Seducing His True Love (Small Town Temptations)

by Laura Jardine

  He got out of bed and led her to the bathroom. When she stepped inside the tub, she flopped against the wall. He turned on the water and started washing her with his green bar of soap. She was pliable in his hands, barely able to stand.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She laughed again and leaned against him. “I’m in post-orgasmic bliss.”

  “It looks like you’re on drugs.”

  “I can’t imagine any drug would feel this good. You make an amazing alpha-hole billionaire.”

  “How would you normally describe me?”

  “Infuriating science nerd with Justin Trudeau’s hair and a nice cock?”

  He barked out a laugh. “You are so drunk right now.”

  “I only had one glass of wine.” She pouted.

  Without any help from Cassie, he shampooed her hair, dried her off, and got her into bed. When he came back from turning out the light in the bathroom, she was already asleep.

  He brushed some wet hair back from her cheek. Even though he’d just pretended to violate her, he felt impossibly close to her now. More than ever, he wanted to explore everything with her—both in and out of bed.

  And he knew exactly where he wanted to start.

  If she would let him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cassie woke up at three in the morning. Blaine was tugging the blankets away from her.

  “Sorry,” he said. “You stole most of them, and I’m getting cold.”

  “Then I’m the one who should be sorry. But I know how to make it up to you.”

  She rolled on top of him and kissed him languidly. She was still rather boneless from when he’d tied her up and forced himself on her, but she felt a desperate need to be with him once more. She rocked her hips against his and felt him harden.

  Why had acting out that scene made her feel closer to him? She didn’t know.

  She kissed a line down the side of his face, down his neck, lower and lower, until she swirled her tongue around his nipple, and he caught his breath. He was sensitive there—one of the many things she’d learned about him during their week together.

  She rolled on a condom and eased herself down on top of him.

  “Oh God,” she murmured.

  There was no need to be quiet. They were alone in his house. But for some reason, in a dark room in the dead of the night, she felt the need to make as little noise as possible.

  He grabbed her hips and held her as she moved up and down on him, setting a slow pace. She put her hands on her breasts and massaged them roughly, her nipples tight peaks. When she started to get close, she licked her finger and touched her clit, and it didn’t take long before she was coming apart on top of him. She collapsed on his chest, and he thrust up into her a few times before he, too, climaxed.

  She curled against him afterward. She didn’t want to stop touching him.

  “Cassidy,” he murmured a few minutes later.

  No one ever used her full name but him. She liked it. It was something that was just between the two of them.

  “I want to ask you something,” he said. “Something I’d like to do with you. You can say no, of course. No pressure.”

  She was intrigued. “Tell me.”

  “I want to…fist you.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Where?”

  “Here.” He slipped his finger inside her pussy. She was still damp. “Will you let me?”

  “Now?”

  “No. Some other time.”

  She clenched around him, and he withdrew. Fisting wasn’t something she’d ever considered before, but as she closed her eyes and imagined his whole hand inside her, she shivered.

  “Is this the kind of porn you watch?” she asked.

  “Who said I watched porn?”

  “You’re a guy, aren’t you? I remember reading about a study in which they tried to compare men who watched porn to men who didn’t, but they struggled to find any men who didn’t watch it.”

  He laughed. “Fine. I watch porn on occasion. Rocks and fossils are all very nice, but they don’t turn me on.” A moment later, he added, “More often, though, I just think of you.”

  She stayed quiet against him. She couldn’t tell whether the tension in her chest was tightening or uncoiling.

  “Yes,” she said. “We can try it.”

  She heard the hitch in his breathing.

  “It will probably hurt a bit. We can stop whenever you need to.” He paused. “I don’t know why, but the thought of fisting you…it makes me so hard.”

  “This is a very romantic middle-of-the-night conversation.”

  “That it is.” He ran his hand up and down her back, and she could almost feel his smile through his touch.

  “You sleeping okay? You had an espresso at ten o’clock.”

  “A bit of a mistake but I didn’t want to drink alcohol when I had you tied up. Took me over an hour to fall asleep, but that’s okay. You’re here with me, and that’s what I want most of all.”

  He pressed her closer to the heat of his body, and that was how she fell asleep.

  …

  Cassie woke up the next morning to a chirping sound. Had a bird flown into the room?

  Once the fog started to clear from her head, she realized it was her phone, discarded beside the bed in the flurry of last night’s activities.

  She looked at the text message.

  Call me, Rachel said.

  Although Cassie had spent a lot of time in the past two days walking around Blaine’s house in the nude, it seemed weird to talk to her friend on the phone when she was naked. So she opened the dresser and put on the first T-shirt she found. It had a chemical formula on it.

  Blaine was still asleep, one arm thrown across the side of the bed that she had just vacated, and she smiled at him before padding down the hall to his office. She sat on his desk chair and called Rachel.

  “Hey,” Cassie said. “How are you? Still in Georgeville?”

  “We came back to Ottawa last night. Cole is currently recovering from twenty-four hours of socializing. It’s a lot for him, poor man. But enough about us. I want to hear about you. How’s your weekend of hot sex going?”

