Only Love

by Melanie Harlow

  Although the real problem wasn’t the distance, was it? It was the fact that we wanted different things in the future. What would be the point of continuing this thing beyond Sunday? He liked me, but he liked living alone more. I was a temporary distraction. A diversion. Emme was right—harboring illusions about a future together would only lead to a broken heart.

  And I wasn’t the kind of woman who thought she could change a man. I’d never seen that kind of relationship play out successfully. Usually, she started to resent the fact that she was doing everything possible to turn him into her vision of what he should be, and he stubbornly refused to change because he didn’t want to be someone else. And he’d told her that from the start.

  No. I would not be that woman.

  I wouldn’t fall for this man, who’d told me in plain English that he didn’t date, liked living alone, and never planned to get married or have a family. Talk about setting myself up for disappointment! Nope, I would enjoy the bonus weekend of my fuck fling, look at the whole thing as a wonderfully sensual experience that upped my sex drive and self-esteem, and do my best to remain as emotionally detached as he was.

  “Hey,” he whispered, his hands squeezing my waist. “Do you want to stay the night? I was going to walk you home after we ate dessert, but now it’s pouring rain.”

  Rain? There hadn’t been any rain in the forecast. I picked up my head and listened. I didn’t hear a thing.

  “See? It’s bad out there,” he went on, rubbing his stubbled jaw against mine. “Better stay here with me.”

  I smiled. “You’re as bad as Grams, making stuff up.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m only trying to protect you by keeping you close to me.”

  The room spun. My heart threatened to burst. “Okay. I’ll stay.”

  Yep. Complete and utter emotional detachment.

  That was the key.

  Except … it’s hard to remain emotionally detached from someone when his body fits so perfectly inside yours. When his hands in your hair leave you breathless. When the weight of his chest and the thrust of his hips and the sound of his ragged breathing renders you mindless and panting, your hands clutching, your muscles tightening, your body begging for more, more, more.

  When he looks down at you and you feel his heart beating hard against yours.

  When he pulls your hair and bruises your skin and the pain feels more like pleasure.

  When he reaches the edge of his own release and holds back, determined to take you with him this time.

  Tell me, he whispers, slowing his movements to deep, long strokes, his thick cock gliding in and out of your body with ease. Tell me how to make you come like this.

  And you pull him tighter to you, tilting your hips for the angle you need, for the friction exactly where you desire it. Like this, you say, shocked at the words coming out of your mouth, but beyond shame, beyond fear, beyond fantasy. Fuck me like this.

  He understands and keeps himself buried inside you, fucking you harder and faster, the base of his cock grinding against your clit, the tip hitting the deepest reaches of your body.

  Yes, you whisper, you pant, you cry out. Yes, yes, yes, because you want this so much and he’s moving just right and he’s telling you to come on his cock and you actually feel it start to happen. One second everything inside you is twisted unbearably tight and the next you’re unraveling, the tension unspooling like ribbon, your nails digging into his skin, your sigh long and loud, your body pulsing around his in sweet, blissful relief.

  Fuck, he says, and you don’t want him to stop, ever, and he doesn’t, instead he gets rougher with you, pounding into your body with hot, deep thrusts that push you right to the limits of your strength.

  But you love it, you love it—the ache, the heat, the brutal force in his body, the surrender of yours, the guttural sound of his moan, and the unbelievable thrill of him throbbing within you. You feel close to him in a way you’ve never felt with anyone before and doubt you will again.

  So as you lie there, still wrapped in his arms, you try to distance yourself from your body. You try to stay in your head, where things make sense. You see the entire thing like a story in your mind. You remind yourself that the pleasurable afterglow of an orgasm is due to the release of oxytocin and should not be confused with genuine human emotion.

  Still … it’s hard not to feel something.

  How did he do it?

  Twenty-One

  Ryan

  I woke up the next morning at six like I always did.

  Immediately I looked over at Stella. I’d fallen asleep with her nestled against my side, but at some point she had rolled away from me. Now she was on her stomach, her hair spilling like sunlight across the plain white pillowcase. The sheet was at her waist, and I felt a tightening in my lower body at the sight of her bare back. There were marks on it. From me.

  It made me feel good in a chest-thumping kind of way, but also bad. I hadn’t meant to hurt her.

  I hadn’t meant to do a lot of things.

  Like ask her to stay.

  It’s not that I was sorry, exactly—I wanted to be with her. But I had to be careful to keep things under control. Things like her expectations. Her hopes. Her feelings.

  Mine had an on/off switch. Hers did not.

  So I decided not to reach for her like I wanted to and picked up my phone from the floor beside me instead. I had one text message, from Mack, sent at midnight last night.

  Hey. Call me.

  I frowned at the screen, wondering if I still had a job. If I called him now, he’d probably tell me, but I didn’t want to get fired over the phone. And I owed Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer an apology. Mack, too. I knew I’d let him down. Maybe if I owned my mistake and swore it wouldn’t happen again, they’d give me a second chance.

