by Carmen Cook
“I’ve only been home a couple of weeks,” she started, but was stopped by him shaking his head.
“And I’ve known you for fifteen years, Regan. You can’t go much slower than waiting fifteen years to make a move.”
Regan gave his shoulder a little shove, but he didn’t move. She would have been disappointed if he had. Despite her desire to lay her feeling bare she was having trouble concentrating with his body pressed against her. He was moving against her, restlessly, insistently. When he dipped his head to kiss the tender spot behind her ear she let out a sigh. “You didn’t even know me back then,” she said breathlessly. “Those years don’t count.”
“I knew you,” he breathed, continuing his journey along her throat. His hands were joining in, leading the way and awakening her senses. “You were off limits to me as Gwen’s friend, but I knew you. Noticed you.”
I love you. The words stuck in her throat, the emotion making it difficult to speak.
Regan’s eyes flared at the thought, but Gavin didn’t give her a chance to respond. Not that she knew what to say. And all because he’d noticed her? He tugged her earlobe between his teeth and her eyes rolled back into her head. Her arms wound around him and pulled him even closer, letting her body say everything she wasn’t able to voice.
To hell with the consequences. Shifting, she managed to slide herself down, lodging herself more firmly under him, lining her face up with his throat and applying her own pressure there, licking and gently biting the tendon that was straining. His groan made her smile against his skin.
Sliding her hands across his back, she couldn’t resist grabbing his butt and squeezing it. “What are you waiting for?” she purred.
Before she could blink he was gone, dumping items from the nightstand onto the floor until he found what he was looking for. He caught her eye.
Without breaking eye contact he held the condom for her. The question he was asking silently was clear.
There was no doubt in her as she took the condom from his hand and rolled it down his length.
Regan didn’t let go of him once he was in her hand, instead giving him a long stroke, thrilled when his cock gave a jerk in her hand. She’d never felt so powerful.
One more stroke was apparently all Gavin could take before he pushed her back and slid into her with one swift motion.
She wanted to say something, but the words were stuck in her throat. Instead, she could only hum her pleasure. Gavin’s mouth was working her neck again, and his hands seemed to be everywhere, stroking her into a frenzy. Once more, giving herself over to the tide building within, Regan tilted her hips up, meeting each thrust with her own.
“Gavin,” she gasped, overwhelmed by the emotions that were suddenly flooding her while the pleasure continued to build.
“I’m right here. Go ahead and let go, I’ve got you.”
With that assurance, her pleasure exploded.
Later—much later—they moved to the living room, where Gavin started a fire. Wrapped in blankets, they lounged on the floor in front of the fireplace, nibbling on the frozen pizza Regan had found in the freezer and baked. Snow started falling again, shrouding the night in a peace that could only be found in the mountains.
Feeling like they were the only people in the world, Gavin wrapped an arm around Regan and settled her against his chest. Something had shifted tonight. Something profound. He could feel the tension in Regan as she wrestled with whatever it was. He couldn’t help but wonder if he should have kept his mouth shut about being aware of her when they had been younger, but she had to have known. He never would have hooked up with her that night before she left Sapphire Creek if he hadn’t known her and cared for her.
She had to know that, right?
“Gavin?” Regan’s soft voice stroked against his skin.
“Hmm?”
He felt her turn her head against his chest to look at him, but he kept his gaze toward the window. His emotions were so overwhelming he didn’t risk revealing them without being sure what she was feeling.
“Tonight is wonderful. Thank you.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “You’re very welcome.”
She jabbed him in his gut. “I’m being serious here.”
“So am I,” he assured her, dropping his gaze to look into her face. “I’ve enjoyed every second of my time with you. And I want to spend more time with you.”
“You do?”
He dropped a light kiss on her lips and whispered, “I know it’s happening fast, but I want to spend as much time with you as you’ll let me.”
Regan went still in his arms. “What are you saying?”
