“Look at you,” he said softly, taking in the sight of her. Her skin was flushed and because he knew how soft she was, he couldn’t wait to touch her everywhere. In nothing more than a pair of red lace panties—which he now saw matched the color painted on her toes—she was every inch his mouthwatering fantasy. One finger toyed with the lace at her hips. “Did you wear these for me?”
When he looked up, Mia was biting her lip, and without a word, she nodded.
She was killing him.
The urge to rip the fragile fabric was strong, but he reeled himself in. Leaning down, he kissed the soft valley between her breasts before venturing down and kissing his way down to her belly button. His tongue gently swirled around it before he dared to go lower and kissed his way down between her legs. Austin heard Mia’s soft moan as he kissed the inside of one thigh and then the other, and when he simply let out a long breath as he took in the heat coming off of her, she said his name.
“What is it you want, beautiful girl?”
“Everything,” she responded, squirming under him.
“Trust me,” he said gruffly, “I’m going to give you everything, but I’m going to savor you while I do it.”
“Austin…please…”
Slowly, he peeled her panties off and tossed them to the floor by her dress. There was something very decadent and naughty about having Mia completely naked underneath him while he was still fully clothed.
And that wasn’t about to change any time soon.
“Mia, look at me,” he gently commanded. When she did, he held her gaze as he lowered his head back down between her thighs.
And when she cried out his name, he knew they were both in for a long and pleasurable ride.
“Do you want me to order dinner?”
“Only if you plan on feeding me. I don’t think I can move yet.”
“Hmm…then that puts you right where I want you,” Mia teased before she started to laugh. “Who am I kidding? I can’t move either. Is it still even today? Should we be eating breakfast or dinner because…I honestly don’t know.”
She was naked and in his arms, their legs tangled together. Most of the pillows and blankets were on the floor and all they had covering them was a sheet and yet it was the most comfortable Austin had been in ages.
Turning his head, Austin confirmed it was dark out and then looked at the bedside clock. “It’s almost eight and considering it’s dark outside, I’d say we’re safe if we order dinner.”
“Mmm…” Placing a soft kiss on his chest, Mia held him close.
The thought of leaving the bed for any reason was beyond unappealing, but he knew they were going to need to eat.
“Tell you what,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I’ll order us something online to be delivered, and then we can just lie here and wait. How does that sound?”
“Like eventually we’re going to have to move.”
“Yeah, but the sooner we get up and eat, the sooner we can come back here and do it all again.” Tilting her head up toward his, he gave her the deepest, wettest kiss he could as his promise. “And again and again and again.”
“Then we are definitely going to need food. Dammit.”
It was adorable when she cursed, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.
As much as he hated to move, he had to; he slowly rolled to his side and reached over the bed for his pants where his phone still was. They took a few minutes to decide on what they wanted to eat and placed their order. Delivery was less than thirty minutes, so any hopes of things turning sexy were immediately shut down.
Although…a little quick and dirty action never hurt anyone. Maybe…
But Mia was rolling off the bed and walking toward the master bathroom.
Damn.
But the view of her sweet butt as she walked away certainly helped ease his disappointment.
A few minutes later, Austin had his pants back on and Mia was wearing her dress—without the panties—and they were sipping some wine while they waited for their dinner.
“Tell me something about you that no one else knows,” she prompted as she sat down at the kitchen island.
“What do you mean?”
Nodding, she repeated the question. “You know, this is a little getting-to-know-you kind of exercise. Go with it.”
Stepping in close, he nuzzled her neck. “I think we know each other pretty well right now, don’t you?”
“Austin…”
Sighing, he took the seat beside her. “Something about me no one else knows…” And for some reason, the one thing he didn’t want anyone to know just came out. Raking a hand through his hair, he figured he’d rather do it now than later on down the road. Maybe he was sabotaging himself—probably because he felt like things were going too well and nothing this great ever happened for him—but the words were out before he could stop them. “I’m not here in Magnolia just to help a buddy out with the house.”
“O-kay…”
He took a sip of wine before he continued. “I got into a bit of trouble back in Baltimore.”
“What kind of trouble?” she asked, looking and sounding genuinely concerned.
“I got into a fight on a job site with a contractor. Things escalated. We started hurling insults, then there was a little shoving and then…” He shrugged and finished the wine.
“Then…?” Mia prompted.
“I hit him,” he said simply. “Actually, I hit him repeatedly.”
“Oh my God, Austin! That’s terrible!”
There was a good chance she was going to think very differently about him, but again, he figured he’d rather get it out in the open now.
Probably should have told her about it before they got to the point of wanting to sleep together, but…clearly that ship had sailed.
“Yeah, well…this guy and I had a history. He’s a loud-mouthed know-it-all and he’s always got something to say about my designs and I hit my limit.”
