I shouldn’t be here. A voice in my head tells me to leave. Still, I can’t seem to move. He hasn’t seen me yet, and I’m riveted to the man before me. His back is broad and muscular. No doubt, he’s a far cry from the lean boy who’d tempted my teenaged heart.
He dunks under, and when he rises again, he strokes his fingers through his damp hair, sending rivulets of water down his back. Good God.
Then he turns. Our eyes lock. My mouth is dry, and once again I’m searching for words. His features are more chiseled than I remember. Golden stubble covers the strong line of his jaw. His cheekbones are more defined. His eyes are still a vibrant blue, like the clearest summer sky.
I don’t know how the hell I feel about this man one minute to the next. All I know is that if he weren’t Kase McCasker, the one who barely knows my name, I’d be searching for reasons to stay and get to know him better.
“Sorry. I’ll go.” My voice is strangled and awkward. I turn to leave, shaking my head as I go.
“June, wait.”
I whip back. “Oh, now you know my name?”
He frowns. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Really?” I glare down at him, unable to hold back any longer. “You didn’t seem to a minute ago. Then again, it’s been four years. Not sure why you’d remember me. Not like I mattered enough to see even once when you came home.”
His lips tighten, but his eyes bore into me with an intensity I’m not ready for.
I’m mad, but I’m hurt more. I’m ready for a fight, but all I really want is…
What do I want? An apology? Acknowledgment that he wanted me as much as I wanted him, even for a fleeting moment?
“I just thought after that night…” My tone is softer now.
“I remember everything, June.”
I shake my head. “You just walked away from me like the sound of my name hurt to hear.”
“It does, but not for the reasons you think. And I wasn’t walking away from you.”
“Really? Sure looked like you were walking away. Awfully fast too.”
“Jesus, June, give me a break. I smell like a barn.” He points to the pile of clothes at my feet. “No one told me you were coming by. You think I wanted to see you that way?”
Feeling less justified in my anger, I drop my hand from my hip. “Sorry. I just… I should go.”
I turn to leave again, and this time his voice doesn’t stop me. I cross the field quickly, but I don’t go back through the house. Cutting through the side yard, I’m nearly at my Jeep when I hear Kase behind me.
“June, wait.”
When I turn, my jaw goes slack. He was a sight in the creek moments ago. But this close…
He’s still drenched, shirtless, his jeans zipped but unbuttoned and his boots unlaced like he’d thrown on just enough to chase after me. I ball my hands into fists to keep from reaching for him and sliding my fingers through his damp hair. His chest moves under quick breaths. It’s irrational, but I want to touch him everywhere. Over his shoulders. Down his wet pectorals. Hell, every ridge of his abdomen is permanently imprinted on my mind now.
“Damn…” His voice is a physical rasp against my skin.
I flicker my gaze back up to his. His lips are parted as his eyes search mine.
“What?” I unball my fists and rub them down the sides of my shorts, suddenly nervous that he’s seeing me this close up now too.
He shakes his head slightly. “Four years, huh?”
“Four years, Kase. And not a word.”
“I had my reasons.”
“You made me feel like I meant something to you. What reasons did you have for not breathing a word to me since then?”
“For God’s sake, you were sixteen. We were just kids. What was I supposed to do?”
I swallow over my hurt pride, but I feel what I feel. I refuse to believe that even my teenaged brain overestimated the power of the moment we shared.
“I was old enough to kiss. Old enough for you to put your hands on me like you did. Old enough to make me want a lot more.”
He exhales shakily but takes a solid step toward me. His tone is low when he speaks again. “Believe me, that kiss wasn’t anything close to what I wanted to do to you.”
A rush of heat simmers under my skin with his admission. How many times had I fantasized about that night at the falls? How many times had I tried to imagine what it would have felt like to give myself to him?
“Well, it’s too late now,” I whisper, not trusting my voice not to waver. I stare down at the overgrown grass between us. “I came here to talk about the land. That’s all.”