Hell. He hadn’t planned on declaring himself, but he might as well. “I want as much time as you’ll give me, Regan. I love you.”
“You can’t,” she blurted, jerking away from him. “It’s too soon.”
“I know it’s soon, and I’m not proposing,” he told her quietly, watching her like one would watch a wild animal. That was how she looked. Spooked. Ready to bolt at any moment. “I’m just asking for a chance.”
“A chance at what?”
He moved to his knees in front of her. Not touching her or reaching for her in any way, but settling in so they were eye to eye. “A chance to know you. To love you.”
Her eyes were wide and her breathing coming in pants. It took everything he had not to reach for her. She was so beautiful with her hair in disarray around her shoulders and the firelight dancing across her skin. The fact that she was so completely unaware of her appeal made her even more attractive to him.
“But I’m not staying. I can’t.” Her gaze beseeched him to understand. He nodded to show he heard, but didn’t say anything else. This wasn’t a decision he was going to talk her into. If she decided to take the leap, it had to be because she wanted to.
Finally, she relented. “You deserve more, Gavin. More than I can give you. I’m still trying to figure out who I am, what I want. I’m planning on where to go next, what training courses I might want to take that will lead me to my next adventure. You should be with someone who knows what they want, at the very least.”
His heart damn near broke at that and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for her. She willingly came into his arms, wrapping herself around him. He stroked her hair, trying to think of how to tell her what was in his heart without scaring her even more.
“Regan,” he began softly, framing her face with his hands. “You are everything I could ever want.” He shook his head when she opened her mouth to protest. “Just listen to me,” he said. “I’m not asking you for anything you don’t want to give. I just want to participate in your life.”
“But your life is here.”
“It is,” he admitted. “And I hope you’ll think about the opportunities available to you here. But if you decide to leave, that’s okay. I’m just asking you to let me know your decision, so I can make my own decision. Okay?”
With a sniffle and nod, Regan launched herself at him, taking them both to the floor. She rained kisses over his face and chest. As she moved lower, Gavin closed his eyes. He didn’t know exactly what it was he said to elicit such a response from her, but whatever it was, he was damn glad he said it.
Chapter Fourteen
“Regan. You’re doing it again,” Chloe announced, straining to reach the uppermost corner of the dining room with her paintbrush.
“Sorry,” Regan muttered, trying to keep the smile out of her voice. The humming was driving her sister crazy, but she couldn’t help it. She was happy. Really happy. Waking in Gavin’s bed, wrapped up in his strong arms, was unlike anything she’d expected. He made her feel things she’d long thought were fairy tales.
If someone had told her a month ago how things would be when she moved back to Sapphire Creek, she’d have checked them for a head injury.
Letting out another dreamy sigh, she turned to shove her roller back into the paint. She’d nearly forgotten about the work date she and her sisters had planned, to start
working on the inside of the house. Chloe’s call asking where she was had launched her from Gavin’s bed to search for her clothes.
Gavin had laughed at her distress as he rolled over and pulled on his own clothes, instructing Chloe on how to break into the house, which was shockingly easy from what she could overhear. When he dropped Regan off, he said he’d be back with a couple of deadbolts to install before dinner. The implication that they’d be having dinner together had her toes curling in her Uggs. She couldn’t wait.
“The Snow Bowl was last night?” Chloe asking, dragging Regan from her thoughts.
“Yeah. Gavin showed up and dragged me up to the meadow in the middle of the night. I don’t know how I didn’t know about it before.”
“Who all was there?” Chloe’s voice sounded odd, but she hadn’t turned around, so Regan wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or something else that was prickling at her senses.
Keeping her eyes on her sister’s back, Regan went through the names, noticing a slight tensing in her sister’s shoulders when Erin’s bodyguard was mentioned. She waited for Chloe to say something, but when her sister didn’t, she dived in. “Is there something going on with you and Mitchell?”
