“My brother and sister seem to think you really care about me,” he breathed, brushing her hair back from her face. “But that can’t be.”
She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. “Why not?”
“Because you can’t stand me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You’re reaction at the restaurant, for starters.”
Xtine licked her lips and let out a soft sigh. “I was wrong that night. I over reacted, and because of my silly pride, I let someone special walk out of my life. I realized that the instant we kissed.”
“You did?”
She pressed her hands to his cheeks, tracing his cheekbones with her thumbs. “Didn’t you feel it?”
He exhaled and gave her a single nod. “I thought it was just me.”
“It wasn’t.”
“So you weren’t lying at the table or to Spencer?”
She shook her head. “I’m a lot of things, Sherman, but a liar isn’t one of them.”
Their gazes held for a moment, locked with fierce tension. He searched her face, his thumb brushing along her bottom lip. It was there, in her eyes, the honesty of her words. The air around them changed. He felt it and knew she did too by her deep intake of air.
Driven by his desire for this woman, he captured her lips with his. At first his kiss was soft, gentle, but with each pass of his mouth over her warm, smooth lips, his need became hotter. His hands moved to her hair, tangled in her soft locks. Their tongues collided in long, languid strokes, tasting each other. Blood rushed through his veins, his body reacting to this woman pressed against him.
Their kiss grew deeper, stronger, more intense. He relished in the sound of her moans, and she devoured his passion. He refused to release her mouth from his. Needing more. Willing to give everything. She plagued his mind and burrowed her way into his heart.
Each stroke, the simple touch of her skin to his, was all consuming. Their eyes had drifted closed, and every action ran on pure instinct. The feel of his long fingers trailing down her body, mapping his terrain ignited her soul. Delicate shivers of excitement flittered over her skin. His touch was unbelievably tantalizing, new yet familiar. She had that same sensation she’d felt during their email interactions, as if she’d known him all along.
Slowly he lightened the kiss, brushing his lips gently over hers. Breathless, a moan hung in the back of her throat as his kissed each corner of her mouth. “Will you go with me today?” he whispered, pressing a kiss below her ear.
She released her hold on the back of his jacket, her eyes fluttering open. “As your date?”
“As my girlfriend.”
Xtine pulled back to meet his eyes. “Well, when you put it that way. How could I tell my boyfriend no?” Her voice breathless.
“A wise decision,” he teased, kissing the tip of her nose. “Now, you better get dressed, because I don’t know that I can be trusted much longer with you in only a robe.”
A girlish giggle bubbled in her chest. “Sherman Campbell, how dare you be so forward with me!”
His eyes grew dark with desire. “Oh, baby girl. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Xtine’s stomach fluttered with desire. Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer. “Show me,” she dared him.
He could feel the quivering tension of her body beneath the thick robe. “We’ll be late.”
“The wedding isn’t for hours.”
A guttural moan rumbled from deep within his chest. “Exactly.”
“Oh!” Her voice low and husky, filled with desire.
Heat surged through his body in an ungovernable rush. He pulled her tight to him and pressed his lips to hers, giving into their passion and desire.
#10: Today Was a Fairy Tale
Hours later, they arrived at the wedding, both glowing. Spencer was the first to greet them at the door.
“Damn, Bro. You smell like sex.”
Sherman rolled his eyes, drawing Xtine into his side. “Say it a little louder. I don’t think the Pritchards heard you on the second row.”
Spencer laughed and nodded to Xtine. “Good to see you finally made it. Get upstairs. Sabrina and Mother are waiting for you.”
“Me?” Xtine asked in surprise.
“You’re one of the girls, right?”
“But I’m not family.”
Spencer clapped Sherman on the back. “Maybe not yet. But you will be.”
Xtine’s eyes widened at the innuendo followed by a laugh. “Is he…”
“Oh yeah,” Sherman admitted, drawing her to his chest. “But is that a bad thing?”
“Absolutely not,” she assured him, pulling him down to her lips. “Absolutely not.”
Life doesn’t always adhere to story books. Sometimes love isn’t all fireworks. Sometimes the one you need isn’t the one you seek. Sometimes love takes us by surprise and never lets us go.
While her knight hadn’t arrived riding his gallant steed, he did appear carrying a dagger and bow, at ready to defend her honor.
And as it is with all great fairy tales, they lived happily ever after.
All she wanted was for him to be her first kiss. Instead, he may just be her first heartbreak...
Logan Redfield is everything Hope Tollison is not: legal, gorgeous, and more than a little wild. Sixteen-year-old Hope wants him anyway. She has since the very first moment she tripped and fell into his arms. Unfortunately for her, Logan refuses to cross that line. Instead, he keeps them firmly entrenched in the friend zone.
Hope waits for him anyway, eager for the day she's finally old enough to take that kiss.
What she doesn't know might just destroy her though...
Falling for a teenager was never part of Logan's plans. He's too old and too messed up for a sweet girl like Hope. But when he finds himself falling for her anyway, he's forced to do whatever it takes to ignore the way he feels for the one girl he shouldn't want. Even if that means making her hate him for the rest of her life.
After all, letting her go is the only honorable thing to do.