  Cassie felt herself blush. “It’s been…um…hot. Yes.”

  “You getting him out of your system?”

  She gripped the arm of the chair as she realized this wasn’t going as planned. She was definitely not getting him out of her system. The more she slept with Blaine, the more she wanted him.

  “I guess that’s a no,” Rachel said. “Like I said, the whole ‘getting it out of your system’ thing rarely works. But will you still be able to walk away from him tonight? Crush his heart beneath your feet?”

  Right. It was Sunday. Nine thirty in the morning. She only had twelve hours left with him. A wave of melancholy rushed over her.

  But she had to walk away. She would break his heart, just as he’d broken hers, and if she hurt a little in the process, well, she could handle it. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as before. Sure, the sex was awesome. But it wasn’t as if she still loved him.

  She couldn’t stay. As wonderful as Blaine had been in the past couple of days, he was still the guy who’d utterly destroyed her last year. She remembered the day Rachel had found her weeping in the bakery, a plate of two large brownies in front of her. She’d gone to Mullin’s Bakery because she couldn’t bear to set foot in Tim Hortons, the place where she’d met him.

  If a little part of her was tempted to forgive him, all she had to do was remind herself of how awful things had been after he dumped her. And not just for a couple of days. She’d been a wreck for months.

  Yesterday evening, she’d pushed all of that out of her mind—while he made her fantasies come true, while they had lazy sex in the middle of the night. But she couldn’t let herself forget again, not in the bright light of the morning.

  “Yes,” she told Rachel. “I will walk away.”

  “What about Johnny?” Rachel asked.

&
nbsp; Crap. Johnny. She hadn’t thought of him at all and, frankly, couldn’t imagine being with him after what she’d shared with Blaine this weekend. That kiss with Johnny—it had been nothing in comparison. It wasn’t even on the same scale.

  She was only twenty-five. Yes, she wanted to get married and have a family, but there was no need to think about settling down yet. She would find someone she loved as much as she’d loved Blaine, someone who fucked and kissed like he did, but wouldn’t break her heart.

  She could trust Blaine with her body and with her darkest secrets, but she couldn’t trust him with her heart.

  “I’m done with Johnny,” Cassie said. “That Big Bird costume was horrible.”

  “Would you have preferred Cookie Monster? Elmo? Or Oscar the Grouch, like me?”

  She chuckled. “Of course, the costume wasn’t the biggest problem.” If Blaine had dressed as Big Bird, he probably still would have been hot. If anyone could make a big yellow bird sexy, he could. “Johnny’s kiss, on the other hand…”

  She talked to Rachel for a few more minutes before heading back to the bedroom. Blaine was awake now, sitting up in bed with a book in his hands. His chest was bare, and he looked…mouthwatering. Yes. That was a good word for him.

  It was okay that she found him attractive. She just couldn’t let it be anything more.

  “I see you found my cummingtonite shirt,” he said.

  Her jaw dropped. “Your what?”

  “The formula on the shirt you’re wearing. It’s for the mineral cummingtonite.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “C-U-M-M-I-N-G-T-O-N-I-T-E. It’s named after Cummington, Massachusetts, and it lends itself to some very obvious puns.”

  He was good at making her smile. All of his quirks…

  Which made her frown. Why did he have to be so goddamn endearing?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I like you too much, and we can’t do this again.

  Fortunately, she knew the perfect way to remind herself and, at the same time, let him know just how much he’d hurt her. Because she wasn’t sure he truly understood.

  She sat beside him and pulled the T-shirt over her knees. Not looking at him, she said, “After you left last year, I thought I was pregnant.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The summer of last year

  There was only one line.

  Cassie stared at it, willing there to be a second line, however faint. A faint line was still a positive.

  But there was only one line.

  She’d bought a second test, so once again, she peed on a stick and waited the proper amount of time, her heart hammering.

  Once again, she only saw one line.

  She was not pregnant.

  She burst into tears.

  Not tears of relief. She ought to be relieved. She’d just turned twenty-four; she wasn’t in a relationship. She didn’t even know the full name of the man she’d slept with. Didn’t know where he lived, didn’t know how to find him.

  But she wasn’t relieved.

  Oh, it was lame, but she wanted to have his baby.

  Still, even though she was several days late and the test ought to be accurate, she held out a bit of hope. If she didn’t get her period by the end of the week, she’d do another test.

  But it had started the next day. And on the short walk home from work, she saw a man and a woman with a baby in a stroller. The baby was perhaps a year old—a boy, she assumed, based on the blue clothes. He was wailing at the top of his lungs.

  It was one of those moments when she ought to be thinking, Thank God I don’t have to deal with that right now.

  Instead, she envied the mother with circles under her eyes. She wished the next couple of months would be filled with morning sickness. Wished that in nine months, she’d be changing poopy diapers while Blaine sang a lullaby. When he heard she was pregnant, he would come back to her. They’d be the perfect family. Just her, Blaine, and their baby. It was all she wanted.

  But it wasn’t going to happen.

  And all because of that stupid single line on the pregnancy test.

  …

  Blaine’s eyes widened. He could do nothing but stare at Cassie.