He’s quiet a moment. “What about the land?”
“Sounds like your dad is open to selling again, but he says it’s up to you. Now that you’re home, I came to talk some sense into you.”
A heavy silence falls between us. When I meet his eyes again, my heart slams against my chest. How can one man have this kind of power over me? He’s a crush, and I’m woman enough to know how ridiculous it is to feel this way.
“Forget it. I shouldn’t have come,” I say.
I pull my keys from my pocket, but he snatches them from me. I move to snatch them back but hesitate. Determination lines his jaw and defines the already taut lines of his frame.
“Give me my keys. You obviously don’t want me here.”
He doesn’t budge. “What did you mean when you said it’s too late?”
I frown. “What?”
“You just said it was too late. Who are you seeing?”
“I’m not seeing anyone. Not that it’s any of your damn business.”
He doesn’t look satisfied with that answer. “Then who…” He swallows and looks away a moment. “Who were you with after I left?”
My lips part, because I’m lost. Why would he suddenly care?
“What are you asking me? I wasn’t with anyone.” Heaven knows, if I had been, I could have stopped obsessing about the possibility of being with Kase. Could have stopped hoping we would pick up where we left off when he came home from school on breaks. But, no, I had been foolishly committed to the fantasy of him, the promise of what we could be.
Somehow Kase looks as lost as I feel. “You haven’t been with anyone since I left?”
I shrug. “Not really, no.” I’d had a few casual dates, but I’d known everyone in this town since I was in diapers. If someone was going to turn my head, they would have long ago.
“So… You’re saying…”
I huff and reach for my keys again, but he holds them out of reach. “Jesus, Kase. Spit it out or let me go home.”
“Are you still a virgin?”
My cheeks heat fiercely, and it has nothing to do with the summer night falling all around us. I stop reaching for the keys and stare into his eyes. I’m not sure how I feel. Embarrassed, because I haven’t gotten around to finding someone to hold my interest long enough to take me to bed. Angry, because after four years this is all Kase seems to care about. Shamefully aroused, because after four years this is all Kase seems to care about…
He lifts his empty hand, brushing his thumb over the contour of my cheek. My heart wants to explode at his touch.
“I wanted you, June. You can’t possibly know how much,” he says softly. “I had no idea you’d wait for me.”
Everything inside me is rioting. My thoughts, scattered with unspoken desires. My blood stream, pumping hard with adrenaline from being this close to him again. My emotions, pinging around like the sixteen-year-old virgin he put under his spell. It’s too much. I can’t let him do this to me. Not after years of nothing.
I brush his hand away brusquely.
“Get over yourself, Kase. I wasn’t waiting for you.” I wish it were true, but it feels like a lie. “You think I spent all this time gazing up at the stars wondering why you didn’t take my virginity when you had the chance? While you were in college having your fun, I was here working, doing everything I could to keep the hotel running, which, if you
didn’t already know, keeps half the town running. That’s why we need to talk about the land.”
His stare is unwavering and intense. He’s gripping my keys so hard his knuckles are white. “You’re lying to me.”
I prepare to convince him otherwise, but before I can, he curls his hand at my nape and tugs me toward him. Our lips are a breath apart.
“I’m not lying.”
“Kiss me, and I’ll prove you wrong.” His voice is gravel, and the demand makes my knees weak.
Damn him.
“Go to hell,” I mutter.
A second later our mouths are sealed. I’m hauled against his hard, wet body, and then we stumble together until my back meets the Jeep. The keys hit the ground with a clang, and his hands slide across my cheeks. He cradles my face while our lips reacquaint.
He’s exactly as I remember. Soft yet demanding. When he licks into my mouth, I open and welcome the rush of his flavor.
“God, I missed this,” he whispers against my lips before stealing another greedy kiss.
My hands are trembling when I finally reach for him. His chest is cool to the touch. Wet and soft under my palms. My touch seems to release his. He skims his palms down my neck and over my aching breasts, squeezing gently before settling low on my hips.
