Scrubbing my hand over my face, I turn away from the woman currently taking over my thoughts.
I don’t know what changed in the last week and a half to prompt her to be here every single day, but my paranoid brain thinks it has something to do with Woodcroft’s visit. The timing is too fucking suspicious.
God, I thought I was past the hyper-paranoia. In the course of less than two weeks, my nightmares have resurfaced with a vengeance, and I’m obsessively looking at every single person I can get a visual on.
It’s fucking exhausting.
“You okay?” I hear Brittany ask.
“Great. You can head home now that the rush is over,” I say automatically.
“You know, I can just stay here until we close and you can take the afternoon off.” She’s offered more times than I can count, but I’ll never agree to it. What the fuck would I do anyway?
“I know. Thanks, Brittany. I’m good today, though.”
She holds eye contact for a second—possibly trying to change my decision by hypnosis; who’s to say—before shaking her head and undoing her apron.
“You’re stubborn as hell,” she mutters under her breath. I barely hold in the bark of laughter. She’s never outright called me on my shit, but maybe she’s finally warming up to me.
“See you tomorrow, Brittany,” I call to her as she walks to the front door.
Willow’s head pops up from her laptop when she hears me call out, and my attention is pulled back to her.
I hold up a mug, asking without words if she’d like another latte.
She nods then tucks her head back down behind the lid of her laptop, and I get started on her new latte. I’ve been working on the fancy shit at the end with the foam to make it pretty for her, but I still suck at that. My expertise lies in the food I serve here, not necessarily the coffee. But they didn’t have a coffee shop, so it felt like a natural progression for the town. It’s not like making basic coffee is difficult to learn, and Brittany has added some different seasonal shit that I’ve run with.
I don’t know. I’m probably overthinking the whole latte art shitbecause Willow fucks with my head. And my need to impress her just irritates me more.
Being the stubborn ass I am, I decide this one won’t have my sorry attempt at artistry. I also grab one of the homemade pop tarts she loves so much and take them over to her.
I place them on the table and silently back away.
It takes her twenty minutes to realize I dropped off sustenance for her and when she finally sees it, her entire face lights up like the North star. Heart pounding in my chest, I know I’m in trouble with her. When she makes eye contact with me before taking a bite of the pastry and then licking her lips? Well, I’m thinking about how that gorgeous mouth of hers could really do some damage—mainly, to my dick that’s trying to rip a hole in my jeans. Thank God for the counter covering the obscene tent I’m sporting. Can’t have the people of Bluebell Falls getting their hands on that kind of gossip.
I just need to get through the rest of the day, then I can wear my ass out and jerk off in the shower later.
The last two hours before I closed up shop were fucking hell. Willow’s little moans of pleasure while eating what I’ve baked and drinking the latte I made for her almost did me in. The good news is that my apartment is upstairs, so I can immediately strip out of my clothes to stroke my cock. I can’t even wait until after my workout, that’s how much I’m worked up from that woman.
Collapsing onto my bed as I grip my dick, I think about what she would look like with her hair all wild from my hands. Her cheeks flush with lust, not embarrassment this time.God, she looks good like that.My strokes get a little faster as I conjure up the image.I don’t even know where I would start with her if I got the chance. I know kissing her would be top of the list, though. Her rosy pink lips draw my eye every single time she talks, and I wonder what other parts of her body are that color.
That’s all it takes.
Pathetic.
Cum pools on my abs as I throw my head back with a sigh. I need to stop doing this. There’s nothing between us—there never can be anything between us—so there’s no use in daydreaming. Hell, she doesn’t even know who I am … not really.
And that thought is depressing as hell.
Climbing off my bed, I rinse off in a quick shower before putting on my trail clothes. The place my head is at makes me feel like a long-ass run on the trails in the national park that borders our town is the best course of action. Sam Houston National Park is one of the biggest perks of moving here. Getting lost in nature has saved my overly depressed and anxious brain more times than I count.
Walking out my front door, I lock up before heading east to the park. I know this is a small town and they’re supposed to be ultra-safe, but old habits die hard, and I’ve seen way too much fucked-up shit to ever chance it.
My mind starts to swirl between images of Willow over the past week and Woodcroft showing up. He left town the same day we spoke, and I was selfishly thankful for that. It was painful as hell to see him after I got over the initial panic. I left that life knowing I would never see my bestfriend again. Never go to a bar and shoot the shit to decompress after a fucked-up case. Never go to a barbecue at his house after we caught the shitbag we were after. I never really stopped to question my decision until he showed up in Bluebell Falls.
I walked away from a life I had worked my ass off for. Thirty-seven years of the only life I knew, given up because of one man. Shit, I can’t even call him a man; he’s a piece of demented shit that doesn’t deserve to see the light of day.
But I couldn’t catch him.