Chloe turned around so quickly she nearly fell off the stool. “Why would you ask that? Did he say something?”
“No.” Turning so she could roll more paint on her roller, Regan tried to hide her smile. “I didn’t talk to anyone but Bethany, Erin, and Gwen. Have you seen him? Since the thing at the café?” Regan asked.
Chloe shook her head. “I don’t know what to do, Regan. I’ve never felt this way. He makes me feel…different somehow.”
Regan studied her usually unflappable sister, who looked so much younger than her twenty-two years, standing there with her hair pulled into two low ponytails. “Just be yourself, Chloe.”
“Right, because that has worked so well for me so far.”
Regan dropped her roller back in the pan and planted her hands on her hips when she turned to face her sister. “You know he’s not going to be staying, right? As soon as Erin heads back to LA or out on tour, whichever comes first, he’ll be going with her.”
“Sure.” Chloe’s voice was bright, full of what Regan suspected as false certainty, and she felt her heart clench for her sister. “I’m not a ninny, Regan, no matter what you think.”
“I don’t think you’re a ninny.”
Chloe stepped down from the step stool and sat. “I’m not looking for forever. But I want to explore what might be available for the next couple weeks, at least.”
“Then you should,” Regan told her with more certainty than she’d felt even the day before. “There’s no harm in exploring what’s out there.”
Chloe nodded. “I wish I’d been more like you,” she said, surprising Regan. “Unafraid to find out what was beyond the mountains. To do whatever you wanted.”
Unsure what to say to that, Regan simply stood there, mouth agape. Never, in all the time she’d been away, did she think her sisters would wish to follow in her footsteps and leave Sapphire Creek. Honestly, she hadn’t thought much about them at all.
After several seconds of silence Chloe stood to go back up onto the step stool, but Regan stopped her. “You know that’s not how it went, right?”
“What?”
“My leaving,” Regan clarified. “It wasn’t that I was brave enough to leave or went looking for adventures. Softball was my way out of Sapphire Creek. Not the mistake made by Mom and Dad when they were young that nearly derailed their careers. Not the older sister, the good girl, the babysitter, whatever else people thought of when they saw me.”
Regan paused. “Going out on my own allowed me to be me, for the first time in my life.” Realizing the truth of what she was telling Chloe, she sank into a dining chair. Leaving had been a matter of survival. Not in the physical sense, but emotionally. It had been self-preservation.
Before she knew it, Chloe had pulled out the opposite chair and reached out to grip her hand. “What happened?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I hadn’t realized,” Regan confessed.
“Realized what?”
“That I’d needed to leave. And that once I’d left, I was overwhelmed by all the possibilities, so I fell right back into the same thing, only this time it was with Todd who had expectations and dreams I needed to live up to, not Mom and Dad.” She gave a faint smile, trying to make light of the realization.
Chloe returned to the stool. “For a smart person, you can be incredibly dense sometimes.”
Regan laughed, tears springing from her eyes. “Yes, I suppose I can be.”
She took a step back to look over their handiwork. The buttery yellow brightened the dated room into something cheerful. She could imagine Gavin’s kids helping her make cookies in here, a thought that made her pause. Was she getting in over her head? Again?
“You’re pathetic,” Becca announced as she sauntered into the room, her arms full of bags of food from Lucy’s. “Has she been like this the whole time I’ve been gone?”
Chloe came down from the step stool and tossed her brush onto the drop cloth while she reached for one of the bags of sandwiches. “Worse,” she said, turning a mock glare toward Regan. “She’s been humming and sighing over everything. I’ve turned it into a game, trying to guess what she’s thinking. But it’s not that challenging,” Chloe pitched her voice into a falsetto. “Oh Gavin! You’re so dreamy.” She and Becca both burst into laughter while they unloaded the bags.
Regan picked up Chloe’s brush and wrapped it in plastic wrap to keep it from drying out. “I haven’t been that bad.”
