Her head shifted in a little nod, her lips parted and pouty and so damn tempting.
I stepped back, inclining my head toward the bed. “That’s where I’m going if you wanna come with me.”
“Yes,” she said on a breathless laugh. “Please.”
I shrugged out of my shirt as she watched, all restrained, nervous excitement that shifted to need as her eyes dragged over my chest.
“That’s going to make sleeping difficult,” she murmured.
My comeback caught in my throat when she lifted the oversized sweatshirt, revealing an old Van Halen shirt. Thing so ragged and worn that it was barely clinging to one of her shoulders. Showing the tops of her bare breasts and the path I had taken across her collarbone and down her chest so many times the night before.
Girl was gonna be the death of me.
“You don’t play nice.”
Her eyes went wide at the low growl, her stare darting to her chest before dragging back to me. After a moment, she pulled her lower lip into her mouth in an attempt to hide her smirk.
“Put your shirt on, I’ll put my sweatshirt back on.”
I pulled the comforter back in response.
That veiled smirk broke into a breathtaking smile as she climbed onto the bed and slipped under the covers, automatically sliding closer to me when I turned off the lamp and did the same.
“You’ve been gone a long time if you think this isn’t playing nice,” she mumbled when I curled an arm around her back and tugged her against me. A soft, contented hum sounding in her throat when I pressed my knee between her legs.
Fitting against each other seamlessly.
“I’ve noticed.” Desire raced across my skin as I thought back through the days and nights of her driving me crazy with her exposed stomach and outfits that barely covered her ass. “About bring me to my knees every time I see you.”
Her eyes searched mine, disbelief and hope clashing and swirling there.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s some outfit that makes me want to take you to the nearest empty room, the massive sweatshirt that about swallowed you whole, or if you’re completely bared to me,” I whispered, tightening my grip on her. “Bring me to my knees.”
A stuttered exhale tumbled from her lips, and the hand that had been pressed between our chests trailed up until her fingers were gently curled around my jaw. “If you expect to just talk and sleep, you’re gonna have to stop saying things like that to me.”
I ghosted my mouth across hers before settling on the pillow and pulling her even closer, needing her there.
With me.
Against me.
Real.
“Sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”
But as soon as I closed my eyes, I felt her hesitation and worries crawling across my skin like a disease, prompting me to look at her again.
“Emberly,” I said softly, soothingly. Her name both a question and an assurance that I was there.
That she could tell me whatever was plaguing her mind.
“I thought you’d left,” she whispered after a moment, shame and grief gripping the words tight. “It was like you’d tried to erase our night, and I just—”
Her eyes finally opened, pain forming a crease between her brows.
She was looking at me as if begging me to understand.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said when she didn’t try to continue. “I was holding you but I kept thinking if I closed my eyes, I was gonna wake up in Beaumont. So, I just held you instead.”
“You could’ve woken me.”
A soft sound of amusement built in my chest. “You’d passed out so damn fast and you needed it. Then I started thinking about what would happen when you woke—if you would need to run straight to Brewed. I wanted to make it so everything would be ready for you when you did.”
“You cleaned up,” she said, the words so hushed they were nearly inaudible. A smile abruptly stole across her face. “And charged my phone.”
“Three percent battery. I’m starting to wonder if you know what a charger is.”
“I like living on the edge,” she said sarcastically, that soft giggle sounding in her throat when I rolled my eyes.
“Love that sound,” I murmured.
All amusement melted away to wonder and adoration as she studied me, the tips of her fingers tracing my jaw and weaving into my hair.
The words she wasn’t saying written clearly across her face.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
God, how had I missed this?
“I think I would’ve waited forever for you to come back.”
My forehead fell to hers at her hushed confession.
Pain and regret and relief filling me.
Capturing her mouth with my own, I poured everything into that kiss for a few precious seconds before pulling away. Trailing my thumb across her bottom lip as I studied her. “Don’t deserve you.”
I don’t know who moved first or if we came together at the same time. A frenzy of claiming kisses and searching hands. Nipping teeth and teasing tongues.
Her stuttered breaths and muted whimpers fueling my need for her as I removed her pants and underwear and pulled her on top of me.
“We’ll talk,” she said between kisses, assuring me as she reached between our bodies and grabbed for the band of my pants.
“After.”
“After,” she agreed as she freed my cock.
A growl rumbled deep within my chest as she gripped it in her hands. Her mouth twitching into a smile against the kiss before she was driving me insane again with her tongue and those goddamn lips I’d spent years dreaming about.
My fingers curled around her hips as she guided me to her slick folds already soaked with need, making my eyes roll back because I needed her—needed this—in a way I’d never needed anyone.
“Fuck, Emberly.”
She rocked against me again and again, her breaths coming sharper and more uneven until she was trembling and slowly sinking onto me. Gripping me. Gasping as she stretched around me.
Fucking heaven.
Her forehead pressed firmly to mine. Her chest hitching when she’d taken me fully.
