Always On My Mind

by Kelsey Browning

  “I hated you,” she whispered. “For a long time I couldn’t even stand to think about what you’d done. You broke us.”

  “I know.”

  Her eyes glassy with tears, she let out a long sigh. “But I never stopped loving you either.”

  Yeah, that adrenaline had other ideas. It pulled back onto the track and took a tire-smoking victory lap.

  His mom always said things happen for a reason even if those reasons aren’t clear at the time. Or ever. He still couldn’t work out the reason he and Jenny hadn’t made the life they’d planned. But maybe now they could begin to make the life they were meant to live together.

  He caught Jenny by the waist and pulled her closer.

  Then she kissed him. A hungry, aggressive kiss. This wasn’t a let’s-make-out-in-a-carriage kiss. This was a let’s-go-all-the-way kiss. Which was crazy. He was the sheriff. The last thing he needed was to get slapped with a public indecency charge. And sex in a carriage, no matter how much love was involved, would not play well come election time.

  But Jenny damn well remembered how to drive him wild, because she was doing it again.

  “Jenny,” he panted, “you can’t…we can’t…”

  “Last time I checked we already have.”

  Not in way too long. Still, he said, “We’re on a public street.”

  “Seriously?” She leaned away from him and chuckled. “Remember that time on a park picnic table?”

  He rubbed a palm across his face. He’d never forget that night. It had been one of the best of his life. In fact, almost all his best nights had been with this woman.

  She whispered in his ear, “It’s dark, everyone’s gone home, and we have blankets. You used to be adventurous. Don’t tell me you’re a boring old guy now.”

  “Hardly.” He grabbed the blanket from the seat beside him, pulled it around them.

  “I knew the teenaged Teague was in there somewhere.”

  Suddenly, the very adult Teague couldn’t wait to make love to her. His hands were shaking as he reached up to slowly unbutton her shirt.

  Teague’s breath came in hard draws. And it was more than the feel of her body. It was the possibility that he might be back inside her heart. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his cheek against her heart.

  The heart that still loved him.

  Jenny smoothed the hair from his forehead. “You okay?”

  “Any better, and I’d be dead.”

  “That would be awfully inconvenient for me.”

  He chuckled and pressed a kiss to her beautiful mouth. “I’ll do my best to not disappoint you.”

  A moment later there was nothing between them, and all those concerns about getting caught were tossed out with the first stroke of his hand on her hip. He urged her into a rhythm, and let her move against him, all soft skin and heated touches. He lifted his head to watch her beautiful face. The emotions there were like a balm to his ripped-up soul. Pleasure. Love. And most of all, trust.

  “Look at me,” he demanded.

  Her eyelids fluttered open.

  “What we’re doing right now, it means you’re mine.”

  “Yes,” she gasped.

  Her admission destroyed his last strand of control.

  Afterward, he’d never felt so complete, fulfilled in his life as in this moment.

  They were both breathing as if they’d run the Summer Shoals Turkey Trot, which made him chuckle.

  “Sex with me is funny?” she muttered against his shoulder.

  “No,” he said. “Making love with you is the best thing that’s happened to me since the last time I made love to you.”

  She lifted her head, gazed into his eyes with a blissed-out look on her face, and cupped his cheeks in her palms. “How did I live without you that long?”

  He wasn’t sure how she’d done it, but it was clear to him now that he hadn’t been living at all. Not without Jenny.

  Skip 14-15 pages to Chapter 11

  Chapter 10 - Heat

  He gentled his grip on her hair, cradling her cheek in his palm, and angled his head for better access to her mouth.

  Sweet, hot, home.

  Jenny scooted closer, turning in and pressing against him. But sitting side by side, they could only get so close. Teague’s skin vibrated with the need to have all of her touching all of him. She shoved at the blankets covering their laps, skimming the front of his jeans in the process. And all those lights from earlier brightened.

