Page 57

“Maybe. It’s called Lucky Lookout. Because of the whole ‘luckiest town’ thing, and because, yeah, people come out here to get lucky.”

Christ.

The sun is setting when we make it out of the tunnel of trees, and I look ahead to the (second) most breathtaking view. A frozen lake, framed by snow-dusted pines, and a backdrop of mountains, lit up orange from the sunset. It’s beautiful.

“Wow.” I sit forward as Scarlett parks the car, facing the lake. “This is so much nicer than the car park behind the cinema where teenagers go to hook up back home.” Everything here feels so still, so silent.

“This is where Clover Pines gets its name,” she tells me, warming her hands on the heater. “Pine Creek runs along the town and feeds in here—Clover Lake. You can’t see it from this angle, but if you look down on the lake, it’s shaped like a clover. People come from all over to drink from the lake and they swear it brings them luck. When my parents were kids, farmers used to come here during planting season and get a bucket of water. They swore if they sprinkled it on their land, it would bring them luck and they’d have a better harvest. It’s not really a thing the farmers do anymore, but Landon brings the kids up here every year. They love it.”

“That’s adorable. Thank you for bringing me here. For sharing this place with me,” I say, taking her hand and squeezing it.

Scarlett kills the engine and unclips her seatbelt. “I didn’t bring you here for a Clover Pines history lesson, for the record.”

“Oh?”

She takes the hair tie I slid onto my wrist earlier and ties her hair in a messy ponytail. “I brought you here to thank you for fixing my car.”

“You don’t have to tha— Fuck.”

Scarlett undoes my jeans in record time, then slides her hand below my waistband, wraps it around my cock, and pushes my underwear down so she can pull me out. Her palm is warm from the heater as she draws it up and down, running her thumb over my tip. I breathe hard and close my eyes, which is why I don’t notice her bend her head. I feel a tendril of her hair tickle my thigh a split second before she swirls her tongue over the head of my cock, and I slam my hand against the car door.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I chant, as she drags her tongue up the length of me.

“Is this okay?” she asks, but I’ve forgotten how to form words beyond curses, so I nod in answer. Or I think I do, anyway. There might be something in the luckiness of the lake, because I feel like I’ve won the damn lottery.

Scarlett responds by wrapping her lips around my cock and taking me into her mouth. If I thought her hand was warm … God. I want to be polite, but the urge to wrap my fist around her ponytail and be the exact opposite of polite is a problem. A problem Scarlett must be feeling too, because she grabs my hand and places it on her ponytail.

A fucking dream.

I hold her ponytail, and Scarlett takes me deeper in her mouth, her hand wrapped around the base of my cock. I lift my hips to meet her—as much as I can, anyway. I’m still wearing my seatbelt—and she hums around me. The sensation ricochets through every nerve ending in my body. I open my eyes, and the sight of my cock between her pretty lips draws a whimper from me. She looks up through her lashes, her warm brown eyes sparkling.

She likes this. A lot.

I tighten my hold on her and she takes me deeper still, until I brush the back of her throat. And she fucking moans. She squeezes her fist ever so slightly, moving up and down faster, and drags me to the finish line so fast, it knocks the wind out of me.

“Scar, I … I’m going to … God.”

She doesn’t pull back; she holds on tight, and I come in her mouth, chanting her name like a prayer.

I’m thirty-three years old. I’m not short on sexual experiences, but everything with Scarlett just feels so much more. Like she’s erasing my memories and replacing them with moments I’m pretty sure I’ll be thinking about when I’m old and gray.

And the sight of her, sitting back with a smile on her face, licking her lips as she pulls her sweater over her head, kicks off her jeans, and straddles my hips, is going to have the starring role in those memories.

26

Scarlett

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a date. When Dom and I were still pretending to have something like a relationship, dates weren’t exactly a priority. On the rare occasions he was in town, he wasn’t interested in going out, and that’s just as well, because the people of Clover Pines tolerated him at best. I went out with the odd person in my first few months in Edmonton, but college dates usually involved a cheap beer, greasy fries, and a mediocre twenty minutes in a twin bed.

Rarely did I get a good orgasm out of a date, let alone two. Granted, I never went down on someone in the car, so maybe that’s where I was going wrong. Killian was very appreciative—and, oh boy, did he show it.

There aren’t many places to eat in Clover Pines, and certainly nowhere with a lick of privacy, so we swung by the house to change, and Killian drove us twenty minutes to a cute little Italian restaurant in Otter Peak. Of course, I recognize four people as soon as we walk in, but I think we’d have to go as far as Calgary not to run into anyone—and even that wouldn’t be a guarantee.

I’m not trying to keep this thing with Killian a secret. I know better than to think that’s an option in a town like Clover Pines, but, even if we could, I don’t want to. There’s already a part of me that feels like we’re doing something wrong just by holding hands across the table, because the last man I held hands with was his dad, and I never want to put that on Killian. Hiding him away, like I’m ashamed of whatever this is, isn’t an option.

Of all the things I’m ashamed of, whether I should be or not, caring about Killian isn’t one of them.

“So, do you do this a lot?” I ask, after the server—the mom of one of Caitlin’s classmates—brings our drinks over.