Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set

by Grover Swank, Denise

  A whimper of surprise and desire sounded in her throat, filling my head and my lungs in a way that had me trembling worse than I’d already been.

  “Need you,” I breathed against the kiss before claiming her mouth again.

  As she had in Brewed, she let me control this.

  But this . . . this was different. This was a soul-deep need she couldn’t possibly understand. This was nearly a decade worth of mourning and guilt. This was a past trying to destroy me and a present I didn’t know how to stay away from.

  My hands raced down her body, trailing over her curves until I reached her hips and grabbed tight, pulling her closer to my hardened cock. “Need you,” I repeated, the words full of all my pain and anger and need.

  Pressing her against the door, I let the tips of my fingers slip under her shirt, intent on lifting it off her body.

  One of Rae’s hands went to my chest and pushed as she twisted her head away from mine. “No.”

  My chest rose and fell unevenly as I stood there, fingers on her soft skin, before she pushed me back enough to look into my eyes. Hers darted around the entryway before meeting mine again, stunned confusion filling them as she continued to stare at me.

  “No,” she repeated.

  “If this is some control thing—”

  “This is about you,” she whispered, her soft words laced with disappointment. “What are you doing?”

  “Thought that was kinda obvious, Rae.”

  “In front of your sister-in-law, in an open area of her home where her kids could come in at any second.”

  Christ.

  A glance behind me showed Savannah had left, but it hadn’t mattered. The second my mouth had touched Rae’s, I’d forgotten it all.

  I would’ve taken her up against the door if she hadn’t brought me back to reality.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  I roughed my hands into my hair, gripping tight as I tried to rein in the destructive mixture of emotions filling my veins.

  Rae’s tongue darted out to wet her lips as she looked away, her stare once again bouncing around the room before settling on me. “Is this about Nathan?” When my brows lifted in confusion, she said, “The guy in Brewed this afternoon.”

  “He has a fucking name?”

  “I know him, Sawyer.”

  I had too much adrenaline coursing through me to think on that, to ask how or who he was to her. Instead, I lowered my hands and moved closer to hiss, “Not exactly a secret that I wanted you before he came into town.”

  “Not like this,” she said evenly. “Every one of our kisses has been different. Every one of them has meant something the others hadn’t. But this? It was like you were trying to prove or forget something. It was like you were taking all your pain and forcing it on me.” Her last words had come out softer than the others, slower, and her expression fell as if she had just realized something. After a few moments, hesitation eased from her as she studied me. “Who is Leighton?”

  Everything locked up.

  My expression, my body, my heart.

  “I hear her name everywhere, and it wasn’t until today that I realized I was hearing it because of you . . . because of me.”

  Seconds passed in silence, making the tension between us grow until it felt like we might break.

  Understanding crossed her face, but she shook her head as if she didn’t want to believe whatever it was she understood. “This, right now, is it because of her? Are you trying to use me—did you need me—to forget her?” When I couldn’t respond, a harsh breath punched from her chest and she moved past me, headed toward the stairs.

  “I’ve done things in an attempt to hold onto who I am,” she said solemnly, and I turned to see her standing on the first step, watching me with a blank expression that was so close to breaking. “But I have never used you to forget another person, and I refuse to be a means to ease your pain from someone else.” She jerked her chin at the door behind me. “If that’s what you need, there are plenty of women waiting to fill your bed for that.”

  When she jogged up the stairs, I stumbled back until I hit the door and then slid down it. Head in my hands, arms resting on my knees, body shuddering as I tried to calm myself.

  Tried to figure out what had happened and what the hell I had just done.

  I let my head roll back to rest against the door when I heard Savannah trying to settle herself on the stairs, and just watched her eyeing me sadly.

  “Sorry,” I said after nearly a minute had passed without her offering anything.

  Her head lifted in the beginnings of a nod as she rubbed her swollen stomach. “That was . . . well, I’m not really sure what that was, but I think you’re apologizing to the wrong person.”

  “You heard.”

  “Y’all were standing in the entryway, kind of hard not to.”

  A huff pushed from my lungs and my attention drifted to the top of the stairs, where Rae had disappeared.

  “Was she right?” Savannah asked on a whisper. When I looked at her again, she dropped her voice even lower so her next question was nearly inaudible. “Is this about Leighton?”

  My eyes unfocused as I was hit with dozens of images. My jaw clenched tight as I both welcomed and cursed them all. Once the house came back into view, I let my stare drift up the stairs again and finally nodded in response.

  “Sawyer . . .” Understanding and concern wove through her tone as she continued. “What’s going on? I haven’t seen you like this in . . . God, so long.”

  “Everything,” I admitted after a while and met her worried gaze.

  It was the argument with Hunter and the fear of what he would do.

  His parting words that had been so damn painful.

  The time of the year.

  Rae.

  I blew out a harsh breath and stood. “Fucking everything.”

  Chapter 23

  Sawyer

  Senior Year – Spring

  I’d tried.

  I’d done everything.