At least that's what Logan believes... right up until he loses the only future worth fighting for: one with Hope. Now he has to lay it all on the line and convince her to set aside the years between them and trust him with her heart one final time.
Can he do it, or has he broken her beyond repair?
* * *
He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.
-Leo Tolstoy
* * *
Have you ever fallen so hard, so fast your entire world tilts on its axis? In one split second, everything changes. You feel an ache, a pull, a desire you've never felt before, and you think, "So, this is what everyone was talking about. This is love."
I have.
I was a naïve sixteen-year-old girl when it happened to me. Still a child in his eyes, but I remember the day well.
It was the middle of winter break, and my mom hadn't allowed me out of the house for eight miserable days. There'd been a bit of trouble with Stephanie McCoy on the last day of classes. I didn't start the fight, but I was still "the new girl" and she'd never been in trouble before. Naturally, I bore the blame for the entire incident. Not that my unearned punishment really mattered anyway. The weather outside had taken a swan dive below zero, killing any desire I had to leave the house.
On the few occasions when I dared to step outside, the grass crunched beneath my feet. Icicles from the last storm four days before still clung like vises to splintering tree limbs overhead. At night, the crack and pop of breaking branches and power lines were ominous sounding things―far more disturbing to me than the incessant fog that rolled into the sleepy, little town during warmer months.
The fog had been my almost constant companion since my mom dragged me and my brother, Jonathan, to Massachusetts for work four months before. Lying in bed at nigh
t, listening to the branches bowing beneath the weight of snow, I actually began to miss the haze hovering like a shapeless ghoul outside my bedroom window.
I'd done a lot of missing in the eight days I'd been stuck at home. I missed the sticky heat of Southern summers, and the painful ruddiness of dry, Georgia winters. I yearned for the lazy drawl of Southern speech, and the overwhelming trill of cicada song. But in the last four months, I'd resigned myself to life on the East Coast. Since the only places of any interest in the whole of Chatham had closed up shop when the last of the tourists trickled out, I'd also resigned myself to being grounded until Mom deemed me properly punished.
Escaping the stuffy confines of our quaint house wasn't worth the argument that would have taken place had I tried. Looking back, I'm rather grateful for that now. I met him, and that's not something I've ever been able to truly regret…not even when I probably should have.
That first time I saw him, I didn't understand what it was about him that drew me like a bee to honey. But it drew me nonetheless. I sat in the window, wrapped in a quilt and daydreaming about the soft sun and gentle warmth of Georgia winters when Jonathan's old, beat-up truck rumbled up the road.
At first, I paid little attention to my older brother, turning my face up toward the sky and pretending that I hadn't been relegated to Cape Cod and wasn't in a perpetual state of frozen limbs and numb phalanges. But Jonathan, being Jonathan, quickly recalled my attention. His voice boomed through the supposed winter wonderland below, right up through my window.
"It never snowed in Georgia," he crowed. "We'd get ice storms once in a while, but that was it. This stuff is awesome!"
My daydream slipped away.
I sighed and glanced down.
Jonathan waddled up the sidewalk like a duck, not in the least graceful beneath the multiple layers he'd donned before heading out to "see about a few things" that morning. But my brother's duck waddle didn't steal my breath.
His companion did.
I was a year behind Jonathan in school, a measly junior, but Chatham, Massachusetts wasn't that big, and his friend definitely wasn't the kind of guy I would have forgotten. His hair was a type of blond I'd never seen outside of a box of Clairol. Shades of red, gold, and brown wove through the untamed strands, far too subtly perfect to have been anything but God-given.
He wasn't linebacker big like my brother. He was lean and lithe, like the oarsmen living up and down the East Coast. He moved a lot more gracefully than Jon did, too, seeming to know exactly where to place his feet to avoid slipping on the icy sidewalk.
He glanced my way as he followed Jonathan toward the front door, an amused smirk on his face, as if he also found Jon's duck-waddle humorous. His gaze met mine, brilliant green and devoid of the humor that hovered around those full lips. A brief flare burned in his eyes like fire.
I leaned forward, caught in his gaze.
There was a dichotomy there, some fine line between soft and hard lurking beneath cool green, jaded depths. He had bad-boy stamped all across his face and that fascinated me.
Who is he?
I threw the quilt off, and hurried downstairs to find out, following the sound of laughter until I found him and Jon in the kitchen with my mom.
When I stepped into the room, his gaze honed in on me.
My nerves kicked into high gear all over again.
Those green eyes were even more intriguing up close, and so was he. There was something almost boyish in the softness of his lips and the ruddy flush to his cheeks, but the sharp slant of his jaw and the smooth perfection of his cheekbones made it apparent he was no child on the cusp of adulthood. He was a man, and, God, he was beautiful.
The first stirrings of something vast washed over me as he stared at me, something I had no experience with whatsoever. Desire.
A frisson of heat fanned to life between us, growing larger every second he held my gaze, unflinching. I held my breath, as captivated by him up close and personal as I'd been through the inches of glass that separated us earlier. At least until Jonathan's booming voice shattered the unfamiliar flip and twist of my stomach.