Every caress makes me crave more. As if answering my silent plea, he lowers one hand between my legs.
“Kase.” I whimper against his lips, because I need him to take mercy on me. I can’t take much more of this.
Then he palms my mound possessively. The heat and pressure against the pulsing need between my thighs is almost more than I can bear.
“Mark my words, June. This is mine.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t speak. He resolves both by taking my mouth again. Taking more, demanding more.
This is mine.
His claim echoes through me over and over. My limbs hum like the prongs on a tuning fork. I’m light-headed, falling into this kiss and welcoming every bold touch like we never have to stop. It’s as if I’ve waited all this time to hear those words and offer him every last inch of my body.
He strokes his tongue against mine in perfect time to the tantalizing slide of his palm up and down the front of my shorts. I moan into his mouth, claw back my self-control, and will my body not to arch into his touch.
I need to think. I can’t think with him this damn close to me.
I press against his chest, but he’s got me pinned. I turn my head to break the kiss, and his lips go right to my neck.
I have to stop this before I give him everything. All of me.
He nibbles my earlobe. “Mine,” he whispers.
“No.” I suck in a sobering breath, but my head’s still buzzing. I turn to meet his gaze. “It’s mine. And I’ll give it to whoever I want.”
His gaze is molten, and his golden skin is flushed. “Like hell you will.”
“You had your chance.”
I add some pressure against his chest. He pulls back a fraction, but his fingers are tucked into the band of my shorts now, tethering me to him.
“Don’t challenge me, June. I never back down.” His gaze darkens, and he licks his swollen lips.
My brain short-circuits. I’m suddenly not sure of anything. Why I pushed him away. Why I’m not letting him drag me to his room and plunder my body right here and now.
“You want this land?”
I blink a few times. “What?”
“That’s why you came here, right? You want me to give Edwin the okay to sell off the land.”
The world outside our immediate bubble slowly comes back into focus. My life. My responsibilities. To my father and the town and the legacy my mother would want me to carry on.
“Yes,” I say simply. That’s at least one of the reasons that brought me to his doorstep.
He takes a small step back, withdrawing his touch with it. I brace myself against the vehicle. I’m not sure I could stand without it. I welcome the space to think, but all I can seem to think about is when I’ll feel him against me again.
“I’ll agree to sign it over,” he says quietly.
“You will?”
He nods wordlessly, dragging his fingertips through his damp hair. “One condition.” He purses his lips slightly. “Maybe two.”
I hesitate, my mind reeling. “What are the conditions?”
“Stay with me.” The heat in his eyes is unmistakable. “Stay here with me before they tear it all down. Let me make up for the time we lost.”
I stare at him in disbelief. Is he serious?
“Are you seriously trying to negotiate the land…for my virginity?”
He grins and trails his tongue along his lower lip. I should be outraged, but something clenches deep in my core.
“If you’re asking me if I want to be the first one to push into that beautiful body, the answer is you’re goddamn right. But I want a whole lot more than that.”
“You’re crazy,” I mumble, but the sentiment seems to get lost with the merciful breeze blowing through the valley. The tiger lilies lining the path to the front door sway gently.
He closes the space between us again, brushing back a strand of hair that loosened from my ponytail. Lowering slowly, he presses a chaste kiss at the corner of my lips. “I’m getting a second chance, and I’m not letting you go this time. If that makes me crazy, so be it.”
Chapter Three
I left Kase and his ridiculous offer in the dust last night. Literally.
I sped away from his house with shaking hands and a racing heart, in utter disbelief that I still matter at all to him—and more, that he would offer up his family’s land to have more of me.
He was the last thought before I drifted off to sleep and the first when I woke at dawn. Without a doubt, the night was filled more with tortured thoughts of Kase than restful sleep. I tossed and turned for an hour, but in the end, all I could do was get up and throw myself into another busy day and try to put him out of my mind.
