanted to remove before, and then found his way beneath it.

Her skin was softer than should have been possible, warm and sleek.

She pulled her mouth from his, her breath sawing in and out while she stared down at him. Her eyes were wide and dark gold with need. He could feel that same need inside him, pulsing through him.

He waited for her to call it off, but she didn’t say a word as he traced a pattern up her back. Then he slid his palms around to her front to fill his hands with her breasts.

Amanda moaned and pressed herself against him. And Brady prayed for strength as he played with her through the lacy bra she wore, making her moan even louder.

When he took her mouth again, everything got … slippery.

As if he’d suddenly found himself too drunk to stand. Spinning and sliding, overflowing with lust and need, and the sheer perfection of Amanda in his hands and in his mouth at once.

He moved his thumbs over her and felt the friction surge through her, like a wave. She arched her back to get more and ground herself into his lap, rocking against him until he thought she might actually break him. He’d love every second of it.

But he held on. Somehow.

Brady took the kiss deeper. He toyed with her, gently teasing her until the noises she made were as heedless as they were addictive.

And he thought, Just a little more. Just a little further.

He kept going. There could have been a gun to his head, and he still wouldn’t have stopped. Not when she was such a glorious thing to behold. Flushed and greedy and so beautiful, it hurt.

It only took another moment or so, though it felt to him like he lived and died a thousand times by then.

Amanda stiffened. Then she tore her mouth from his, tossing her head back and riding him even harder. It was almost too much. It was almost the end of him, but he held on—

She let out a glad, shocked cry that he knew he would carry inside him forever.

It almost sent him spinning out over that same edge with her.

She slumped down against him—his reckless, beautiful girl. Brady murmured something encouraging, one hand holding her head to his shoulder as if he was at ease.

While everything inside him screamed for his own release.

He spent some time and the better part of his willpower fighting it back.

Brady stared out the front window at the stars above and the moon that rose over the fields, bathing them and the river in its silvery glow.

He chanted statistics. He willed himself to calm down. And meanwhile, Amanda panted in a boneless heap in his arms and made him so wild for her, he wasn’t sure he’d recover.

Approximately twelve million years later, when he’d remade himself into the image of the monk he’d never been a hundred times over, she lifted her head.

“Um.” She was still flushed. She looked dazed. “Wow.”

Brady wasn’t sure he could speak. He didn’t try. He ran his thumb beneath her eyes, catching the faintest bit of moisture, and stopped himself from doing something weird, like tasting it. What was wrong with him?

“Are you sure you don’t want to have sex?” Amanda asked. She wriggled against him again, in case he’d forgotten that the hardest part of him was wedged there where she was hottest and softest. He really hadn’t. “Because it feels like you do.”

The torture of the last little while was worth it, then. Because it allowed him to lift a lofty brow and stare at her as if he’d never been so insulted. “I’m a grown man, Amanda. I can control myself.”

She shifted against him, experimentally, and smiled. “But do you want to?”

Brady laughed. He threw open his door, tugging her off his lap and swinging her to the ground outside. He liked that she had to reach out and grab the door to keep her balance. That meant it wasn’t just him.

He tried not to wince as he climbed out after her. He reached into the back seat to pull out the blanket he kept there, then he took her hand, tugging her behind him. The moon lit the way to the wide, flat stone he’d treated like a second home when he was a teenager. He sat on the rock where it jutted out over the rushing river, then he pulled Amanda down on his lap. Then he took care to tuck the blanket around her so she would stay warm.

He could feel her heart pounding wildly. She held her breath, then let it out shakily.

Brady didn’t say anything. He sat there and let the river rush along at their feet.

“Brady—”

“Watch the moon,” he told her, gently enough, because he was acting like her armchair and that too-incisive gaze of hers wasn’t directed at him. Plus, he liked the heat of her, the soft weight against his chest. “Enjoy it.”

He thought she might argue, but instead, she sighed again. Then she settled against him. And she … fit. Like she’d been made to lie back beneath fall skies and let him keep her warm.

