Besotted: An Enemies-to-Lovers Small-town Romance (Carmel Cove Book 3)

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  But just because I was completely besotted with him didn’t mean I was going to sacrifice my dream.

  And if that meant living in a nunnery, then so be it.

  Miles

  I looked like a creep, I knew, watching Eve from outside of Roaster’s front window. I’d stopped because a young couple with a small little boy, Evan, wanted to pet Kona, but when they left, I hadn’t moved. Rather, I watched her—making drinks, chatting, laughing. The way her smile made her glasses slide up a quarter inch on her nose. The way the steam from the machine sometimes fogged her glasses just enough where she had to stop and wipe them.

  She was wearing khaki shorts that my dick appreciated but other parts of me wished concealed more of her toned long legs. And her navy apron somehow managed to cling around her curves in a way that left me no other option but to imagine her wearing that and only that.

  Grunting, I shifted on my feet to try and ease the way my cock tightened against my jeans. A constant fucking problem for the last week and a half. Deep down, I knew one taste of her wouldn’t be enough. My dick was addicted. And my heart wanted more.

  Air rushed forcefully from my lips as I blinked and refocused on my woman. There was just this glow about her lately, one that I swore rivaled the sun, and so I watched her like I always wanted to but couldn’t.

  My head and my heart felt like I was rock climbing without a belay—without all the wedges and ropes I swore I’d littered on the face of my new life to stop me from falling.

  Sometimes, all I could see was the top of the rock where a lifetime with this incredible woman was waiting to be built. But those moments were dampened when I couldn’t stop myself from looking down, looking where I’d come from and just how high I’d climbed. Unsecured and in danger of plummeting once again with nothing to save me and nothing to break my fall.

  Since I’d told her to move in with me, those moments of fear were less in frequency but more potent in their intensity.

  Two weeks was three days from now and, so far, I’d disapproved of each and every apartment she’d shown me. It was a complete dick move, but I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want her to move out, but I didn’t know how to tell her I wanted her to stay. So, Eve was caught in the middle of the battle inside me.

  Clearing my throat, I opened the door and dropped Kona’s leash so he could run inside.

  The way her face brightened when she saw me was like a punch to my gut. I’d never get tired of seeing that pure, unfettered excitement bloom over her beautiful features; it made me feel like I was her own personal shooting star that she kept wishing on each and every time she saw me, hoping that one day, I’d come true.

  And fuck if I didn’t want to. For her.

  “Hey.” She grinned as she bent down to scratch over Kona’s head. “I thought you were working late tonight.”

  I shook my head. “It went easier than we thought.” And I worked like a maniac so that I could make it back for the end of her shift. “Got home and figured I’d take this lug for a walk and of course, he brought me right here.”

  “Of course,” she murmured with a laugh. “Okay, let me just let Laurel know I’m leaving.”

  A minute later, she skipped back to the front of the shop, her apron gone and her tits bouncing just enough to have me yanking her to me as soon as she was within my reach and crushing my lips on hers. People. Public place. Still, I ravaged her mouth for one harsh minute.

  “What was that for?” she whispered, a small flush staining her cheeks as wide, desire-laden irises met mine.

  “Just needed somethin’ to hold me over.” My thumb rubbed a small circle on her stomach before I stepped back and let Kona lead us to the door. “You hungry?” I asked as soon as we stepped outside.

  Her head ducked guiltily. “I was really craving a blueberry muffin, so I snuck down to Josie’s not even a half an hour ago to have one.”

  I chuckled. “Alright, so late dinner it is.”

  “Do you want to walk down to the beach? Or up to the park?” Her head tipped, weighing the usual suggestions.

  My steps slowed, and I saw my empty hand reach for one of hers, swallowing her smaller fingers in its grasp. “I want to see your place.”

  Ever since we’d gone rock climbing, I’d wanted to see the house that would hold her dream. I’d refrained with every ounce of restraint because I already felt myself slipping into too many parts of her life that I didn’t belong in if I, myself, wasn’t going to be a permanent fixture.

  But all day, I’d been drowning in the thought that she was really considering moving into a nunnery, and the reality that her softness and warmth wouldn’t be curled against me every night, and it had wiped out whatever flailing strands that were holding me back.

  “M-My place?” Her brow scrunched adorably, glancing between my hand and my face like she wasn’t sure which to be more surprised by. “You mean the house? For my studio?”

  I nodded wordlessly.

  Her fingers tightened into mine. “Okay.”

  She led us down Ocean Avenue, followed by two more turns and a few more blocks. Kona enjoyed the different sights and scents along the way while Eve and I talked about random things—any and everything from work to friends to Kona, anything to make this moment, where she was going to let me into her dream, seem more casual than it was.

  When her steps slowed, I looked up at the houses to my left, and I spotted it instantly. Two doors down was a looming and light yellow, Victorian that seemed to rule over the street like a queen.

  “This is it,” she said, and I detected the hint of nervousness in her voice.