  I set my phone down and carefully got out of bed. In the shower, I continued to berate myself for what I’d done outside the inn. Yeah, that guy had been an asshole, and drunk besides, but I’d dealt with my share of inebriated dickheads in my life without losing my shit like that. I usually had a solid handle on my temper. Between that and the way I’d confessed so much to Stella and then asked her to stay over, it was like I’d been a different person last night. Fucking weird.

  But actually, I thought as I toweled off, it had felt kind of good to act on impulse that way, to break my own rules, whether it was defending myself to Fox or giving in to Stella’s charms. I’d kept everything inside so long, it was really no wonder I’d burst at the seams. But I wouldn’t make a habit of it. Two more days was fine, but after that, Stella would leave and I could go back to who I’d been before. Without her here to trigger all these strange emotional responses, it would be much easier.

  Back in my room, I put my work clothes on and debated waking her. She’d probably hate waking up alone here, but she was sleeping so soundly, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. For the briefest of moments, I watched her sleep, imagining what it would be like to have this every morning. To wake up beside her, get ready for work, kiss her goodbye, knowing that we’d come home to each other that evening, and get to do it all over again. Something warm and strong rose up inside me, pushing against the soft underbelly of my heart.

  Quickly, I left the bedroom before it could work its way in, shutting the door behind me.

  In the kitchen, I found a scrap of paper and a pen and scrawled a quick note.

  Didn’t want to wake you, had to get to work.

  Well, fuck. Now what? Thanks for last night didn’t feel quite right, although I was grateful to her. I just didn’t know how to put it into words. Thanks for sticking around after I shoved an old man? Thanks for listening to me rant? Thanks for more sex in one night than I’ve had in the last year?

  Maybe I should say something nice like I had a great time. No, that sounded stupid. Should I ask what she was doing later? Offer to take her to dinner again? See if she wanted to take a run together or something?

  In the end,
I got frustrated with my inability to come up with the right thing and left the note as it was. I put it on the floor right outside the bedroom where she’d see it and quietly let myself out the back door.

  I got halfway to the garage before turning around, going back into the house, and adding a line.

  Wish I could spend the day with you.

  I reported to Mack first thing.

  “Hey,” I said, entering his office. I was all set to apologize when I noticed he looked like shit. Wrinkled shirt, baseball cap on his head, dark shadows under his eyes.

  Fuck. Was this my fault? Had he gotten fired too?

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He took off his cap and set it on his desk. His hair was a matted mess. “No. I didn’t sleep at all.”

  I squared my shoulders. “It’s my fault. I’ll take the heat from Sawyer. You shouldn’t lose your job over my mistake.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that.”

  “What is it?”

  “Fucking Carla.”

  “What happened?”

  “She told me last night she wants to move home to Georgia and take the girls with her.”

  “What?” I sat down in one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Can she do that?”

  “No. Not without my permission. But it makes the divorce a lot more contentious and shitty for the kids.”

  “Jesus, Mack. I’m sorry.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “She’s losing her fucking mind, I swear. First this bullshit about how she knows I’m cheating on her, then all the spending, and now this.”

  “Spending?” I didn’t know many details about their split, just that things had been difficult before their last daughter was born, and Carla had begged for another baby to save the marriage.

  Mack sighed and sat back in his chair, defeated. “About two years ago, when it was clear having a baby hadn’t solved our problems, she apparently decided that buying more things online would.”

  “What did she buy?”

  “You name it, she bought it. Clothes. Jewelry. Shoes. Electronics. Furniture. Half the time she never even opened the packages. They just piled up in closets until I finally realized what she was doing.”

  “Shit,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Then there were the self-help courses. The life coaching sessions. The personal trainers. The private yoga classes. The salons.”

  “How much?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  He shook his head. “Thousands.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Nothing made her happy. And she refused to get help. She blamed me, said if I paid more attention to her, she wouldn’t have to seek happiness elsewhere. But I was wrung the fuck out. I had nothing more to give.”

  “I get it,” I said, recalling how I’d felt the same way with Brie.

  “She told me to leave, so I did, thinking some space was what we needed, but apparently that validated all her insecurities. And she’s on all these pills that her fucking whack job of a doctor gives her. She’s taking them constantly. I think she’s drinking too much, too.”

  “Christ, Mack.”

  “I tried to help, offered to take the girls full time, and she freaked out. She immediately filed for divorce, constantly badmouths me to the girls, and I’m worried they’re going to end up hating me, too.”

  “They won’t. You’re a good dad.”

  “Okay, so tell me this. Does a good dad let his kids go through a nasty, name-calling custody suit? Or does a good dad let his kids move out of state with their unstable mother?”

  My stomach tightened. I felt sick for Mack and wished I had something helpful to say, like Stella would have. “I don’t know, dude. That’s a fucked-up situation. What does your gut say?”

  “My gut says not to let them go. They’re my children.”

  “Then don’t,” I said firmly. “Fight for them.”

  He nodded, his eyes closing. “I’m so fucking tired.”

  “Can you go home and sleep?”

  “Maybe later.” His eyes opened. “I heard there was an issue here last night.”