Brady wished, suddenly, that he could go back in time and tell the lonely, angry kid who’d sat out here alone so many nights that he would be okay. That he would be more than okay in more ways than he could imagine. And better still, he would come back here one night with the prettiest girl in Cold River and change the way he felt about this rock forever.

But that felt a little more momentous than anything he’d had planned for the evening—or his year back home—so he kept it to himself.

“When are you leaving?” Amanda asked.

Because apparently she was also psychic.

Brady frowned at the moon he’d told her to enjoy. “Are you in a rush see me go?”

“Not at all.” She sounded tranquil and unbothered, and he didn’t know how to feel about that when he was still wound tight enough to explode. “The rumor around town has always been that you only agreed to stay a year. Isn’t that next month?”

“I’m glad everyone in town is so concerned about a promise I made my brothers.”

“Welcome home, cowboy. Maybe you forgot that everyone in the Longhorn Valley is concerned about everyone else, forever and ever, amen.”

Brady wanted to work up a little righteous indignation to go along with that, but he couldn’t get there. Because for a man who’d gotten very little in the way of satisfaction tonight, he was in a remarkably good mood. “Next month marks a year since my father died. But I didn’t make any promises about staying here until Christmas.”

“Oh.” There was a curious note in her voice. He almost turned her around so he could try to read her expression, but decided against it. Because he didn’t think he wanted her reading him. “I could have sworn you were leaving by Halloween.”

“A common misconception.”

One he’d had himself, in fact. Until he’d said something about leaving at Halloween last spring, and Gray had said something typically brusque about the promises of bankers always being worthless. That Brady was actually not a banker in the classic sense, and would certainly never call himself one, didn’t matter. Not when Gray wanted to get a dig in.

“And what will you do once Christmas comes?” She tucked her chin deeper into the blanket and settled a little more against him. He had no idea why it felt so good. “You must be impatient to get back to your real life.”

Brady would have said the same thing himself. And had, often, to whoever would listen. But there was something about Amanda saying it that scraped at him.

“I figured we’d sell the ranch.” And he heard her little intake of breath. The usual horror people from around here always showed at the very idea that anyone would sell land. Ever. No matter how desperate they were. “We all agreed we’d vote on what to do after a year, but Gray’s always been against selling. And Ty hasn’t said anything, but the fact that he’s building Hannah a house makes his vote pretty clear.”

“Do you think they’ll buy you out?”

Not for the first time tonight, he was struck by how matter-of-fact she sounded. Far more levelheaded and clear-eyed than the twenty-two-year-olds he’d known in his time. Or than he’d been himself.

He was reminded once again that Amanda wasn’t an overserved college coed, giggling her way through another happily blurred Saturday night. She’d spent her whole life in the company of some of the valley’s most esteemed ranchers. And that was just her family.

If he knew anything about ranch people, it was that they kept their idealism and their sentimentality tucked away, down deep, where a tough winter or a suddenly ill animal couldn’t touch them. They expressed their dreams through hard work and their commitment to a future they might never see themselves.

And when it came time to talk about selling up, after the gasps of horror, they tended to get straight to the point. Because otherwise, there was nothing but whatever shattered sentimentality and dreams remained, and who wanted to talk about that? Of course Amanda wanted to know if they were talking about buyouts. Not only because there must have been similar conversations around her dinner table, but because the Kittredges were their neighbors. They’d be the most likely first offer if the Everetts had to sell.

How had he spent all this time concentrating on her age and her choice of second job, and so little time reflecting on the fact that Amanda was a Kittredge? She had Longhorn Valley ranch blood in her veins, same as him.

Brady only realized he hadn’t answered her when Amanda shifted again.

“I guess a better question, and one my grandparents always ask us, is what would you do if you could do anything? If there were no other factors. No brothers, no will, nothing. If all that Everett land was yours to use as you like. Every time they’ve asked us that, we’ve all always answered the same thing. We like the Bar K as it is. My brothers work it because they believe in it. I fully support it. But I like that they ask the question.” And he thought he could sense her smile. “It makes it feel less like an obligation and more like a choice.”

