Palmer’s long dark hair spills across the white pillowcase as she sleeps peacefully next to me.
I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, watching her back rise and fall. Fear that she would be gone rippled through me when I first woke this morning. Palmer has reservations about love, about trust, about letting people in. She’s been honest with me about the turmoil she went through when she was fourteen and found out about her parents’ past.
Her dad started drinking too much around the time of her mom’s pregnancy with her, causing her to eventually leave him. He didn’t arrive back in Palmer’s life until she was eighteen months old. She grew up thinking she had the perfect family, the perfect father—until she googled him when she was fourteen.
I’m not sure if she felt lied to all those years, and that’s where her trust issues come from, or if it’s hurt that her dad wasn’t there for the first part of her life, but she rarely wants to talk about it, and I never force the issue. But now, I think we need to. If we’re going to give this thing between us an honest try, she’s got to work through it.
And as if we don’t have enough to figure out, Buzz Wheel reported on me this morning.
When I first moved to Lake Starlight, I thought the whole gossip app thing was small-town fun—until I found myself in it. More than once. I get that Buzz Wheel started years ago, and being that the Baileys are like the damn Kennedys in Lake Starlight, everyone seems to be obsessed with what’s going on in their lives. Maybe it’s because Palmer’s grandparents died young, and her uncle Austin agreed to take over the care of his siblings while her aunt Savannah took over the family company, Bailey Timber, which employs a lot of people in the area.
I read through the post on the app once again, wondering how much trouble it’ll cause for us.
We’re starting today off with a BANG! But there’s a bit of mystery in what I’m about to tell you. Turns out that Hudson Fisher arrived at Glacier Point last night and rented a room. Why would a resident who owns a perfectly good house close to downtown rent a room at the luxurious and expensive resort? That’s the question we’re asking too. From what witnesses have said, he was by himself and had no luggage or bags with him. Seems suspicious if you ask me. We all know he was entertaining SOMEONE, but the question is WHO?
For those of you new to Lake Starlight, Hudson shares a daughter with Palmer Ferguson, daughter of Sedona (nee Bailey) and Jamison Ferguson. They raise their daughter together as best friends. I think I can say for all of us that whoever he’s entertaining, he’s being secretive, which means he doesn’t want us to know who it is. But that just makes us want to know even more. Anyone with any details, you know what to do. You’ll know when I know!
In other news, someone saw Kenzie Whitmore buying a pregnancy test. We might just have another Bailey on the way. Brooklyn Whitmore (nee Bailey) has a pep in her step lately. Maybe she knows something the rest of us don’t!
I don’t bother reading the rest and toss my phone on the nightstand.
Palmer rolls over, and her eyes flutter open. She stretches like a cat, her back arching, her arms over her head. It’s adorable. Her eyes open fully, and a timid smile creases her lips.
“Good morning,” I say, knowing she can read my lips.
She nuzzles into my body and wraps her arms around my waist.
We lie together under the comfy comforter, but I know we have to bite the bullet eventually.
After I made love to her last night, we took a shower and ended up having sex again. Then I woke her up once more in the middle of the night when I rolled toward her and felt her soft skin under my palms. There was no resisting, no matter how tired either of us were. It’s like now that I can have her, I can’t possibly get enough.
I slide out from under her, and she sits up against the headboard, a look of surprise on her face. Grabbing her cochlear implants, I bring them over to her, and she goes to grab them, but I circle my finger, telling her to turn her back to me. Then I put them on for her.
She fiddles with them when I’m done. “What’s going on, Hudson?”
I pick up my phone off the nightstand and hand it to her.
She looks at me, biting the inside of her cheek as she does when she’s worried. “What?”
“Just read it.”
She looks down and sighs. “Buzz Wheel?” Her face falls, but when she gets to the point that her cousin, Lance’s wife, might be pregnant, she smiles. “They don’t know it’s me.” She hands me back my phone.
“Palmer, they’re gonna know.”
She shakes her head. “Linus won’t tell anyone. You can tell Matt to keep it to himself.”
“And the kitchen staff? All the people in the restaurant? I had your hand in mine.”
She goes over to the chair that has our clothes lying over the back. Great, she’s going to flee now and probably dodge me for the rest of the day. But to my surprise, she takes my shirt and slips it on. The hem hits her mid-thigh, and a caveman’s possessiveness comes alive inside me at seeing her in my clothes.
“We’re friends. You hold my hand a lot. And no one heard our conversation. If anything, people might think that you were consoling me after Matt left.”
I guess I’m glad she’s not freaking out, but still, a layer of disappointment settles inside me since she doesn’t say, “Who cares if anyone knows about us?” I’m not sure why I would assume she’d wake up and want to shout our newfound relationship from the window of the resort. I told her we could keep it a secret, and I can’t change the game now. But last night was so…not what I expected. I thought it would be like last time when we ripped off each other’s clothes and bumped into walls and furniture before we found our way to the bed.
