“You’re scared to leave the dysfunctional Henwood nest.”
Her whiskey eyes widen. “I am?”
I put my hand on her cheek. “You’re afraid to stop running this bar and become an author because you think it will make you different from your family, so different you’ll no longer fit in with them. So different maybe you’d actually want to get married. And so different you won’t need a ghost to keep your heart beating.”
Her breath is hot and smells like chocolate. I resist the incredible urge I have to grab her and kiss her on the mouth.
“You know what’s really scary?” she says quietly. “How you can hit the mark so effortlessly.”
I brush a stray hair behind her ear.
“I heard Gigi’s saving herself for marriage.” Macey stares at me. “Is that true?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
“So you haven’t had sex since…” Long pause. “Vegas?”
“Yes.”
She gently bangs the heel of her hand against her forehead. “None of my freaking business. Gosh. I need to learn to stay the fuck out of everyone else’s relationship, don’t I? It’s just I’m so fucking single. Sometimes I get…”
Long pause.
And I can’t help but bite.
“You get what?”
“I get…” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Lonely sometimes.”
My heart cracks in half.
She’s never told me that.
In all these years, Macey Henwood has never showed me her hand around how she feels about her choice to be alone.
I stare at her like I’m seeing her for the first time. “You’ve always said you hate marriage and everything about it, but now you’re saying…that you’re tired of having a quota for intimacy?”
“Once a year with no bed, no dates, nothing but a truck or a barn, and I’m out of there as fast as possible.” She sighs. “Sometimes it’s exhausting.”
And I forget everything but right here, right now. Macey is all I see. She’s all I know.
I don’t know who moves first—if it’s me or if it’s her. But somehow, we end up so close together I can hear her breath coming in short gasps.
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her against me. I suck in a breath as her lips come so close to mine I could trace them with my tongue. Her hands are hot, and their heat seeps through the back of my shirt. Her breasts press up against my chest, and as my jeans make contact with her belly, she no doubt feels the proof that her diary entry broke through the wall I’ve had to put between us all summer. I’m so turned on I have no rational thought in my head.
“You drive me so freaking crazy, Logan,” she says as I stare at her pink, sexy mouth. “So freaking out of my mind.”
I shift my gaze from her mouth to her eyes, studying her like I can decipher her heart. Her lips are a fraction away from touching mine, her tongue tantalizingly close to tasting…
When Mr. Henwood bursts into the room, Macey leaps back like a fire alarm just went off, and I exhale, realizing I’d been holding my breath.
“What is going on in here?” her father asks. “No one should be in the cell!”
“Riley and Blake locked us in here,” Macey says. “They thought they were being funny.”
“Good Lord.” Mr. Henwood shakes his head. “Let me get you out.”
As soon as he unlocks the cell, Macey stumbles out like she can’t get away from me fast enough.