  I took in the dull from dirt, sunshine exterior, decorated with ornate white trims and decorative columns on the porch. Huge bay windows jutted out on the righthand side that were mimicked on the second floor and topped off with a turret. Each window was lined at the top with half a foot of decorative glass, some stained in pieces to look like flowers, adding even more to the delicate and intricate detail of its construction.

  Even though the gate was broken and some of the wooden trim was rotted and missing in places, even though the one front window was cracked and the front door hung unevenly on the hinges, I saw it how she did—I saw it for what it could be.

  In that moment, I realized even just such a small amount of time with this woman had changed me in such large ways.

  I’d come here as someone who always looked for the problems, the obstacles, the flaws in any situation. Where Mick was too optimistic on the job, I was the counter—and that’s why we always estimated time and cost as somewhere in between. And with people? Well, I thought it’d become clear pretty quickly that I avoided them altogether and any potential problems.

  But even with the job we’d started at the beginning of this week, Mick had asked me if I was feeling alright when I told him I thought we’d get it done sooner than expected. Looking back farther, I saw how I’d gone and apologized to Benny for my behavior that night, when normally I’d just assume we’d both forget about it until the next time I was in for a drink.

  Eve was like the sun. Even when I couldn’t see her directly, the light she’d brought to my life managed to outshine the darkness of my past. With her, I started seeing possibilities again and fuck, if I didn’t dread the thought of going back to a life of solitude and shadow without her.

  “It’s incredible.”

  “Really?” she squeaked, her lips shooting up into a beaming smile.

  “Really, Evie. Incredible,” I repeated with a low voice.

  She hesitated for a second and then asked, “Want to see inside?”

  I arched an eyebrow, wondering how that was possible without breaking anything, including laws.

  She bit her lip with a potent mix of shyness and deviousness and replied to my questioning gaze, “The gate doesn’t lock and the realtor is a friend who hid a spare key for me around back so I could come and check in on the place.”

  I nodded with a not-surprised smile. “I’d love to
see it.”

  Not even a minute later, we were walking through the very dirty very run-down back of the house as she rambled on in that adorable, excited way of hers the ideas she had for each room and what would need to be changed.

  The wood floors, although needing a lot of love, still felt solid underneath my feet. And, as she spoke, I inspected the walls, tapping in places as we went to check for studs and overall security of the structure. I didn’t see any signs of water damage on the easily ten-foot-ceilings even though there were some shingles missing from the roof; I’d have to double-check upstairs to be sure nothing was leaking through.

  Whoever built this house had given every attention to detail. The molding, the floors, the framing, the stairwell in the front hall… everything dripped with the kind of character that a lot of new construction was missing.

  And I felt a smile creep over my face because it was exactly Eve—unashamed of its romanticism, and all the more beautiful for it.

  “Just a few more months, and I’ll be able to afford it and the start of the renovations.” She looked over her shoulder alight with hope, and then asked as we approached the front door. “What do you think?”

  “I think this place is a testament to how they used to build things,” I replied, still scanning every detail as I walked. “Old construction like this, restored, will hold up another two hundred years. Easily.” I shook my head in amazement. “They don’t make ‘em like they used to…”

  She grinned, letting go of my hand and spread her arms out wide in the main space of the entryway, her shoulders rising and falling with a satisfied sigh.

  “What will you call it?” I wondered out of nowhere. “I know it’s early, but do you have a name picked?”

  She blushed. “I was thinking, maybe, The Yoga Garden?”

  I smiled. “Because of your name?”

  A grin broke over her face. “And because I want it to be a place for people to come and grow.”

  In-fucking-credible, my woman.

  “So, these front two rooms are really where I wanted to do the most work. Or maybe the least.” She hummed. “I want them both to be studios, maybe one for meditation and one for yoga, but I have to figure out a way to close off this side”—she stepped to her left to the side away from the bay windows—“so that it can be quiet for mediating if I’m having another class over there.” She paused to indicate the other room that was to the right of the hall and stairwell.

  Her feet shuffled along the floor in spirited but soft steps as she went on, “I really hate to change the feel of the house with extending the wall and adding doors. Plus, if I wanted to host a big class and teach from the center of the hall to both rooms, I wouldn’t be able to.”

  “What about a sliding panel?” I blurted out, seeing a solution to her dilemma seconds after she began to elaborate and needing to get it out before the sight of her chewing on her bottom lip drove my desire over the edge.

  She halted and turned to look at me. “What do you mean?”

  Leading her back to the front of the house and stopping back in front of the front door, I explained, pointing to each side as I spoke. “These walls are thick and sturdy enough that I could easily conceal almost like a sliding barn door inside them, that you could pull out when you wanted to separate the spaces or leave open and have it look just like this.”

  “Really?” she gasped in awe, her eyes sliding to the entrances to the rooms, and I could see it on her face as she imagined how my suggestion would work.

  I nodded. “I could even make them in glass to match the design on the windows, like with the stained pieces along the top.” I moved over to the one wall, illustrating with my hands as I continued with my thought. “They would pull out from here, and I could frame them in with the trim of the house and then use glass panels in the center. Clear, if you want, or frosted if you think you’d want a little more privacy.”