“I always thought I’d stay here,” Brady found himself telling her. Because she was magic, and this rock felt like home, and he could whisper these truths to the top of her head. He could tell them to the dark and the moon and the faint scent of mint in her hair, and it didn’t feel like he was exposing himself. “I expected to come back after college and get right back into it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Such a simple question. And a simple answer, too, though simple wasn’t how it felt.

“Amos didn’t want me back.” Brady had said versions of that before. But he’d never said it so baldly, and not to someone like Amanda, who knew. She knew his family. She’d known his father. More than that, her family had been in this valley as long as his, and she knew all the intricacies of that. All the layers and complications. All the reasons none of this was simple. “He was actively opposed to the idea, in fact. He wouldn’t take my money. He wouldn’t use my labor. And if it were up to him, he took care to tell me, he would have cut me off altogether. Even from the holidays. He made sure I knew he only let me come home, then, because it would have been harder to explain why I didn’t.”

Someday, Brady liked to tell himself, he wouldn’t talk about his father at all. And if he did, it wouldn’t taste like ash on his tongue. But he still wasn’t there.

“He could have cut you out of his will,” Amanda said levelly. “He didn’t. Maybe there was more going on, deep down inside. I don’t know. Is it possible that mean old Amos Everett had layers?”

Brady laughed. “I’ve thought about that a lot. A lot. Because it doesn’t make sense that he would give me, or any of us, a gift. That wasn’t his style.” He blew out a breath, amazed that he was actually talking about this. “But then I realized, it wasn’t a gift. Of course it wasn’t a gift. That will was the perfect punishment.”

He expected Amanda to argue that, but she didn’t. She only waited, her head tipped back so if he had wanted to, he could have rested his chin on the top of her head and held her there. Like they were puzzle pieces, snapped together at last.

He told himself the image was disturbing. He told himself that was why he didn’t do it.

“Obviously the ranch should have gone to Gray,” he said. “But Dad didn’t leave it to Gray alone. Because how better to punish Gray than to make him share the land he’d given his life to with the brothers who’d left it?”

Brady stared at the moon, remembering all the other times he’d sat right here. All the different moons he’d watched rise and set. And he couldn’t decide if it made him feel sad or oddly connected, despite himself, that he was still sitting here trying to figure out Amos.

“Meanwhile, Ty got famous. But then he was broken. And the last thing he’d ever want to do was come back and have to face the possibility that he was no better than where he started. Amos left a third to him to force that, obviously.”

“And you? How is this punishing you?” But Amanda made a noise. “Because you want to sell and sharing it means you can’t?”

“Because I wanted to come home, and he wouldn’t let me,” Brady said quietly, because he really had thought about this. And he really did know his father. “Because he knew I would never want to come back like this, looking like I’m riding on a dead man’s coattails. Especially after he spent all these years making sure Gray thought as little of me as possible. Once again, it’s a punishment.”

She tilted her head up, and he could feel her breath against the underside of his jaw. It shouldn’t have comforted him.

“Amos is dead, Brady,” she said quietly. “He can’t punish you from beyond the grave. Only you can do that.”

She settled against him so sweetly, so easily, that Brady was sure she had no idea she’d ripped him wide open. That she might as well have torn him into tiny pieces, then tossed what remained into the river below.

He stayed where he was because he couldn’t move. He was amazed that his heart still beat. Stunned that his lungs still took in breath. He stared straight ahead at the river because he was afraid that if he so much as moved a muscle, she would know. She would see.

And then he had no idea what might become of him.

“What about you?” he asked, when he could keep his voice even. When there was no trace whatsoever of that body blow she’d landed on him. “Are you going to tend bar forever?”

Amanda laughed. “I thought I was going to like bartending a whole lot more than I do.”

“What’s not to like?” Brady asked dryly. “Nothing’s better than crowds of drunk people, wandering hands, and cleaning up all manner of sticky substances.”

