Chapter Twenty-One

There were so many things left to say, but Jules let Adam sweep them both away. She couldn’t ignore what he’d done to Grant, just like she couldn’t ignore the fact that when he touched her, her entire body lit up. And then he looked at her with those dark eyes and actually cared about the things she found important.

God, he cared more than he’d ever let anyone see.

Let me in. Please, just let me past those walls you’ve built so thickly around yourself.

She couldn’t let the words out. They were the keeping kind of things, and he’d told her time and time again that he wasn’t staying. Expecting him to suddenly fall for her and change his mind wasn’t fair to both of them. She was the one messing with the rules after she’d assured him she’d be fine with the boundaries he set.

This was never meant to be more than a crazy footnote in my life.

Except it didn’t feel like a footnote.

It felt world ending.

So she let him kiss her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, needing to be as close as they could be to settle the fears rising in the back of her mind.

Fears that, when he walked away, he’d take a bloody piece of her heart with him.

He lifted her onto the tailgate. “Let me make love to you, sugar. Just this once.”

Her heart leaped into her throat, blocking the words she had no business so much as thinking. Jules nodded, because there was nothing else left to say that wouldn’t ruin it. She felt absurdly like crying as he pulled off her boots and lifted her dress over her head. “Adam—”

“There’s time for that tomorrow.”

He was right. They had tonight, and everything could wait for sunrise. She nodded. “Okay.”

“Good.” He stripped quickly and set both their clothes in the bed of the truck. Then he kissed her again, backing her up and laying her flat on the blankets. “Never lose you, sugar.” His lips brushed the sensitive spot behind her ear. “There isn’t anyone like you out there—I’ve been around the block enough times to know—and the world would be a dimmer place if you compromised any part of yourself to appease someone else.” He eased her bra off, his lips moving over her skin, saying words she never knew she wanted to hear. “You’re better than a goddamn eight-second ride, Jules Rodriguez, and I’ll never meet your like again.”

She started to say…God, she didn’t even know what…but he moved down her body, slipping off her panties and spreading her thighs. “And tonight, you’re mine.” And then his mouth was there against the most intimate part of her, touching her just as his words had a moment before.

Jules gave herself over to him, letting go of her worries for tomorrow and her irritation over how Adam handled things back at the restaurant. He was like a wild thing, barely tamed. Just like the bulls he loved to ride or the stallions on the ranch. He’d let her cuddle up to him, but one wrong move and someone was going to lose an arm.

Not her. She’d spent enough time with him to be sure of that—he’d never hurt her. But that didn’t mean a single thing when it came to the people around her.

“You’re thinking too hard.”

“I can’t help it.” Her life would be so much easier if she knew how to turn off her stampeding thoughts.

Adam sighed, his breath on her sensitive skin making her squirm. “Let me help.” Then he pushed two fingers into her and sucked her clit into his mouth, setting his teeth against her. The sensation was so intense, it was just this side of pain. Jules’s mind went blank, and her body went tight.

“Holy good gracious.”

He pumped his fingers slowly, dragging them over that spot inside her. She pressed her heels against the bed of the truck, trying to take him deeper, but he laughed softly and used his free hand to pin her hips. “Not yet, sugar.”

“Adam, please.”

He gave her one long lick. “Are you still thinking too hard?”

“I… What?” She squirmed, but he had full control—just like always. She’d always considered herself an independent woman, but there was something about being at Adam’s mercy that flat-out did it for her. She tried lifting her hips again. “More.”

“All right, sugar. I’ll give you more.”

She cried out when he removed his hand, but the unmistakable crinkle of a condom wrapper had her shutting right up. This was good. This was even better. He crawled up her body and settled between her thighs. She wrapped her legs around his waist, arching against him. “Kiss me.”

“Bossy.” He cupped the back of her head and took her mouth even as his cock slid home.

Something inside her that had been rattled and uncertain settled in that moment of perfection. We have the now. Stop asking for more than he’s willing to give. He said I’m his for tonight, and that’ll have to be enough.

But she needed more. Jules dragged her nails down his back. “You make me so hot and crazy and gah.”

“Tell me more.” He began to move, the slightest strokes that drove her to distraction but nowhere near enough to send her over the edge.

“I was okay.” She dug her fingers into his ass, pulling him deeper. “Mostly okay. Somewhat okay.”

“Mmm.” He nibbled on her neck, keeping up that infuriating movement.

She couldn’t catch her breath. “One look, Adam. That’s all it takes. You give me that look and I’m ready to drag you into the nearest enclosed space and drop my panties.”

“Good.” He picked up his strokes, withdrawing almost all the way out before pushing back into her. “Because I feel the same fucking way, sugar. Every time I stop moving for more than five seconds, all I can think about is the feel of you beneath me, taste you on my tongue, and smell your coconut shampoo. It drives me fucking insane.”

“I’m sorry,” she gasped.

“I’m not. I fucking love it.” He hitched her leg higher on his waist, driving deeper yet. “And the thought of you sharing your future with another man makes it feel like I have fifteen-hundred-pound bull trampling all over my chest.” He lowered his voice, so soft that she could barely hear him over the sounds of her breathing. “I want that future. I want it so bad, I can barely stand it.”

