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—Simone—
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The kiss with Banks remained a distraction for hours after it happened. I spent the remainder of the afternoon before work sitting on the back deck overlooking my backyard, soul-searching for clarity.
I over-thought, cried, smiled, and picked at the older scabs healing on my arm, all while circling back to the same conclusion; I had to stop looking back when time carried me forward. I couldn’t run from it, nor could I halt it, so the only real option was to embrace where life took me and ride it as best I could.
That didn’t mean forgetting Reagan. It didn’t make our time together less worthy or less wonderful if I allowed myself to find a little happiness on my new path. Reagan would forever be a part of me, and nothing would ever change that. I didn’t believe the ache would ever fully fade, and that thought brought another prickling of tears to my eyes.
Banks had been right about the list; I’d given him a week, and he’d proved more with each day that life didn’t have to be governed by a set of check boxes. To live fully was to embrace each moment as it arrived and to fight through the toughest times while waiting for the best ones.
I left the backyard with optimism in my heart and renewed purpose in my soul. I was immensely thankful for those three wonderful years with Reagan, and while I never thought I’d have room for anyone else, my affection grew for Banks each time he knocked on the cottage door.
~
When Banks knocked the following day, I opened it with a new state of mind. I even stepped forward and accepted the quick kiss he pressed to my cheek.
“Mmm, you smell yummy,” he murmured. “Like summer.”
“Sunblock.” I shrugged and blushed a little. “Ready for our last day?”
A flash of disappointment pinched his handsome features. “I am, but I know it’s going to go too fast.”
“I’m working tonight too, so I can’t be back later than four.”
The depth of Banks’s frown increased. My heart gave a kick when he stepped closer, then again when he murmured, "You’ve got a little something...” His hands reached to cup my face, pulling a breathy exhale from my lungs.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“My kiss.” He sealed his mouth over mine and paused to gauge my reaction.
When I didn’t do anything but melt into his touch, he angled my face and spliced his lips across mine. I opened readily for him, welcoming the swipe of his tongue. My hands glided along the muscular expanse of his shoulders before entwining at the back of his neck.
I hummed quietly when a playful nip came on my lower lip, then again when he ran his tongue across the sting. My mouth found his again with hunger I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in almost two years.
Each sensation within my body created another. The chain reaction worked its way from my breathless lungs to my tingling, pebbled nipples, then swirled into my belly. That needy apprehension trickled lower, adding weight and pressure between my legs. My core ached for attention—to be touched, licked... Hell, to simply be blown on.
When Banks’s erection ground against the sensitive area, I involuntarily cried out.
He immediately put space between us, though kept an anchoring touch on my upper arm. “Sorry, I got carried away like I always do around you,” he panted.
Rapid swallow after swallow wouldn’t ice my arousal. “Seems I do as well.”
My attention dropped to his crotch. The feel of that hardness pressing into me sent another shiver wracking through me.
Realizing his predicament, he adjusted his erection in his lightweight running shorts, then unashamedly smirked. “Don’t mind me.”
“I’m not...” I trailed off and eyed him up and down, taking in his faded Bears baseball cap, tight t-shirt, running shorts, and sneakers. “I feel like I’m not dressed appropriately for whatever you have planned today; a long skirt doesn’t seem practical judging by what you’re wearing.”
His eyes roved over my body and the sexy glint returned to his gaze. “You’re overdressed in my opinion.”
My eyebrow arched high of its own accord, and I folded my arms under my breasts, unintentionally pushing them higher.
Banks hummed, then cut his attention away from my cleavage to meet my gaze. The slight smirk playing on his mouth released a fresh wave of butterflies in my belly.
“Far too overdressed.” He stepped forward once more.
I expected his mouth to claim mine again—for his tongue to lash and taste, and his hands to roam. Instead, I received a chaste forehead kiss and a low chuckle before he turned me by the shoulders.
“Hiking clothes, new girl.”
“What! Hiking?” When I stalled, he effortlessly propelled me through the front door.
“No arguing.”
“I’m not,” I sassed.
He scoffed, and the grin I’d become fond of pulled wide. “You are.”
I rolled my eyes despite growing giddy inside, and rushed into my room to get changed, throwing a, “Whatever,” over my shoulder.
I kicked out of my long skirt and tossed it on the bed before pulling on a pair of little black shorts, then my blouse met the same fate as the skirt. I was wrestling my way into a t-shirt when a deep chuckle came from the doorway.