  He wanted to grab her hand and press it to him. Press it to him? Hell, he wanted her to shove it down his pants and wrap it around him.

  Wasn’t exactly something a gentleman asked a lady to do.

  When her touch returned, stroking him from balls to tip through the denim, he remembered Jenny’d never claimed to be a lady. She’d always known what she wanted and gone after it with whatever weapon she had handy. And right now, she was about to kill him with the light stroke of her fingers over his zipper.

  “Jenny, I don’t—”

  “You don’t like this?”

  He laughed, a low, rough sound. “Never hated anything so much in my life.”

  She tried to snatch her hand back, but he grabbed her fingers, pressed them against the massive hard-on straining against his zipper.

  “This feel like hate to you?”

  “Feels like lust.” The shadows from a street light down the way cloaked her face, hiding her expression from him. “And that, we never had a problem with.”

  Teague rested his forehead against her temple. “Oh, believe me, there’s plenty of that. But Jenny, I wasn’t lying before when I told you I never, in all these years, stopped loving you. I want you, there’s no hiding that. But what I want isn’t just your body. I want your intelligence. Your…hmm…think I’ll call it your wit.”

  She huffed a little laugh. “That’s one way to phrase it if you’re soft-peddling the truth.”

  “You have your hand on sensitive parts of my anatomy down there, and you think I’m going to piss you off?” he said. “I may be a lot of things, but I’m not an idiot.”

  In response, she tightened her grip, stroked him through his jeans. The air backed up in Teague’s lungs, and he leaned his head on the carriage seat back, trying to catch his runaway breath. “I want your smile. I want everything about you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  How many men were idiots enough to have this kind of conversation when a woman had his pride and joy in her hand? Apparently, at least one. Possibly only one. “I want you back in my life.”

  “We’re not kids anymore,” she said, her stroke slowing, turning absentminded rather than seductive. Didn’t keep Teague’s eyes from rolling back in his head and his teeth from cementing together. “We live over a thousand miles apart, and I have…complications.”

  He cupped her cheek, turned her face to his. “Grayson’s not a complication in my eyes.”

  “I may not be married to Daniel,” Jenny said, her eyes both sad and pleading for understanding. “But he’ll always be Grayson’s father.”

  Yeah, there were some things in this world that couldn’t be undone. “You’re strong and smart. I’m good-looking and not quite as smart as you.” He grinned down at her, trying to lighten the mood. “I bet we could work this out. I even know where the airport is for when Grayson needs to fly up to see his dad.”

  “You would raise another man’s son?”

  His heart went into overdrive. He’d been hoping to convince her to consider moving, but she’d leapfrogged ahead to marriage. He wanted to jerk her out of the carriage and drag her to the Justice of the Peace’s house this second. But he told the adrenaline speeding through his system to pull over. If he didn’t watch out, he’d hit the wall. He couldn’t afford to crash and burn this time. “I would happily raise the son of the woman I love. He’s a part of you, Jenny. How could I not love him too?”

  “I hated you,” she whispered.

  “I know.”

 
; “But I never stopped loving you either.”

  Yeah, that adrenaline had other ideas. It pulled back onto the track and took a tire-smoking victory lap.

  His mom always said things happen for a reason even if those reasons aren’t clear at the time. Or ever. He still couldn’t work out the reason he and Jenny hadn’t made the life they’d planned. But maybe now they could begin to make the life they were meant to live together.

  He caught Jenny by the waist and pulled her closer. She scrambled across his thighs to straddle his lap, effectively pushing her skirt high on her thighs, and loop her arms around his neck. With her breasts pressed against his chest and the soft spot between her legs pressed against his hard—getting harder every second—spot, Teague’s life had suddenly become very, very good.

  Jenny rocked forward, and Teague was forced to close his eyes to keep them from rolling right out of his head.

  Then she kissed him. A hungry, aggressive kiss. This wasn’t a let’s-make-out-in-a-carriage kiss. This was a let’s-go-all-the-way kiss. Which was crazy. He was the sheriff. The last thing he needed was to get slapped with a public indecency charge.