Then she started moving, and I was gripping her tighter, forcing myself to let her control this when I was dying to drive into her harder, faster. Control the slow movements that were the best kind of torture. The way her hips rolled as she pressed her hands to my chest and pushed herself up so she was staring down at me, looking like a goddamn dream.
Hair falling wildly around us.
Bottom lip secured tightly between her teeth.
Eyelids heavy with lust.
I released my hold on her hips to slip my hands beneath the shirt she was still wearing, palming her breasts and teasing her hardened nipples.
Each pinch had a gasp ripping from her and filling the room.
Each one had her moving faster than before, rocking harder and harder against me until she was murmuring breathy pleas. Fingers curling against my bare chest, nails biting into the skin.
I sat up and crushed my mouth to hers, rolling us until the positions were reversed.
Until one of her legs was wrapped around my back, and I was moving inside her. Fucking her harder still until my name was tumbling from her lips and getting lost in her moans and our kiss.
Until I was lost.
In her. In this moment.
Claiming her the way she’d claimed me so damn long ago.
Been lost in this girl forever.
I buried my head into her neck to muffle my groan as I found my release, my arms and back trembling from everything that was her and this as I kept myself above her until I was spent.
I love you.
I love you.
I’ve always loved you.
Pressing my mouth to her shoulder, I started easing out of her only to pause. “I’m not wearing a condom.”
“I know,” she said breathlessly.
Pain
burst through me before I was able to force it back, my throat tightening for a long moment. “Emberly, I—”
“We’re okay,” she said confidently. “Promise.”
I didn’t question it. I wasn’t sure I could without thinking about how all the reasons why revolved around Kip. And that was a road I didn’t want to go down. Not then.
“Starting now,” she said suddenly.
I leaned back to look into her satisfied and amused expression, doubt weaving through me. “What?”
“We agreed to hold off until we talked.” She gave a little dip of her head and offered me a mischievous smile. “We’ll hold off. Starting now.”
I fought my own smile as I rolled to the side, pulling her with me. “Starting now,” I conceded. “For now, sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”
She burrowed deeper into my arms, but it was instant.
That hesitation.
That worry.
Like a goddamn disease. Exactly why we needed to slow down.
I curled my arms tighter around her and released a calming breath. “I’m here.”
Cayson and I were wrapped up in each other when I woke. Twisted legs and my hair tangled around his fingers.
Wasn’t sure there was anything that could’ve made a moment more perfect.
And then he opened his eyes.
Sun-lit sea and burning desire as he studied me, never uttering a word. His free hand tracing across my cheekbone before making a faint path down my throat and over the curves of my body.
Making me ache in the purest of ways.
“Knees,” he whispered, voice hoarse from sleeping.
Confusion whipped through me until his words from before we’d fallen asleep echoed in my mind like a beautiful, haunting melody.
“You’re lying down,” I informed him with a little smirk.
His head moved, just enough of a slant to let me know that it didn’t matter. “To my knees.”
How was it possible there was more of my heart left for him to steal?
I pressed my head into the crook of his neck to hide the overwhelming emotions threatening to burst from me. Breathing him in and savoring this for the few moments we had left.
His warmth and strength. His gentle touch and adoring words.
Being wrapped up in him—all bourbon and sandalwood.
“How much longer do I have you?” he asked, sensing my thoughts.
I sucked in an indecisive breath as I glanced behind me to the vintage clock I’d bought for this room when I first started staying over, biting on my lip as I thought.
Wavered.
“I have to go,” I said as I turned back to him.
I wanted this.
I wanted to stay in this bed and this moment with Cayson Dixon forever.
But I couldn’t. It was almost six. I’d already missed helping my employees open up the store.
Not that I needed to be there, that’s why we’d promoted Jennifer to manager. But Brewed was my baby. My everything.
“I wasn’t there at all yesterday—not in a helpful way anyway,” I began, trying to explain. But he just brushed a thumb over my bottom lip to stop the rambling, head shaking a little.
“I’m here.”
That was it. Two words.
But it had a breath heaving from me in gratitude and relief and hope.
“Thank you.” I reluctantly untangled myself from him and the sheets. Once I was on my knees, I pressed a quick kiss to his lips and whispered, “Wait one second.”
Darting across the room to where I’d left my bag, I dug through its contents until I found my phone. With it in hand, I crawled to where Cayson was propped up against the headboard and straddled his lap.
The groan that built in his chest had chills skating across my skin.
The way his eyes darkened had me longing to lower myself. To see how far that restraint would go until we snapped . . . again.
But I just held his stare as I unlocked my phone and put it on speaker once the call to Kip was going through.
“Emberly.” My name was filled with relief when Kip answered, and it made me feel even worse knowing what I’d unintentionally led him to believe.
“Can we talk?”
“Yes,” he said on a laugh that was edged with frustration. “Yes, that’s all I’ve wanted for . . . God, months.”