She started to say…something…but he was already moving, flipping her over and drawing her up onto her hands and knees. “But tonight is mine, sugar. And I’m going to make sure you never forget me.”

Forget him? Impossible.

He slammed into her, driving a cry from her lips. And then there was no more time for talking. She clutched the blankets, shoving back against him even as he gripped her hips tighter, the sound of flesh meeting flesh joining the cricket sounds in the field around them. “Touch yourself, sugar. I want to feel you come around my cock.”

She obeyed without thought, sliding her hand between her legs and stroking her clit. Combined with him filling her, it didn’t take long for the first spasms to start. “Adam.”

“That’s right. Take it all.” He slammed into her again and again, driving her out of her mind with pleasure, until she was sure she couldn’t take it anymore. Only then did his strokes become irregular, and he let himself go with a curse.

He collapsed next to her, pulling her back against his chest. She stared up at the sky, a blanket of stars that somehow made this even more intimate.

Too soon, her mind kicked back into gear, replaying every single word he’d said since they left the restaurant. She fought to keep her body relaxed, but his sigh proved just how sucky she was at it. “Relax, sugar. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Maybe. Or maybe that would give him time to reconsider whatever he’d meant when he said he wanted a future with her. She bit her lip so hard it was a wonder she didn’t draw blood, barely able to wrap her mind around it.

A future with Adam Meyer.

It was the one thing she hadn’t allowed herself to consider. And why would she? He wasn’t staying in Devil’s Falls.

But what if he did?

Jules liked him—a lot. She liked that he didn’t seem to think she was boring or “good ole Jules” or feel the need to patronize her and tell her how he knew better. In fact, he’d done nothing but empower her.

She liked the way he obviously loved his mom. He might not have spent much time back home over the last decade, but he still cared a whole lot. And Amelia loved her son more than anything else in the world. Jules knew that because she was a shameless eavesdropper when it came to her customers. Amelia was always telling Lenora about Adam’s latest escapades with the same tone of voice Jules’s mom used to brag about her good grades. It was really sweet.

And there was the sex. Good lord, the sex. It really wasn’t fair how out-of-this-world good it was.

He was kind of prickly, but he had a dry sense of humor that she adored. And Aubry didn’t scare him. That alone was a big point in his favor. Not to mention, since her best friend hadn’t hacked into his cell phone or something else insane, she’d pretty much given her seal of approval. That mattered.

Adam brushed her hair to the side and kissed the back of her neck. “You’re doing it again.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m just as sure that you do.” He grabbed the blanket on the other side of her and covered them both with it, settling down again at her back. “It’ll all still be there in the morning, sugar. Obsessing about it now isn’t going to change a damn thing, except you’ll lose sleep.”

Easier said than done. She turned in his arms to face him. “Can you do that? Just turn it off?”

His face was little more than a shadow in the darkness. “Some days I’m better at it than others.” There was a world of…something…in his voice. Something she didn’t have a name for.

She couldn’t ask if he was staying. It wasn’t the right time, and if he said no, it would just hurt her. So she went with an equally dangerous topic—but one that had nothing to do with her. “You never mention your dad.”

“Not much to mention.” He sighed. “He was a leaver, as my mama likes to say. He managed to stick around for four years after I was born, but it killed a part of him to be stuck inside these town limits. He rolled back through a couple times as I was growing up, but Mama was never all that happy to see him, knowing she’d see the back of him again before too long. I’m just like him.”

He didn’t say any of it with anger, more with a quiet fatality she didn’t know what to do with. “Adam, there’s no such thing as fate. You make your own future.”

“You don’t understand. I have this…I don’t even know what to call it—restlessness, for lack of a better word. It starts in my chest and builds and builds until I feel like I’m coming out of my skin. It’s been there ever since I was a kid, and the second I was old enough to get out, it eased the feeling. The only thing that takes it away completely is being on the back of a bull.”

How could she compete with that? She’d heard stories about rodeo widows, women who loved a man who loved the rodeo. How could a flesh-and-blood person stand against the roar of the crowd and the adrenaline rush of trying to stay on a rage-filled animal’s back for eight seconds? It didn’t sound all that wonderful to Jules, but she was unforgivably biased.

Adam leaned against the tailgate. “And now with my mom sick… I just don’t know how it’s going to end up.”

Meaning the cancer could take her.

If it did, not only would Devil’s Falls lose one of its favorite ladies, but Adam would lose the last anchor drawing him back to this place. She didn’t fool herself for a second into thinking Quinn and Daniel were enough to bring him home, not when he’d be faced with memory after memory of his mother.

And, no matter how she was starting to feel about Adam, she would never be enough for him. That was startlingly clear.

“It’s okay, Adam. It will be okay.”

But the sinking feeling in her chest wouldn’t go away. The only thing that had kept him in place for more than two weeks was his mom. If she lost her battle with cancer, he would run as far and fast as he could and not look back.