  As promised, I was there every day, three times a day, with food. Nearly all of it my mom had cooked since she’d needed something to distract her from Dad’s passing, and wanted to save Leighton just as badly.

  I’d held her after she threw every one of the meals up—what little she’d managed to eat—and cried and begged her to try for her. For me. For us.

  But the damage had already been done. Her body had already begun shutting down.

  I’d found her unconscious just two days after my dad’s funeral, and had rushed her to the hospital. Her kidneys were failing. We’d known it was bad as soon as the doctor had walked in to give us her results. His grim look had said it all.

  He’d told us to enjoy the time we had left, but that had only made me double my efforts. But I’d only had a couple more weeks with her before she was gone.

  I’d found her . . .

  They’d said her heart had given out.

  I’d had it all . . . a full-ride scholarship to my dream school and a promising career in football. A girl I’d thought would be by my side through it all. A close-knit family.

  In the span of a few weeks, I’d thrown away my scholarship and my career, my family had fractured, and I’d lost the only girl who would ever matter.

  Chapter 24

  Rae

  A frustrating mixture of pain and hope and uncertainties swirled through the room when my door opened a few minutes after I’d left Sawyer in the entryway.

  I didn’t turn from where I was staring out one of the windows to see who it was, I already knew it was him.

  Anyone else would have knocked. Besides, I had a stunning view of the front lawn of Blossom, including the driveway, so I knew he hadn’t left.

  “Why today?” I asked when the door clicked shut and he took a step deeper into the room.

  “What do you mean?”

  The warmth and tone of his voice had my eyelids fluttering shut and chills sweeping across my arms. I hated that he had
that effect on me.

  After a steadying breath, I forced my eyes open and turned to face him. “We’ve kissed out of anger and frustration. Those pretty much define us. But after everything that happened today, I find it convenient that you tried to put some caveman-type claim on me while also trying to forget about someone the way you just did.”

  “Everything . . . what happened today?”

  “This morning between us, what happened at Brewed, the conversation with Savannah.”

  Something like recognition and curiosity flashed in his eyes. “What conversation with Savannah?”

  “I—” I swallowed thickly, my head tilting as I tried to remember exactly what I had walked in on.

  She’d been holding Sawyer in place. He’d been vibrating with pent-up energy but had still looked so weighed down as waves of frustration and anguish rolled off him.

  “What conversation with Savannah?” he demanded.

  Oh God, she hadn’t told him. “Nothing.”

  “Rae.”

  “It really wasn’t a big deal.”

  He groaned into his hands as he raked them over his face. “She was worried you’d talked to me, and now you’re looking like this because of a conversation with her. Tell me what happened before I go down there and ask her.”

  “She’s just worried about you,” I said. “That’s all.”

  He stepped closer until the space between us was nothing more than a tease.

  Small enough he could’ve reached out and touched me.

  Large enough to remember that I was still furious with him.

  Sawyer waited until my gaze was on his before saying, “You looked away when you said that.”

  My shoulders sagged with defeat and exhaustion. “She is, Sawyer.” I tortured my lip for a moment before admitting, “She mentioned Leighton.”

  His body went eerily still as he waited for me to continue. When I didn’t, he asked, “What’d she tell you?”

  “Enough for me to realize why I kept hearing her name and to know she meant something big to you.” When his eyes unfocused so he was staring blankly ahead, I added, “But, really, nothing.”

  Pain and regret burst from him as he snapped back to the present and took a step away, head shaking as he did.

  “What happened today, Sawyer?”

  His head’s movements became more exaggerated as he took another step. When his eyes lifted to mine, the agony filling them speared me in place. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’m so damn sorry, Rae. I never should’ve—you aren’t—fuck, I’m just sorry.”

  “Who is she?” I asked when he turned to leave.

  The pain pouring from him filled the room and made my chest ache as I watched him waver with his back to me. Moments passed in weighted silence before he answered, “My world. Leighton was my world.”

  I pressed a hand to my chest in an attempt to ease the ache and twisting stab of jealousy at his response.

  I had no right to be jealous of her, I knew.

  But the knowledge that she could still affect Sawyer so deeply, that she still had such a hold on him that he would use me or anyone to forget her, hurt. I’d never experienced this with a man, and I hated that I was experiencing it all with him.

  “I won’t do this with you, Sawyer.” When he glanced over his shoulder at me, I tried to straighten my spine and hold my head high even though my gut was twisting and my head was screaming I was about to lose something crucial.

  But he wasn’t crucial to me or my life.

  He wasn’t anything other than what could’ve been a good time.

  That was all . . .

  “As I said out there, there are plenty of women waiting to be used by you. Wanting that. I might not want anything from men other than a convenient agreement, but I am always upfront about that.” I steeled my jaw when it wavered and waited to continue until I was sure my voice wouldn’t shake. “I will never be okay with being a way to forget someone. I’m not that girl.”

  Sawyer had turned to fully face me, his face twisting with grief and denial as I spoke. But minutes came and went in agonizing silence as he stared at me hopelessly, mouth slightly parted like he was trying so damn hard not to speak.