Something came over me when I saw her fear as she stared at the bed, and I wanted to ease that hesitancy inside her. I wanted her to know how much I care for her, how much I love her, and how much I see a future for us. Regardless, I told her we’d take it slow, and if that’s what she needs, then I’ll do it.
“Anyone could have seen us. It’s Lake Starlight.”
She nods and saunters over to the bed, puts one knee on the mattress, and swings her leg over my lap, straddling me. “We have about three hours before checkout. Do you want to spend the whole time talking about Buzz Wheel?”
“I thought you’d be more worried,” I say, my hands landing on her hips.
She grinds down against my length, already wet and ready. “I told you. No one knows anything. Trust me.” She uses my words against me. “So, are we done talking?”
I roll her over and hover over her. “Yes.”
She rolls me back, lifting and just barely sliding me inside her. “I want to hear you,” she says because we both know she can’t keep her cochlear implants on if she’s on her back. There’s too much risk of damaging them.
She sinks down on me, and damn, she feels so damn good. My hands find her hips once more, and her hands land on my shoulders.
“Let’s get this off you.” I grab the hem of the T-shirt and pull it up her torso.
She lifts her hands away from my shoulders so I can get it off. Her tits are in my face, so my hands slide up the sides of her abdomen before I take each one in hand. She rocks back, placing her palms on my thighs, offering herself to me as she shifts her weight up and down. Each thrust is more painfully exquisite than the one before it.
“Fuck, Palmer,” I pant, pumping my hips to reach the depths of her pussy. She’s so wet, so slick, I try to think of anything but coming.
“I know,” she says. “You’re a perfect fit.”
I want to tell her I am a perfect fit, her only fit, and the last man that she’ll ever have. That would be wrong, though, because I don’t know if I’m ruining every other man after me for her, but she sure as shit is ruining every woman for me from this day forward. Not that it matters. I only want her.
“These tits.”
She shifts her weight forward, her hands landing on the top of the headboard as I take a nipple into my mouth. Sucking, licking, nibbling. The sounds she makes…the moans, the sharp intakes of breath…I get why she wanted to hear me this morning.
“Oh, Jesus.” Her back arches back, and my mouth falls off her tit. She circles her hips. “Don’t move. I’m so close.”
She picks up the pace, and I grab her hips to help her get there faster. I’m practically picking her up and pulling her down onto my dick. Curse words fall from her perfect lips, and I pull her mouth down on mine, stilling inside her the moment our tongues meet.
Her body tenses, and we come at the same time, our moans making the perfect symphony. We continue to kiss as I grow soft inside her, her tits pressing against my sweaty chest.
“I could watch you come for a lifetime,” I say, and she inches back, our eyes meeting.
“Me too.”
We draw closer again, our lips meeting in a languid kiss that conveys the feelings we admitted last night.
When we close the kiss, she sits up, slowly moving off me. “We really are stupid that it took us this long.” She slides off the mattress and walks naked into the bathroom, and my eyes follow her. She returns with a washcloth. “My turn to clean you up.”
She runs the washcloth over my dick, and her touch springs life back into it.
“Are you ever satisfied?” she jokes and disappears back into the bathroom. This time, she shuts the door. Seconds later, the toilet flushes and water runs from the faucet. When she returns, she grabs her clothes from the chair. “Do you mind taking Adley today? I’m getting to the good part of my book.”
I sit on the bed, my back against the headboard, watching her intently. “Palmer, what are you doing?”
She zips up her dress and walks over to me. “It’s not like that. I’m not running. I just have to finish this book, but how about a family movie night?”
We haven’t had many of those lately—really, not since Theresa came into my life. Usually when Palmer had Adley, I’d spend my time at her place with them, but when I had Adley, Palmer either worked or Theresa would be over.
I place my hands on Palmer’s cheeks and stare into her eyes, trying to see the fight-or-flight in her blue eyes. But it’s not there, so I believe she’s not running away from me. “Okay. Make your own pizza night?”
She kisses me quickly. “Can’t wait.”
She sits on the side of the bed, pulling out her phone, and I hover, seeing her texting Harper to come get her.
“She thinks you spent the night with Matt. She might put two and two together after she sees Buzz Wheel.”
She swivels around to face me. “No, because if anyone asks why you spent the night here, you’re going to tell them that you were just getting some space.”
“I’m not sure anyone—”
She puts her finger over my lips. “They will. Now, get ready so after I get home, you can return and get Adley. I’ll text you when I’m done writing.”
“I don’t get it. Where are you going to write?”
She smiles, her secret one, the one she puts on when she’s not going to tell me. “Maybe one day you’ll find out. But right now, I’m not telling anyone. I have to finish this book.”
She grabs her purse and kisses me goodbye, but when she tries to stop, my hand runs along her neck, and I pull her back down to me. I kiss her thoroughly, pouring all my emotions in just so she remembers me when she walks out that door.
She laughs and shakes her head, fully aware of what I’m doing.
“You want me to trust you, so trust me, okay?” She walks across the hotel room, opens the door, blows me a kiss, and walks out.
I miss her already.