A scream left my mouth before my head emerged from the neck hole. “How long were you watching, you psycho?”
Banks chuckled. “You left the door open, so I wasn’t sure if it was an invitation or, you know... complacency.”
“Complacency—it was definitely complacency,” I cried.
A deep little snicker accompanied his footsteps farther into my room. He looked around, systematically taking in the view and what little belongings I’d brought with me to Gatlin Falls.
“So, this is your room, huh?”
“Yep,” I squeaked, feeling my blood pressure rising.
“You don’t own much.”
I wrung my hands nervously as he neared my bedside table. “I don’t know how long I’m here for.”
His sharp hazel irises cut to me and held an edge of panic, so I smoothed it over by adding, “You know, permanently... or not.”
He hummed and nodded, moving to within reaching distance of Reagan’s bottle of cologne and my little blade.
“Leave those!” I blurted.
Mercifully, Banks immediately withdrew. When he glanced my way again, I saw questions swimming in his eyes. Ones I dreaded him voicing. Much to my relief, he let sleeping ghosts lie. He straightened, pursed his lips, and looked down at my feet.
“While I think your feet are cute, for this hike you’ll need sneakers.”
The change of vibe took me off guard for a second, then I jolted into action, relieved the attention had been shifted away from my most personal items.
“Oh yes! Of course.” I hurried to the door, only to about-turn without warning, slamming straight into Banks’s solid chest.
The wind punched from my lungs, leaving me coughing. “Do you have to walk so close?” I panted, cupping my sore boob.
He held up his palms. “You were practically running from the room, then gave zero warning before comin’ back in.”
My gaze narrowed as I held his, and when his smirk tugged one corner of his mouth, I rolled my eyes and shoved past. “I need socks.”
“Alrighty. Retract the claws—I ain’t pressuring ya.”
Thank God he hadn’t told me to calm down. “I like my space, Banks,” I sassed.
He did nothing but shift onto the balls of his feet and grin. “I like your space too.”
I tossed a balled-up pair of socks at him—that he effortlessly sidestepped—then dug through the lowboy drawer for another.
“You’re a space invader. And painfully relentless,” I mumbled, trying to lock down a smile.
Banks’s snicker danced across the void between where he leaned against the door frame and the bed where I sat to pull on my socks.
“I see you smiling, new girl,” he drawled.
My eyebrows arched high. “I’m laughing at you, not with you.”
“Uh huh?” His lazy smirk bloomed into the wide, toothy grin that made it harder to breathe.
“Yes, uh huh.” I stood and breezed past him into the hallway, careful not to slide on the polished floorboards. After I bent to slip on my sneakers and tie the laces, I glanced up and caught Banks checking out my ass. A wave of heat speared through me, starting at my face and ending at my knees as they weakened.
His gaze held mine as I rose. He dashed a tongue over his lower lip but didn’t offer anything aside from a nonchalant shrug. My pulse lumbered harder the moment he stepped into my space, staring down at me with intense hazel eyes that saw directly into my soul.
“You’re perfect,” he murmured.
“I’m really not,” I breathed back.
“Through my eyes you are.”
“You need glasses.”
He subtly shook his head and softly brushed the pad of his thumb along my jawline. The innocent touch ignited my longing for more. I hummed quietly as his fingertips trailed down my neck, then leaned into him when they drew a teasing line down the side of my ribcage to my waist.
Without warning, his touch turned firm, spinning me and propelling me toward the front door.
Gritty words, hoarsely spoken directly behind me, created a thrill-laced shiver to shoot down my spine. “We need to leave now before I do all the dirty things I want to do to you.”
“There’s many?” I asked breathlessly before finding myself pinned against the side of the cottage with my hands captured above my head.
Banks ducked and ran his nose up my neck, groaning low under his breath. “So many. Push me away now, Simone, otherwise I’ll carry you back inside.”
Despite my tingling nipples and arousal pulling tight in my core, whispers of fear made themselves known. Not fear of Banks but moving that little step further away from my past with Reagan.
When I bucked the smallest amount, Banks’s body immediately liberated mine, leaving us both panting and pink-cheeked.
He nodded his head over his shoulder and lowered his tone. “After you.”
I gave him a wavering smile, then picked my way down the steps, willing the jelly from my legs and the self-consciousness from each step.