He didn’t hear her laugh again, but he could feel her body shake with it. “In a lot of ways, it’s not really any different from working in coffee. Except for the clientele. And the state of the bathrooms.”

“Especially at the Coyote.”

“If there had been apartments available over the public library, I would have happily worked there.” He felt her shoulders rise, then fall. “Oh well.”

“That doesn’t make it sound like something you plan to do for the rest of your life.”

Not that he cared. He was making conversation. Because why should he care?

“People around here are constantly doing something they don’t plan to do for the rest of their lives, and then oops. Look at that. They end up doing it anyway.”

“I don’t think that’s a Cold River thing. That’s a life thing.”

“There are only so many things to do here,” Amanda said.

“Didn’t you grow up breeding quarter horses? You could do it in your sleep.”

“I probably could. But I know, personally, the five best quarter horse breeders and trainers in Colorado. And therefore the world. And I’m related to all of them. So sure, I know a lot about horses, but is that enough to spend my life working with them by default? I don’t know.”

“You’ve worked in the coffeehouse a long time. Maybe it’s time to make that less a job you do and more a career.”

“I love Cold River Coffee. I do. It’s like a home to me.” Amanda sighed. “But Noah is the owner and the chef. And Abby is the manager. And I don’t see either one of them switching that up anytime soon. Where does that leave me?”

She considered for a moment, then added, “I mean, Noah is single. And he’s not bad to look at. Women are always hanging around, ordering food they don’t actually want, just to watch him cook it.”

Something hot and prickly swept over Brady, then. It took him a moment to recognize it for what it was. Not a sudden attack of nocturnal fire ants, but pure, unadulterated rage.

“You can’t date Noah Connelly.” His voice was flat.

“Because he’s so grumpy all the time?” Amanda sniffed. “Or because he’s my boss?”

“Pick one.”

Brady was surprised at his own reaction, to put it mildly. And deeply, wildly glad that she couldn’t see the expression on his face.

“Anyway, I’m not planning to buy the coffeehouse from Noah, even if he were selling it, which he’s not. And I’m certainly not planning to put Abby out of a job.” Amanda laughed. “Even if I wanted to, no one would ever accept me as Abby’s replacement. Not for at least another thirty years.”

“You don’t want to ranch. You don’t want to tend bar, something I’m betting your brothers don’t know, or they’d be less bent out of shape about this whole Coyote experiment. And you also don’t want to keep working at Cold River Coffee forever.” He found himself holding her tighter and could have sworn he hadn’t meant to do that. “Answer your own question. What do you want to do?”

“The thing I keep coming back to is that everybody who wants to stay here and do something different has to be creative about it,” Amanda said as she sank against him. “Obviously there are a million depressing ways to stay. To end up here. But if you want a good life, and you want it to be meaningful and fulfilling—and you don’t want to take part in the family enterprise, whatever that is—you have to make your own. You have to cobble it together from whatever pieces you’ve been given.”

“Are you going to start talking about crafting? Because my experience there is that crafting is a conversation you can better have alone. And should.”

“People call it crafting because they need a special merit badge to do the same thing their grandmothers have done since the dawn of time.” Amanda’s voice was tart. “Some of us just knit. And make the occasional ornament.”

“If you say so.”

“If I could do anything,” Amanda said grandly, “I would open a farm stand.”

Brady took that in. “I’ll admit, I didn’t see that coming.”

“Not an actual stand. More a shop.” Her voice got dreamy. “I would source everything from the community, and make it a celebration of Cold River. Flowers from the Trujillos. Beef from the Everetts. Horse rides and lessons with my brothers. And that’s just off the top of my head. There are so many people here working a job and then doing what they actually love around it. Wouldn’t it be great to have a place where they could make money from that? A place that’s right here, where the rest of us can support each other locally and the tourists can come and really get a sense of what Cold River has to offer.”