  But Jenny’s tongue was slick against his, and she nipped the right corner of his lip. She damn well knew what that did to him. The first time she’d ever nipped him like that, he’d ripped off her panties and nailed her against the front door of his college apartment.

  That had been a hell of a night.

  “Jenny,” he panted, “you can’t…we can’t…”

  “Last time I checked we already have.”

  Not in way too long. Still, he said, “We’re on a public street.”

  “Seriously?” She leaned away from him and chuckled. “Remember that time on a park picnic table?”

  He rubbed a palm across his face. He’d never forget that night either. It had been one of the best of his life. In fact, almost all his best nights had been with this woman.

  Jenny did one of those mysterious wiggle contortions women were such experts at and reached behind her. And then a lacy purple thong was being waved in his face.

  That meant she was bare under her skirt. He gripped her hips—squeeze, release, squeeze, release. She snuggled closer again, and he could feel the heat of her. She whispered in his ear, “It’s dark, everyone’s gone home, and we have blankets. You used to be adventurous. Don’t tell me you’re a boring old guy now.”

  That was so wrong. And she knew exactly what she was doing—goading him to take a risk. “I don’t have protection.”

  “I have it under control.” She dropped a kiss on his lips. “And before you ask, no, I haven’t dated anyone since Daniel and I split. But I kept taking the pills anyway.”

  She was making it so hard to say no.

  Reaching between them, she toyed with the button on his jeans. “By the way,” she said conversationally, “did I mention the bra matches the panties?”

  Yeah, he was hosed, and by the broad grin on her face, she knew it. She popped the button on his pants and slowly unzipped him. But dammit, he wanted something more than a slam-bam. And that was what they’d both get if he didn’t take control.

  He grabbed the blanket from the seat beside him, draped it over her shoulders and around his legs.

  “I knew the teenaged Teague was in there somewhere,” she whispered. She yanked at his pants until he lifted up so she could work them over his hips.

  Suddenly, the very adult Teague couldn’t wait to be inside her. His hands were shaking as he reached up to slowly unbutton her shirt. She’d been telling the truth. The bra he revealed was thin and purple. Her nipples pressed against the lace, hard little buttons.

  Teague skimmed his palms up her waist and over her ribs to cup her breasts.

  “Mmm.” Jenny’s head fell back, pushing those pretty breasts closer to his face.

  He lightly fanned his thumbs over the tips, and she panted. The hunger was rising up in him, coming from his belly, from his heart, from his soul. He jerked the lace aside, and her nipple popped out.

  Control. She didn’t need him going at her like a starved animal.

  But that was exactly what he was.

  He forced himself to press a light, almost chaste, kiss to her breast.

  This time, the sound that rose from Jenny’s chest wasn’t one of pleasure. It was a full-out growl. “Dammit, Teague.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not a virgin. This isn’t like the first time we did it in your Jeep. I’m a full grown woman, and I like to have sex like one.” She popped the front clasp of her bra, releasing her breasts. She brought his hands up and pressed them against her. “So show me you’re serious.”

  Fine. She was right. She wasn’t breakable.

  He pinched her nipples between his fingers and did a little twist that had her hips moving in a similar motion. The feel of her slickness against his hardness blew all the circuits left in his brain. Sanity was overrated anyway.

  “Now,” he demanded. “I can’t wait any more.” After all, he’d been waiting for ten long years.

  Jenny gripped him while he shoved at her skirt with one hand. And then she slowly lowered herself onto him. One freaking inch at a time.

  She was slick and tight and the best thing he’d felt in so long that it brought honest-to-God tears to his eyes. “Jenny, it’s—”

  She seated herself until they were body to body, heart to heart, stealing the rest of the words from him. “It’s like coming home.”

