It’s the first time she’s called me by my name, and all I want is to hear her say it again.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
Distracted, I nod. I’ve never wanted her to see me as a one-night-stand kind of guy, but if we’re going to take this any further, she deserves to know.
“I’ve only ever been with one person,” I admit.
Her eyes widen. I can’t blame her for being surprised when everyone in my life thinks the same way about me, and everyone in her life has given her reason to believe that’s just how guys are. I wasn’t able to convince her on that plane that some guys are different. ThatI’mdifferent. I just hope beinghonest with her now will show how seriously I take this. That this moment with her matters a great deal to me.
“It was dark. I was drunk. It was fast. I was hurting. It was a rebound thing, and I barely remember it.”
She reaches for my hand and winds our fingers together. Something I wasn’t expecting… Sympathy.
“I want this to be different,” I tell her. “I want to take my time with you and remember what it feels like to hold you close to me.”
She shifts in my arms so that she’s cradled against my chest and draws my palm down to her lips, kissing the center.
“I want that too,” she says, and for this moment, I pretend we’re more than casual. I lean in and kiss her like she’smine. Slow and steady like a canoe rocking in time with the ripples in the water. She gives, I take. I pull, she pushes. We kiss until I’ve memorized every dip of her mouth, every stroke of her tongue. Until we’re both left panting and wanting more.
She reaches for me first, gripping the button on my pants and tugging down the zipper. I help her work the denim down my thighs, chuckling when they meet the laces of my boots.
A faint blush pinkens her cheeks. “You could always leave them on.”
I raise one eyebrow. “Boots?Onlyboots? That does it for you?”
She lifts onto her elbows again and nibbles on her bottom lip like she’s imagining it. “I mean… it doesn’tnotdo it for me. You look good in those boots. But I think I might like them even better when they’re on the floor with the rest of your clothes.” Her eyes heat.
“Off it is.”
She giggles as I bounce around on one foot, tearing the laces free and jerking them off by the heel. I ditch my pants beside them before kneeling over her and dropping my mouth to herchest. In a slow dusting, my lips feather from her sternum to her breast. Her back arches as I work the button of her jeans open and shimmy them down her long, lean legs. Lying there in nothing but her underwear, I kneel at her feet.
“I am the luckiest guy alive.” I grin against her skin and hold her gaze while trailing my mouth from her ankle to her knee, her knee to her thigh. My fingers track over the same sensitive skin my lips touch, and she sinks her hands into my hair, groaning my name.
Bam.
“What was that?”
We jerk apart.
I shuffle, bent in half, to her bedroom window to get a good look outside. Jack Hart steps away from his pickup truck, headed straight for the porch steps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
REED
Hailey covers her exposed chest with her arms, meeting me where our clothes lie in a heap on the floor.
“I thought you said he wouldn’t come back here!” I hop in the most awkward angle to get my pants over my hips without fully straightening.
With wide eyes, she hisses, “Hedoesn’tcome here!” She drags her shirt over her head, stashing her bra beneath the bed.
“I can sneak out the window,” I suggest, sizing up the small frame. I’d have to turn to the side to make it through the narrow opening, but I think it could work. I’d do just about anything right now to avoid the repercussions of my boss finding me alone in this bedroom with his daughter. But I remember the small problem with that plan.
My truck is in the driveway.
“I can have anyone I want here,” she argues. “Just… give me a minute with him before you come out, okay?”
I search her face as she brushes the strands of hair out of her eyes and straightens her shirt. Then, she disappears through the doorway.