The valley shimmers under a perfect cloudless day as I set up my station on the veranda. Guests are already scattered across the lawn and milling around the hotel sitting areas. Couples, families, and staff make every day a nonstop event. Today, I’m grateful for the distractions more than ever. If I spend one more minute mentally replaying Kase’s indecent touches, I’m going to lose my damn mind.
I spot a young couple in my section eyeing the menu and walk over to them. “Can I get you two anything?”
The woman smiles. “Can I have a glass of chardonnay?”
“A Tuckerman’s for me,” her male counterpart says as he sits back and drapes an arm around her shoulder.
The princess-cut diamond on her left hand winks in the sunlight. Judging from their apparent bliss, I’d be willing to bet they’re newlyweds. Maybe even honeymooners. An unexpected pang of resentment hits me, but I force a smile.
“No problem. I’ll be right back with those.”
I spin and head inside to Eve’s. Our bartender, Julie, is posted behind the little bar that services the veranda waitstaff and guests inside the hotel.
She waves as I approach. “Hey, girl.”
“Hey,” I say. “Chardonnay and a Tuckerman’s, please.”
She cocks her head, and her blond braid whips over her shoulder. “How about, ‘Hey, how are you doing, Julie?’ And then I’ll say, ‘Wiped out. I had to close down Mackie’s last night.’”
I smile weakly. “Sorry. I’m a little out of it this morning.”
“Tell me about it. You seem a million miles away.”
“I didn’t sleep great,” I say. It’s not a lie, but I have no interest in elaborating on how Kase McCasker has hijacked my brain and most of my body over the last twenty-four hours. “How are you doing?”
She reaches for a wine glass on the rack above the bar. “Wiped out. I had to close down Mackie’s last night.”
I laugh. “That sucks. Was it packed?”
“Wall to wall. The tourists are driving
people to drink. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I’m working double shifts all week.”
Unless helping my father run the hotel counts, I’m one of the few people in Falls Edge who works only one job. Julie is like most, serving drinks to the hotel guests by day and getting the locals drunk at the town’s hole-in-the-wall bar by night. I don’t envy her, but we all do what we must to get by in this little town. And Fourth-of-July-weekend tips get most of us by.
“You should come by tonight after work. I’ll buy you a drink.” She sets the chardonnay and draft on my tray on the bar.
“Maybe.”
She smirks. “You always say that.”
She’s tried getting me to Mackie’s more than once, but I usually find a reason to bail. Julie’s nice, but our time together usually consists of me counseling her through her latest fling until she sets her sights on a new one. Then again, I could probably use a stiff drink and a dose of someone else’s problems to get Kase out of my head for a little while.
“Working hard?”
A set of tan, muscled arms rests on the bar beside me. The man they belong to knocks the wind out of me with his familiar heart-stopping grin. Kase is fully clothed this time, but that doesn’t seem to lessen his effect on me. Unfortunately he’s the only human I’ve ever met who can obliterate my brain cells with a look.
“Kase.” I take in a breath but my lungs aren’t expanding the way they’re supposed to. “What are you doing here?”
He turns so his body faces me, one arm propped against the bar. Today he doesn’t look like a man who works a farm. He looks like a normal college kid, in khaki cargo shorts, a plain white T-shirt, and sandals.
“I took the afternoon off. Thought I’d come see you. Finish that little chat we started last night.”
In a flash, my cheeks are burning hot. I wish he couldn’t see it, but I’m certain he does. “That conversation is over,” I snap and look away.
His eyes are my weakness. They seem to sear right into my soul and see things other people don’t see. It’s impossible, yet I’ve believed it since we were kids. Ever since our fathers drew a line between our lives that was only crossed by circumstance. Passing each other in the halls of school. Ending up at the same friend’s party. A glance here or there, but nothing like that night at the falls when that line suddenly didn’t exist anymore.
Misadventures of a Virgin Page 2