  For a moment, I lost myself in the plans that built inside my mind, scanning and estimating lengths and widths, sorting through vendors for the wood, and who I would trust to do the glass. It took a minute or two before I realized that Eve hadn’t responded.

  I stood and turned back, almost wondering if she’d wandered off until I saw her staring at me with her hand pressed over her mouth and tears in her eyes.

  “Hey.” I closed the space between us in an instant and demanded hoarsely, “What’s wrong?”

  Her head shook, dragging her watery gaze down from mine.

  “Hey, hey, hey…” Gently, I cupped her cheeks, feeling where a few tears had watered her skin. “Tell me what’s wrong.” The thought hit me that I’d said something wrong. “You don’t have to do that. I was just throwin’ the idea out there, baby. You can do whatever you want in here. It’s all you, Evie. It’s all you…” By the end, my voice was so hoarse I wondered if I’d even have enough of it to speak again.

  “N-No!” She shook her head frantically and put a hand on my chest, over my heart. “No… that’s not it.” She took a shuddering breath. “It’s just… it’s perfect. Your idea is perfect.”

  “Then why are you crying?” I asked with a strained laugh, thoroughly fucking confused.

  And she laughed because she knew it, too.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe because you always seem to think of everything. Just when I think I have something figured, you tell me something… show me something… and I realize just how much I was missing with it… without you…” Her eyes rose hesitantly to mine and she continued with the softest voice, “Or maybe it’s because I’m standing here so so close to having everything I’ve ever wanted…everything I ever dreamed…”

  She bit her lip. She wasn’t just talking about the house, or the idea for her studio; she was talking about me, too.

  This beautiful, determined girl was standing in front of me, her eyes begging me to love her, but more than that, begging to let her love me.

  And it was these moments when I wanted nothing more than to scale higher—to move closer to her—that instead, I looked down and saw just how far I could fall.

  I dropped my forehead to hers, feeling the words I wanted to say beating my heart against my chest, demanding to be set free.

  “If I could make your dreams come true, Evie, I would,” I rasped with a strained voice as my lips dropped to hers. But I just don’t know if I can, went unsaid.

  Even in these small moments, when I was sure I was disappointing her, she still gave me her truth—she still gave me all of her. And because I was a desperate, undeserving ass, I took it because I needed her. I kissed her deeply as a promise—a promise that I was going to figure out a way to not be afraid to need her.

  Eve

  “Can’t wait for class tomorrow!” Kenzie hollered as she jogged past me up the stairs inside Blooms.

  Work—both Roasters and the Pub—had been super busy lately and, between that and apartment hunting and Miles, I hadn’t had the chance to stop in and see the progress Mick and Miles had made with the renovations. I also hadn’t had the chance to stop in and see Addy after her interview I saw regularly replayed on the TVs in the Pub.

  “Me too!” I smiled as I made my way back down.

  Miles said that they’d been working on the second and third floors of the building getting the new rooms ready, so that was where I’d headed as soon as I walked in the door.

  It was strange to see floorboards and studs, painted with dust and dirt, in the spot that had once held my room. I hadn’t searched out my sister or brother because I wasn’t sure how I would react, so I figured it was safer to process the sight on my own.

  There’d been a twinge of nostalgia—okay, more than a twinge. But it was like looking at a high school yearbook—what I saw was something that had been filled with happy memories but also a place I couldn’t—and didn’t want to—stay forever.

  Even though I knew the apartment was temporary, I felt like I was building something permanent there. If not with him, then at least
for my dream to purchase the house on Sunflower Lane.

  “Hey, Eve.” I spun to see Jo walking in the front door, Cammie beside her.

  “Hey, guys.” I smiled and hugged them both. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, not much.” She eyed me with a prying smile and a wink. “How are things with Mr. Aquaman?”

  My half-laugh, half-groan was no match for Jo’s vibrant insistence.

  Carmel Cove might be a tourist destination, but behind the curtain, it was still a small town that only projected a very big image. And that meant most of our close circle knew there was something unofficially official going on between Miles and me.

  Of course, they’d seen crumbs of it before, but now that we’d been temporarily living together for the last two weeks, I think everyone except us was sure where it was headed.

  “Was it that obvious?” I bit my lip but couldn’t hold back my grin.

  “What? The ‘does he love me, does he love me not’ doe-eyes you have on all the time? Or maybe it’s the perpetual blush you have in your cheeks now that you’ve been getting some good lovin—”

  “Jo!” I hissed, my eyes whipping around to make sure it was still just the three of us.

  Of course, I didn’t care if they knew. But I doubted my brother wanted to hear about his little sister’s sex life when he was already struggling enough with our other sibling.

  She threw her head back and laughed. “Don’t worry. We just passed Zeke on our way to the drugstore.”

  And with that I breathed a little calmer, though I looked to Cammie for her corroboration, jokingly planting my hands on my hips. “Is she joshin’ me?”

  She gave a shy shake of her head, pressing a hand to her stomach. “I forgot to pick up my prescription earlier and my mom is still at the bakery, so I asked Jo if she would go with me,” she confirmed.

  My head tipped and the lightness of the conversation dimmed slightly. I hadn’t realized she was on any medications.