“Look at you.” And he wanted to look at her, almost more than he wanted to breathe. But Brady had the very real sense that if he turned her around his arms, all the boundaries he’d set and all the promises he’d made—to himself and to her—would blow away in the fall wind. “You might as well be a Cold River ambassador.”

She made him wish he could see this place the same way she did.

“It would be like a farmers’ market, but a building,” she said. “It could be open all year-round and bring a little money in for everybody. The more people make a little money, the less desperate it is around here in the middle of February. And the more likely people are happy. I don’t know about you, Brady, but I like happy people.”

“I want to like happy people,” Brady said, only half joking. “But I can’t trust them.”

She was the one who turned then, flipping over to her knees and kneeling there before him, the blanket around her shoulders like a cape. He could feel that wind, kicking up as the night wore on.

Or maybe it was just her—pretty Amanda with her hair down and that wicked fire making her eyes pure gold.

“There has been so much talking,” she said, a smile curling the corner of her lips. “It has to be time for more kissing now, doesn’t it?”

“I thought we decided I was in control.”

“You decided that, Brady. But you can be in control of kissing. Now, if you want.”

Brady couldn’t have named the things he wanted. There were too many. They were like a howl inside him, loud and long, and every last one of them centered on this woman and her innocence and how deep inside him she was already, without even trying.

He’d told himself so many lies in the truck on the way out here. He’d been so sure he would stay removed. Interested, but distant, the way he always was.

But there was nothing about Amanda that didn’t get to him. Not one thing.

He pulled her toward him, toppling her off balance and catching her against his chest. Then he indulged himself, rolling her over. He kept her on that blanket instead of the rock, but this time with him on top.

That was a mistake.

A catastrophic mistake.

Brady might as well have doused himself in gasoline and then danced around the bonfire, hoping for the best.

But he couldn’t seem to stop.

This time, he kissed her without holding anything back. He poured it all into her, every ache, every surprise, every odd moment of this night and his own reactions. He kissed the impossibility of her, and how much he wanted her.

But this was Amanda, so she rose up against him and poured herself right back into him.

She was the one who got her hands up beneath his shirt, streaking along his flesh and moaning her appreciation. She was the one who figured out how to hook her legs around his, holding him right where he wanted to go, and rolling her hips to experiment with that snug, mind-blowing fit.

She really would be the death of him. Brady understood that fully.

And still he kissed her, recklessly.

Ruinously.

It was only when he found his hands moving restlessly at her waistband, dipping a bit beneath it, that he finally yanked himself back to reality.

Brady was not taking Amanda Kittredge’s virginity on an old blanket a few feet away from his truck. An upgrade from the front seat of his truck, to be sure. But still. No.

He tore his mouth from hers. With a strength he didn’t know he had, he forced himself to get up. To climb to his feet, scrape his hands over his face, and remind himself that he was not having sex. Not tonight.

Even if it killed him; not tonight.

He was going to pay for this, eventually. There was no doubt about that, no way around it. But since he knew that going in, there was no excuse for doing it shabbily.

If there was ever a time in a man’s life when it was all or nothing, it was now. It was this.

It was her.

“Did you change your mind?” Amanda asked in a low, husky voice, still splayed out there on his blanket in total abandon. Brady couldn’t decide if it was because she really was that free of shame and self-judgment, or if—and this knocked around inside of him like a wrecking ball—she simply trusted him that much. “I swear to God, if you changed your mind, I will kill you myself. With my very own hands. Here and now.”

“I should change my mind. I should be locked up.”

She pushed herself up on one elbow and scowled at him. “For what, Brady? Adulting in the presence of another adult? A shocking sin, I think we can all agree.”

“I haven’t changed my mind. About anything. Remember, I told you we weren’t having sex tonight. I also told you frustration was part of the deal. Did you think I was kidding?”

“I hoped you were kidding.”

She sounded so delightfully cranky, it made him smile.

Brady held out his hand, and Amanda stared at it with suspicion. But she took it, and that made him smile even wider as he tugged her up from the rock and onto her feet.

“Come on, killer,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”