“So what happened?”
“He filed assault charges, and I was arrested. But they were dropped,” he quickly explained. “Unfortunately, I was fired on the spot, so…” Another shrug. “When Ryder called, it was kind of like an answer to a prayer. I explained how I did a lot of work in construction and home renovations while in college and his brother vouched for me because we worked together back then, and…here I am.”
“Wow,” she said quietly, studying her glass. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Look, Mia, I could have given you some sort of fluff answer like…how I secretly really love listening to Taylor Swift, but I think you deserve to know who I really am. And that sometimes is a guy who doesn’t think before he acts and does some stupid shit.” When she still wouldn’t look at him, Austin figured maybe it was a good thing they’d already had sex. Chances were that was going to be their first and last time.
The doorbell rang and he went to answer it and get their dinner. After thanking the driver, he decided he’d leave her with the food and go. No need to make things awkward and wait for her to tell him to leave.
Back in the kitchen, he placed the bag of food on the counter and when he found Mia still sitting and staring at her glass, he knew he was doing the right thing.
“So um…I can tell that I freaked you out and…I’m gonna just go. I think…”
“I had an affair with one of my professors my sophomore year of college,” she blurted out and then hung her head.
“Uh…what?”
Looking up at him, he saw tears in her eyes as she nodded. “I was only eighteen, but I’d been around college professors my whole life because that’s what both of my parents are.” She let out a long breath. “I actually went to the same college where they taught and he was one of their colleagues.”
“Oh my God…”
Before he could say anything else, she was already going on with the story. “Basically, I wasn’t like a normal eighteen-year-old. My father likes to tell me I was born old.” Then she shook
her head. “I always hated that.”
“Mia…”
“Anyway, we were intellectually compatible and things sort of happened naturally—or so I thought.” She let out a snort of disgust. “For someone who is considered so smart I’m kind of clueless in a lot of ways.”
“Mia, you don’t have to do this.” But she wasn’t listening.
“He was married,” she went on. “And I had no idea. It wasn’t until I ran into him at a restaurant one night. I was out with my parents and he was there with his wife and her parents. They were celebrating their seventh wedding anniversary.” This time she was the one to finish her wine. “I was mortified, and I never told any of my friends about the relationship—probably because on some level I knew it was wrong. But honestly, I thought it was wrong because of my age. Real smart, right?”
The first thought to go through Austin’s mind was how he wanted to find out who this guy was and go beat the shit out of him for doing that to someone as sweet and clearly as innocent as Mia.
She stood and faced him. “So here’s the thing, Austin,” she said firmly. “We all do stupid things no matter how intelligent we think we are. Things happen. People push our buttons. Or sometimes we just make bad choices simply because we’re human. I’m sorry about what happened to you, and I hate how some jerk made you lose your job. I don’t think any less of you. If anything, I think you’re very brave and honest for sharing that with me so…thank you.”
He was pretty sure his eyes were bugging out of his head.
“You’re thanking me? Seriously?”
“Um…yeah. Why?”
Unable to help himself, Austin walked over and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re probably the only person ever not to pass judgment on me or tell me what a screwup I am.”
Pulling back, she looked up at him. “I don’t see how you were the one to screw up. It seems to me like you were provoked.”
“Yeah, well…you don’t know a lot about how I was growing up. There are quite a few people here in town who would have a field day with that information.”
“It’s none of their business, and if anyone would like to say anything about it, I would gladly step in and remind them how no one lives a faultless life.”
This girl…
“The other reason I think you’re brave is…well…I was going to give you a line of fluff too,” she admitted with a small smile. “I was going to mention how I don’t know how to ride a bike.”
He stared down at her in disbelief. “You don’t?”
“I really don’t.”
“And that was going to be your big secret?”
“I never said it had to be a big secret,” she corrected. “I just said it had to be something no one else knew.”
“How is it possible that you don’t know how to ride a bike?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, it just wasn’t something I ever did. We traveled a lot when I was growing up and someone was always driving me somewhere so…it didn’t seem like a big deal.”
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who couldn’t ride a bike.”
With a small shove, she stepped out of his embrace. “And I never knew anyone who was arrested. I guess we’re even.”
Austin immediately realized he hurt her feelings. She was pulling food out of the bag when he came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“It’s fine,” she said, but she also didn’t stop putting their food out.
So he waited and once she was done and there wasn’t anything else she could do, he gently turned her around. She was essentially locked in place—her back against the island and his arms bracketing her in—and he knew he was going to have to do something to get them back on track.
“Can I say something?”
She nodded.