  God, it was. Teague’s breath came in hard draws. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his cheek against her chest. And it was more than the feel of being inside her body. It was the possibility that he might be back inside her heart.

  The heart that still loved him.

  Jenny smoothed the hair from his forehead to the skin there. She ran her hands up and down his back. “You okay?”

  “Any better, and I’d be dead.”

  “That would be awfully inconvenient for me. I was kinda looking forward to an eye-crossing orgasm.”

  He chuckled and pressed a kiss to the curve of her breast. “I’ll do my best.” He grabbed her by the hips and flexed to push himself deeper. The little gasp she let out pumped his ego. “But you’d better hold on.”

  “You’re so arroga—”

  He took total control, lifting her and pulling her back down in a rhythm that had lights dancing at the edges of his vision. Her breasts bounced in front of his face in invitation, so he sucked a nipple into his mouth and pulled on it hard.

  “That feels…amazing.”

  With every push and pull, Teague could feel his own arousal amping up. His balls were tight against his body. But Jenny would definitely get that eye-crosser before he took any-damned-thing for himself.

  He urged her into a rhythm, and let her move against him, all soft skin and heated touches. He lifted his head to watch her beautiful face. The emotions there were like a balm to his ripped-up soul. Pleasure. Love. And most of all, trust.

  “Look at me,” he demanded.

  Her eyelids fluttered open.

  “What we’re doing right now, it means you’re mine.”

  “Yes,” she gasped.

  Her admission almost destroyed the strand of control he was hanging onto. Instead, he slid his hand between them, used his thumb to circle the very heart of her. Jenny’s rhythm broke, became jerky and desperate. Her thighs shook around him.

  “Give it to me,” he growled.

  Her entire body tightened, and she bowed back as her muscles clenched. The ripple around him was all it took to trigger Teague’s own orgasm. He held Jenny in place as he pumped up into her, riding it out. The pleasure—soul deep—stung the backs of his eyelids.

  Jenny slumped against him, and he braced their weight against the seat back, unable to move because all the blood in his head was elsewhere in his body. They were both breathing as if they’d run the Summer Shoals Turkey Trot.

  Which made him chuckle.

  “Sex wi
th me is funny?” she muttered against his shoulder.

  “No,” he said. “Making love with you is the best thing that’s happened to me since the last time I made love to you.”

  She lifted her head, gazed into his eyes with a blissed-out look on her face, and cupped his cheeks in her palms. “How did I live without you that long?”

  He wasn’t sure how she’d done it, but it was damned clear to him now that he hadn’t been living at all. Not without Jenny.

  Continue to next page

  Chapter 11

  Jenny thanked the missing sweet baby Jesus that the old farmer hadn’t wandered back while she and Teague were…uh…otherwise occupied in the carriage. Because, honestly, she wasn’t sure she would’ve noticed, but he certainly would’ve gotten an eyeful. Thankfully, by the time he’d returned, they were buttoned, snapped and zipped back up.

  But if he’d looked closely, the heat in her face and her shaking hands would’ve given her away.

  The farmer clucked his tongue at his team of mini-donkeys. “Hope y’all had a right nice time tonight.”

  Lord, if they’d had any better a time, Jenny would be a puddle in the carriage’s floorboard. She snuck a look at Teague to find him grinning as though he’d just been handed a fishing pole, a cooler of beer and a new bass boat.

  Teague pointed toward his truck and said to the farmer, “Mind dropping us over there?”

  The donkeys towed the carriage to the far side of the square and came to a stop next to the truck. Teague clapped the farmer on the shoulder. “You’re a good man, Caldwell.”

  By the time he’d helped her down, Jenny had her sea-legs, or rather her sex-legs, back under her. And her brain had reengaged enough that she remembered why she and Teague had come to the tree lighting in the first place.

  And it wasn’t for the cocoa or the intimacy, although both had been stellar.

  When they were in the truck, she said. “Let’s stop by the art show before we head back to Summer Haven.”