  She smiled grimly. “You heard correctly. I thought I was pregnant. You see, when a man and a woman—”

  He didn’t need to hear the rest of her sarcastic comment. “We always used protection.”

  “Yes. And the condom never broke. But I’ve always been quite regular, so when I was late, I couldn’t help but think…”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Then you took a test and it was negative, correct?”

  “I didn’t take a test until I was almost a week late. Because I didn’t want to know the truth. I knew it was unlikely I was pregnant, but the idea that I could be…” She shook her head. “It made me so happy,” she whispered.

  He ought to be freaked out by the idea of her getting pregnant when they weren’t even together. However, when he thought of her carrying a little bundle in her arms, he was slammed with a completely different emotion.

  He’d always assumed he’d have children. It hadn’t been a major priority for him, but he’d always figured it would happen eventually. But now, he desperately wanted a couple of them. With Cassie. He pictured laying in bed on a lazy Sunday morning, a baby between them, crawling onto his chest.

  “I didn’t try to find you,” she said. “Not when you’d made it clear you wanted nothing more to do with me and even refused to tell me your last name.” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth to tell her. “I know now—it’s Richards. I saw the diploma in your office.” She paused. “But if I’d been pregnant, I would have hired a private investigator. It probably wouldn’t have been too hard to find you. I had one crappy picture on my phone—”

  “I don’t remember you taking a picture of me.”

  “Yeah, you didn’t notice. I assumed you wouldn’t want me to, but one morning before you woke up, I took one because I wanted to remember you. So I had the picture, your first name, your career, and your license plate. You’d told me it was a rental car, but since it was actually your car, it should have been easy to track you down with the license plate number. Anyway, I would have found you somehow. You see, I couldn’t help but think that if you knew I was having your baby, you would change your mind. We’d be together, and it would be perfect.”

  Oh God. He couldn’t take this. He ached for what had never come to pass.

  “I’m not ready for a baby,” she said. “But I do want children, and I would have kept it. At the time, I saw it as a way to get you back. When I finally took the pregnancy test and it was negative, and then I got my period the next day…” She shut her eyes for a moment. “I was a wreck. I couldn’t sleep. I stopped eating proper meals. I didn’t want to let you destroy me, but I couldn’t seem to stop it from happening.” A sob escaped. “It was silly of me ever to hope. Just a stupid fantasy.”

  “Oh, Cassie.” He pulled her into his arms, agony swirling inside him. She let him hold her, let him run a hand through her hair and stroke her back. But it felt totally inadequate to convey his regret. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  She lifted her head, her eyes red from her tears. “If I’d tracked you down and told you I was pregnant, what would you have done?”

  “I would have asked you to marry me.”

  “Because it seemed like the right thing to do? You didn’t truly want me then, right?”

  Blaine didn’t really believe in signs. But if she’d gotten pregnant during their week-long affair, despite proper contraceptive use, he would have seen it as a sign that they should be together. He would have asked her to move to Ottawa to be with him—since there were no jobs for geotechnical engineers in Georgeville—and he would have hurried up his search for a house.

  “You would have come to resent me,” she said.

  He shook his head. “You’re wrong. I came back for you, didn’t I? And I do want to m
arry you. I said so yesterday, when Matthew and Sara were here.”

  “Yeah, such a great way for me to find out about your intentions. Real smooth.”

  “I panicked. It was an awkward situation.” Not that he regretted saying it.

  She shifted away from him and studied the quilt. It was solid navy—there was no pattern to examine. “You don’t want kids, do you?”

  “Yes, I do. And I want them with you.” He tried to take her hand, but she wouldn’t let him. “Maybe two. No more than three.”

  “I saw you look at Victoria yesterday. It wasn’t an ‘Aw, isn’t she cute?’ look. It was an ‘Oh my God, what is this alien creature?’ look.”

  He pushed a hand through his hair. “I haven’t been around new babies much. They freak me out a bit because they seem so fragile. But I would figure it out.”

  He felt an ache in his chest as he thought of his father, who would never know his grandchildren. He remembered flying kites with his dad at the park. At the age of eight, Blaine had gone through a phase where he was obsessed with kites and trying to make them as aerodynamic as possible.

  Yes, he wanted to be a father. Likely, he wouldn’t have a child who was interested in rocks and aerodynamics, but that was fine. He didn’t want a child who was just like him. He loved the idea of having a baby and watching his or her unique personality and interests develop.

  “Well,” Cassie said, “it doesn’t matter. At the end of today, I’ll walk out of your life. You think I should be jumping to give you a second chance, but you just don’t get it.”

  His heart felt heavy with all she’d told him. “I think I’m starting to.”

  “When you came to Georgeville, you expected to find the woman you left behind. But it’s been a long time. I’m not the same person, and a lot of that is because of you, and that stupid pregnancy scare.”

  God, he’d been such an idiot. He wished he could go back and do it over again.

  Because now he might lose her, and the thought was unbearable.

  “Come here,” he said, lifting his arms to her. She hesitated, but then she stepped toward him and sat between his legs. “I promise, I swear I won’t leave you this time.”