“I feel like I really screwed up here tonight by turning what was a really great evening into something a little dark and depressing. It was important to me for you to know the truth about why I’m here because most of my life people judged me without knowing me. And if you remember, we had dinner together that first time because we were both doing that to each other. Maybe my timing was wrong to bare my soul about a really bad moment in my life, but the reason for doing it was pure. I want to go back to where we were an hour ago and just…you know…go back to enjoying ourselves.”
“An hour ago, you were deep inside me and giving me my third orgasm of the night,” she reminded him with a sassy wink and he knew they were going to be okay. “Now, I wouldn’t mind going back to that, but I’m going to have to eat something first.”
Austin was smiling so hard his face hurt and it was a good feeling.
A great feeling.
In the blink of an eye, he lifted her up onto the marble countertop and stepped in between her legs. Her soft gasp of surprise turned to a husky laugh when he moved in close. “You can get started on the dumplings and I’ll get started on you.”
“Austin! Stop! You can’t! We’re in the kitchen!” she said with a laugh.
But it didn’t take long for her to realize it didn’t matter what room they were in.
He could.
He was.
And chances were, he was going to do it again.
7
“I feel completely stupid.”
“Why?”
“Seriously? Look at me?” She was wearing a pair of black yoga pants, a white long-sleeved t-shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes—all of which was completely normal. What wasn’t normal was the hot pink helmet with matching knee pads and elbow pads.
And when Austin smirked at her, Mia was sorely tempted to take the helmet off and throw it at him. Reaching for the strap, she said, “That’s it. I can tell you’re trying not to laugh at me, so…”
“Okay, okay, okay,” he said quickly, his hand reaching up to stop her. “I’m not laughing at you. I swear. I just happen to think you look adorable right now.”
“I’m a grown woman with elbow pads on, Austin.”
“And yet somehow you manage to make it all look sexy.”
Glaring at him, she knew he really was trying to be helpful. After surprising her this morning with a pair of bikes and helmets, he seemed genuinely excited about teaching her how to ride.
It was quite possibly the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her.
The past week with him was amazing. Mia found herself experiencing things she’d never experienced before, and it all started with the amazing sex in the middle of her kitchen last Monday night. Had she known that was only the beginning of all the things Austin was going to introduce her to, she would have tried to prepare herself a little more.
With her book in her editor’s hands, it meant she had some time to relax and regroup. Normally she would take that time to mentally decompress and spend a lazy couple of weeks getting caught up on stuff around the house or visiting with her friends and family in Boston. But with her being in Magnolia Sound and having Austin in her life meant she was decompressing in completely different ways.
And some of them were beyond sexy and decadent and even thinking about them made her blush.
They weren’t spending every minute together—he was still working on his friend’s place—but they were together more than they were apart.
Sometimes she’d just go next door and talk to him while he worked. He’d given her a pair of safety goggles and work gloves, and more than once she helped him hang trim or simply held things in place while he secured them. He taught her how to use a drill and then let her install the hardware on the new bathroom cabinets. It was silly how excited and proud of herself she was when she was done.
One night they went to dinner with Sydney and her husband Kyle, and she was relieved at how well everyone got along. She and Sydney talked books while the guys talked construction. It was fun and relaxing and something she hoped they’d do again soon. The only part that was a little weird was how
she felt a little like an outsider since the three of them had grown up here and knew a lot of the same people. Still, she enjoyed listening to them talk and simply observing Austin.
And boy oh boy, did she love observing him.
He was fascinating to her—not only because he was ridiculously sexy, but because he never held anything back. He talked loudly, laughed loudly, and was extremely animated. When he told a story, it was like he told it with his whole body.
And speaking of his body, he was definitely at ease with it. If anything, he walked around half-naked more often than fully dressed. He worked with his shirt off and even at the end of the day after he showered, if they were just hanging out at home, he tended to stay that way.
Not that she was complaining, but…it was something she wasn’t familiar with. She’d never been around anyone who was so comfortable with their body the way he was. He was sexy and distracting and…
Definitely nothing like the reserved men she tended to date.
And the more time she spent with him, the more she found herself relaxing and being a little loud and boisterous and more than a little comfortable with her own body.
And she wasn’t hating it.
Mentally she imagined her parents cringing at her snorting with laughter or how she was eating at pubs and enjoying food with her hands and listening to 80s rock rather than classical music, but…it was her life and she was starting to live it.
Just…a little differently than she had for the last…well…all her life.
To be honest, it was a little freeing.
Okay, a lot freeing.
“Mia?”
Oh, right. The bicycle riding lesson.
Taking a steadying breath, she straightened and looked at him. “Sorry. My mind wandered for a minute.”
He gave her a patient smile. “Look, I know I sprung this on you, so if you’re not ready or just don’t want to, just say so. I won’t be offended.”
The Way the Story Goes Page 10