  “I have spent nearly nine years burying myself in women who meant nothing,” he murmured. “And it didn’t bother me because, honestly, not much in my life mattered at that point. I’d already hated myself before that ever began.”

  One of my hands moved to my stomach when it knotted and clenched with unease.

  I knew this.

  I’d heard this from his family and friends and in whispers around town . . . so why was it bothering me so much to hear it from him?

  Why was it bothering me to think of him with countless women—with any woman—when I’d never cared about history before?

  “At first, it was a way to numb myself to something I was sure I would carry with me forever. It turned into a reminder of what I’d done . . . a reminder of what I would never have. Then it just was because if I stopped, I was positive I would break. And I was so far past the point of being able to break.”

  “I don’t—” My head shook and I struggled to swallow past the tightness in my throat. “I don’t understand. What did you do?”

  The corners of his lips lifted in an anguish-filled smile as his eyes shifted to search mine. “I was arguing with Hunter today, and he threw these nine years in my face and said Leighton would be proud. And I felt it . . . that breaking moment.” His hands lifted before falling heavily to his sides. “Leighton’s dead, Rae.”

  Oh God.

  “She died right after my dad.” His eyes became glassy and his voice thickened with grief. “She was my world, my future, and I was the reason she died.”

  “What—no.” A handful of possible scenarios flashed through my mind, each one disappearing as quickly as it came and leaving another weighted layer of sorrow for him in my stomach. “Sawyer . . .”

  “I wanted to find someone to numb it all.”

  I recoiled at his words. At their meaning.

  Because it was clear we were no longer talking about the last nine years . . .

  Today.

  He means today.

  “I was breaking and angry and so damn confused, and I shouldn’t have thrown that on you, I know. I’m sorry. But you . . .” He started reaching for me but forced his hand to his side, a harsh breath leaving him as he did. “I’ve wanted to hate you for making me feel anything after years of nothing, and it terrifies me that you are the one person who can make me forget,” he admitted softly. “Yes, I came to you, but not to forget because I don’t want to. I came here because all I see is you. I came here because it felt like I couldn’t breathe until I was with you.”

  Stop.

  Stop, stop, stop.

  Stop falling in love with me.

  “And when you left?” His chest heaved with a ragged exhale. “My only thoughts were on you and what I had done to you and us.”

  No, no.

  There is no us. We aren’t anything. Don’t do this!

  Sawyer’s eyes searched mine as a sad laugh fell from him. “I see that panic rising up in you. I know you’re getting ready to shut me out.” He started toward me, steps slow and voice rough. “You want to act like what’s happening between us isn’t, but that’s why we keep ending up here. Like this. On the edge of destruction. Because we’re pretending and burying everything.”

  “I’m not pretending,” I cried out, gripping uselessly at my chest to keep my racing, betraying heart from escaping. “I told you what this was and what it wouldn’t be.”

  “You gave me a line that has meant something before, but you and I both know you only keep giving it to me because you’re afraid of what’s already between us.”

  My head shook wildly even as my soul screamed that he was speaking the truth. “You can’t fall—”

  “Shut up, Rae.” His gentle plea was nothing more than a breath across my lips before his mouth was on mine.<
br />
  Soft.

  Passionate.

  Claiming.

  He coaxed my mouth open to tease my tongue with his own, and my body melted into his on a sigh that got lost in the kiss. In him.

  In us.

  Every kiss different.

  Every kiss distinctly Sawyer.

  Every kiss etched on my heart in a way I couldn’t deny no matter how much I wanted to.

  I ran my hands down his stomach, feeling the hard ridges of his abdomen before slipping my fingers under the hem of his shirt. The muscles low in his stomach twitched and tensed beneath my touch and a rumble of approval built from deep in his chest. But strong fingers wrapped around my wrists to stop my movement when I grabbed at his shirt to pull it up.

  “Not today,” he said against my lips before his forehead fell to mine. “After earlier . . .”—his head listed—“I don’t deserve to have you right now.”

  I searched his eyes for a moment before brushing my mouth across his, lingering when I whispered, “I would’ve stopped you if you didn’t deserve me.” When he tried to lean into my lips and the kiss, I pulled from his grasp and stepped away.

  His stare followed me as I moved around him and continued backward, toward the bed. The raw look on his handsome face shifted to something so eager and carnal as I unbuttoned my pants and slid down the zipper that a rush of heat moved through me. Filling me and making me ache.

  I’d barely stepped out of my pants before he was stalking forward, reaching for me and pulling me close.

  We came together in a clash of rough, demanding kisses and desperate hands as we undressed each other.

  The action taking longer and longer as my fingers searched and his gripped and worshipped with each article of clothing that fell to the floor. His teeth and lips tortured my neck as he pushed us toward the bed and gently lowered me onto it, his hands moving over my breasts and dipping into my waist before greedily meeting my hips.

  As soon as his fingers were wrapped around the edges of my underwear, he stood back to watch as he slid the material down my legs and let it fall to the floor. And then everything shifted.