“Really?” Chloe challenged. “Judging from the sigh followed by the blush when you looked at the table just now, I’m going to guess you did the nasty there. And to repeat what you said to me, ‘Eww!’”
Regan started sputtering, which made Becca laugh even harder.
“You’ve been a little wrapped up in your own stuff, Regan. Even before you got home and became wrapped up in Gavin, which we love, really. It’s much better than everything you went through before.” Becca nodded at her and set out the paninis. “It’s okay to have some fun now. You deserve a guy who treats you well.”
“And it’s even better to have one who does things to you that make you blush and sigh,” Chloe added.
“Girls?”
Their mother’s voice rang through the house and spurred them all into immediate action, shoving the sandwiches back into their wrappings and into the bags, which Chloe quickly disappeared down the hall with. “There you are,” Joyce announced as she strode into the room, wrinkling her nose at the smell. Regan hoped it was the paint her mom was smelling, not the greasy food they’d been about to eat. Their mom had always been strict about her family’s diet. Lean proteins and loads of veggies. That was it. While Regan didn’t argue with the diet as a rule, her mom took it, like most things, to the extreme.
Her trench coat was perfectly pressed and the winter white of her pants didn’t show a speck of the sludge that had formed on the streets with the melting snow. Even the slush wouldn’t dare smudge Joyce Sinclair’s perfectly organized world.
“Hi Mom.” Regan stood to give Joyce a hug, hoping to distract her from searching for the food or lecturing them about their suspected eating habits. It was the first time she’d come to the house since Regan had confronted her parents about their invitation to Todd. Regan was doing everything she could to ignore the dread coiling in her gut. “I wasn’t expecting you to stop by.”
“Catherine mentioned that you three were going to be here painting,” she said, referring to her sister who was letting Regan stay at the house rent-free in exchange for labor. Joyce turned her glare on her youngest daughter. “You could have told me. I don’t like looking the fool in front of your aunt.”
Becca shrugged. “I’m sure you didn’t look even a little like a fool.”
I still should have known where you were, instead o
f finding out from your aunt. What if something had happened?”
“I’m with my sisters,” Becca reminded her, pointing to Regan. “One of whom is a nurse, remember?”
Regan inwardly groaned. Not for Becca standing up for herself, she wanted to cheer about that, but as her mother’s laser focus turned her direction she had to stop herself from fidgeting like she had as a child. “How could I forget?”
“Mother.”
“Don’t use that tone with me, Regan. You’re doing housework for your aunt instead of trying to patch things up with your husband. You gave up medical school for him and now you won’t even talk to him.”
The air seemed to be sucked from the room as her sisters’ gazes swung her direction like they were watching a tennis match.
“I never wanted to patch things up with Todd,” Regan reminded her mother, struggling to keep her voice even. “I was the one who filed for divorce. And I did that after finding him having sex with one of my friends. It’s cliché, but they were going at it in the doctor’s lounge. You need to get over the fact that I’m not a doctor, nor am I married to one any longer,” she said, as kindly as she could under the circumstances. “And, to tell the truth, I never wanted to be one.”
“It was your dream,” her mother repeated stubbornly, “and you gave it up for a man. And now, apparently, you’re doing it again.” Joyce reached to the counter and picked up the pile of brochures and the information on trauma nursing Regan had printed out.
Regan tried to keep her temper in check. She loved her mother, and knew that part of her mom’s opinions was formed in her own regrets. But it didn’t give her the right to be insulting.
“Mom,” she began in a warning tone, but was halted when her mother cut her off.
“I’m not criticizing you, Regan.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Chloe muttered, earning a swift glare in her direction.
“I’m concerned about you,” their mother declared, acting like she hadn’t heard Chloe at all. “You were so anxious to leave Sapphire Creek—not that I blame you at all—that you raced into everything college had to offer, including boys. I’m afraid we didn’t prepare you very well for that temptation.”