“After everything that happened yesterday, everything that was said and the confusion, I need to make sure you know where I stand,” I said gently. “It isn’t just that I don’t want a relationship or a future with you . . . Kip, whatever we were doing needs to end too. Completely.”
There was a beat of silence before he released a sigh. “God, these damn shields of yours.”
“This isn’t a shield,” I argued.
“You found out,” he continued before I could. “About the ring . . . right? That’s what this call is about?”
“No—I mean, yes, I found out about it. But that isn’t the reason I’m calling. I need to know you heard me. That you finally understood me.”
“Never once have you called to reiterate something until now, until you knew I’d gotten a ring for you. I know your shields, Em, I see them. I see this one like a neon sign in the dark.”
I lifted one of my hands near my temple, my fingers curling into a loose fist as a sound of exasperation fled from me.
Cayson slid his hand around mine.
Grounding and calming me.
Reminding me he was there.
“This is why you thought something was happening that wasn’t,” I said, tone hard and firm. “This is why you think we haven’t talked. Because you’re refusing to listen. Because you’re only hearing what you want.”
“Babe . . .”
Cayson’s eyes snapped to the phone and narrowed.
“I told you why we were doing anything at all—why I needed casual.” I studied Cayson as my voice trembled.
I hadn’t told him this part of my conversation with Kip . . . not that it mattered, I’d more or less ended up telling him the same thing. Still, baring myself a second time wasn’t any easier than the first.
“I told you I’ve avoided relationships because someone took my heart a long time ago. That no one has touched it since.”
“Yeah, I heard you,” Kip said irritably, his tone clearly saying he hadn’t believed me.
Cayson’s eyes were on me again, swirling and saying a dozen things I couldn’t seem to grasp.
But the way he was gripping me as if he wouldn’t ever let me go? I understood that.
“It’s Cayson Dixon,” I told Kip softly. “Even if he’d never come back, I still couldn’t be with you. Even if he hadn’t, we would’ve had to end because you think we’re something I refuse to be.”
There was a long pause before Kip released a hard laugh that ended on a sigh. “This is—fuck, this is just getting sad now. Using that piece of shit just because he happened back into town only shows how desperately you’re reaching for a shield.”
My lips parted as anger simmered in my veins and jumbled my racing thoughts.
“You’re scared. Got it. Already told you we’d slow it down. I didn’t shove the ring on your finger yesterday, and I won’t do it anytime soon.”
“At all,” I snapped. “Ever. I don’t want a ring from you. I don’t want anything from you. Understand that we’re done.”
The next laugh that came through the phone was edgy and aggravated. “Yeah, okay, babe. Whatever you need to tell yourself.”
A cry of frustration scraped up my throat. “Kip, listen—”
“I’m at the yard. We’ll talk in a few days.”
I just sat there, staring at my screen in stunned irritation for a few moments. I’d done that the first night he brought up getting married too.
When I finally glanced at Cayson, I was shocked to see that, behind his anger, he didn’t look surprised.
“All right then,” he muttered.
“It’s been like that for months,” I e
xplained. “Every conversation.”
One of his brows ticked up in acknowledgment, but I could see what he wasn’t saying in the creases of his face. Could practically hear it shouted in the silence that followed.
But you were still sleeping with him.
Except, I wasn’t.
“I haven’t been—we haven’t done anything in . . .” My head moved in quick jerks as I swallowed past the tightness in my throat, trying to respond to his unspoken doubts. “I don’t even know, seven . . . eight months? The first night he mentioned anything about us and a future and marriage, he’d only been at my place for a couple minutes before having to leave. Obviously, nothing happened then. But he called me when he left, saying he would marry me the next time he saw me. I freaked out. You can ask Sawyer, he had to deal with me the next day.”
Something dark passed over Cayson’s expression, but he remained silent, waiting for me to continue.
“The next time I saw him was the night before you came back, but we didn’t do anything then either. I mean, he kissed me, but—you don’t need to know that,” I said quickly and rubbed a hand over my face as I reiterated, “We didn’t do anything. He wanted to talk about our future because that’s all he wants to do anymore, and then I swear he started saying things that made me think he was trying to marry us right then.”
Cayson’s dark brows slammed down, making him look so, so angry. “What do you mean?”
I sucked in a deep breath as I thought back to that night. It was only a week ago, but it felt like a lifetime with everything that had happened since then. “He was telling me what he wanted and laughing every time I said I didn’t want that—that I wanted to keep it casual. He always laughed it off.”
Cayson’s jaw twitched at that.
“Then he said something about how he’s always been there when I needed him and vice versa, ‘Like for better or worse, right, babe?’” I said, trying to imitate Kip’s voice even when I continued. “‘For richer or poorer . . . we’ve already been on both ends of that.’”
A shiver that left me feeling all kinds of gross crept through me.
“When he got to the sickness and in health part, I froze. I mean, it was just us in my living room. No priest or anything. But it felt weird and sleazy and like he—well, like he was trying to marry us. When he continued, I shouted that I was gonna throw up and made him leave.”
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 23