"Hope! Come meet Amy's cousin, Logan."
Logan.
The name sent a thrill racing through me.
Logan nodded politely in my direction, his gaze coming nowhere near mine this time. "Hello."
"He's staying here tonight so I can take him to the bus station in the morning," Jon continued before I could muster up a proper greeting. "Amy's little car won't make it, and Logan's due back on campus Monday." Jon chuckled. "I told her she needs something bigger than the Mustang."
I bit my lip to keep from snorting at that. Amy Jackson―Little Miss Perfect―wouldn't dare be caught in anything bigger than a two-door convertible. Not even for Jonathan, who was wrapped around her little finger like one of those gaudy, expensive rings she wore. Inexplicably, she seemed to be wrapped around his beefier finger just as tightly. They went at it like bunnies trying to colonize the entire planet, dropping drawers anywhere they could. Their behavior was appalling, and not something I had any desire to walk in on ever again.
Jon paused for breath.
"Hello, Logan," I said, flushing bright red at the breathy hue stamped all over my voice.
He inclined his head in my direction again, amusement glinting in his eyes. A crooked grin spread across his face. The way his silent laughter mixed with that grin wasn't mischievous or boyish; it was flat out bad-boy sexy.
My heart dropped into my stomach and my cheeks burned like fire.
Oh, God. I bet they're bright red.
I grabbed a bottle of soda from the fridge and bolted from the room before Jon started making kissy noises, or I fell flat on my face.
I spent the rest of the day in my bedroom, trying to talk myself out of my sudden infatuation with Logan. He was gorgeous, in college, and so not going to be interested in a virginal sixteen-year-old, no matter the heart-pounding, sweaty-palm inducing ache I felt. Besides, I didn't know anything about him.
Wasn't that supposed to matter?
I wasn't sure.
At seven, Mom called me down to dinner.
I feigned sleep, too much of a coward to face Logan again. I stayed in my bed, wrapped in my quilt with stars in my eyes, as dark descended outside my window. My stomach growled on and off, trying to coaxing me from my hiding spot, but I couldn't summon the nerve to feed the gnawing ache of hunger.
At midnight, the sounds from below faded to silence. I strained my ears, listening for any hint that my family or Logan was still up and about. Fifteen minutes later, none had come. I decided to chance a trip to the kitchen to appease my rumbling stomach.
No one else stirred.
A sigh of relief escaped my lips as I settled down at the little cast-off table in the corner of the kitchen, still alone. The vinyl of the chair beneath me groaned when I leaned forward, inhaling my bowl of Lucky Charms.
The back door opened with a soft creak.
I froze immediately, the spoon halfway to my mouth.
I didn't need to turn around to know Logan stood behind me. I felt him standing in the doorway, blinking as if he were surprised to by my presence in the kitchen. Gusts of frigid air billowed into the room around him. The stench of tobacco smoke wafted in on those freezing snaps of air, giving reason to his late night jaunt on the back stoop.
"Logan," I said, proud when my voice didn't crack or shake. Just knowing he was there had all kinds of tingling sensations shooting through me. The spoon wobbled in my hand. I quickly replaced it in the bowl, sloshing sugared milk across my fingers. As I wiped it off, I tried to convince myself that I was being ridiculous, that I was just cold from the blasts of air shoving their way through the opened door.
I knew better though.
He was the reason my body shook. He was the reason my breath hitched in my throat. And he was the reason my heart hammered against my ribcage.
I couldn't seem to convince myself that he was too old for me. That
bad-boy vibe he threw off without even trying intrigued me. I'd known bad-boys before. Everyone who'd spent any time in Atlanta knew a few bad-boys, but not a single one had ever impressed me. Logan though…well, Logan was definitely leaving an impression, and in places that he shouldn't have been.
"Hope," he finally murmured. My name on his lips sounded downright sinful. His voice was all soft and smooth…like silk. He pulled the door closed behind him, cutting off those arctic blasts as soon as the latch caught. "I didn't realize you were still awake."
"Why would you?" I asked, surprising myself when the question popped out. I still hadn't convinced myself to turn around and face him head-on, and yet that question echoed between us, downright flirtatious in tone.
"No reason," he answered. His footsteps sounded behind me. The fridge opened. "You want anything?" he asked.
"No thank you," I mumbled, once again taken by surprise, this time by his politeness.
Things shifted around inside the fridge for a minute before the door closed and the top of a can popped.
My gaze found his then, my head swiveling of its own accord in his direction. "Mom's going to notice that missing," I said, nodding at the can of beer in his hand.
"So?" He quirked a brow at me.
"She's not going to be happy about it." I had no idea why I felt a need to press the issue. It wasn't like Mom would have him arrested for drinking a beer. At least I didn't think she would.
"So?" he asked again and smirked at me before lifting the can to his lips and drinking.
My cheeks flushed as I watched his throat work.
His gaze locked on my face over the top of the can, watching me watch him, but I couldn't seem to force myself to look away. The way his throat worked each time he swallowed, his head tilted back…Lord, I was in serious trouble.
What the Heart Wants: An Opposites Attract Anthology Page 22