  I swallowed hard. What an asshole I was, getting into an altercation with a guest. Mack had enough shit to deal with. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “What happened?”

  I took a deep breath and told Mack what had gone down.

  “Jesus, Woods.”

  I frowned at my feet. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re lucky Sawyer hates that guy, too.”

  I looked up, surprised. “He does?”

  A hint of a grin was on Mack’s face. “Yeah. Said he’s wanted to shove that pompous dickhead himself plenty of times.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. But that can’t happen again.” Mack’s tone told me he meant it.

  “I know. I promise it won’t.”

  “Good. That’s what I told Sawyer.”

  I pressed my lips together. “Sorry you had to deal with that in the middle of all your family shit.”

  He shrugged. “There’s always something. Now tell me about the girl. I hope the rest of your night was better than mine.”

  “Uh, yeah. It was good.” My whole body warmed just thinking about it.

  “How good?”

  I nodded slowly three times. “Really. Fucking. Good.”

  He groaned. “I hate you. Get the fuck out of here.”

  Smiling, I rose to my feet. “What can I do so that you can go home and get some rest?”

  He sighed, sticking the cap on his head again. “Check in with DeSantis. I can’t even think.”

  “Will do.” I stood up. “Hey, you hear from Bones this week?”

  “Here and there. The photos and whatnot.”

  “I’m kinda worried about him.”

  Mack frowned. “I’ll see if I can reach him.”

  “You’ve got enough on your plate. I’ll give him a call. Maybe he just needs to talk to one of us.” I made it to the doorway before turning around. “Hey, Mack?”

  He looked up at me.

  “I’m sorry about all this. I can’t say I know what you’re going through since I never had kids, but I did lose my mom as a teenager, and it sucked.”

  His face registered surprise. “I never knew that about you.”

  “I never tell anybody. What’s the point?”

  “The point is to let someone actually know you, Woods.” His expression turned sardonic. “Then again, who’d want to do that?”

  I gave him the finger and took off down the hall, a smile on my face. I even said good morning to Frannie on my way out.

  Who the hell was I today?

  Twenty-Two

  Stella

  Didn’t want to wake you, had to get to work.

  Wish I could spend the day with you.

  I read the note again, feeling heat rush to my face. I missed him already. How was that possible?

  Listen. Just because his dick was the first attached to an actual human to give you an orgasm doesn’t mean bells are ringing. Don’t get carried away.

  Right.

  I left the note on the kitchen counter without writing anything back. Making sure the front door was locked behind me, I walked down the porch steps, across the lawn to Grams’s house, my arms folded over my chest. It was chilly this morning.

  Grams’s front door was still unlocked. It was only about seven-thirty, so I was hoping she was still asleep and I’d be able to scoot right up to my room without seeing her. Nobody wants to encounter their grandmother on a Walk of Shame. I entered the house and turned around to silently close the door.

  “Well, good morning, dear!”

  I whirled about, a hand on my chest. “Oh!”

  Grams smiled. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Were you out on a run?” She lifted a cup of coffee to her lips.

  “Um, no.” Was she kidding? Self-consciously I tucked my bedhead hair behind my ears. I’d glanced in the bathroom mirror at Ryan’s house, so I knew my masc
ara was smudged around my eyes and my clothing was terribly wrinkled. When I looked down, I noticed that I’d buttoned my blouse wrong. Crap. There was no way to fix it now.

  “Cup of coffee, dear?”

  “Oh. Okay. Sure.” What I really wanted was to lie on my bed and stare into space while I thought about last night, but coffee was good too.

  Grams turned around and walked toward the kitchen, and I frantically rebuttoned my shirt as I followed her.

  “Here you are.” She handed me a cup full of steaming black coffee.

  “Thanks.” I sat down at the kitchen table and glanced down. My blouse was still buttoned wrong. Where the hell was my brain?

  “Did you have a nice time last night?” Grams asked, sitting across from me. Her eyes lingered on my screwed-up shirt.

  I sighed. Oh well. “Yes.”

  “How did you like the inn?”

  “It’s very nice. The food was wonderful.”

  Silence. Grams sipped her coffee and I sipped mine.

  “What time do you think you’ll drive back today?” she asked, her tone way too innocent.

  I cleared my throat. “Actually, I might stay through the weekend.”

  “Oh? I thought you couldn’t stay for the weekend.”

  “If it’s okay with you, I will.”

  “Why, of course it is. Don’t be silly, darling. You can stay forever if you’d like.”

  I smiled. “Can’t stay forever, but maybe a couple more days.”

  She reached over and patted my hand. “I’ll take what I can get. Maybe Mr. Woods would like to join us for dinner here tonight?”

  “Maybe. I can ask him, if I see him.”

  Grams laughed. “Well, why wouldn’t you see him? Aren’t you two an item now?”

  An item. I almost laughed. “No, Grams, we’re not. We’re just friends.”

  “Friends!” she repeated, like the word was distasteful to her. “I don’t understand. I thought you and he …” She twirled one hand around as if it held a sparkler.