His words sting. They feel hurtful on purpose, leaving me wondering what I ever did to him.
Other than leave him behind.
“Like I said, Luke. This is my home. I’ll always want to come back here.”
“Yeah, well, that’s fine. . . until you don’t want to come back here anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” He gives me a half-cocked smirk that owns every part of me before he moves down the length of the bar top where a trio of college-age girls giggle and bat their lashes at him while he takes their order.
Jealousy flares.
Even more so when he glances my way and knows that I see him flirting with them.
That could have been me. Still in school, still coming here and hanging on every one of Luke’s words, and passing up the once in a lifetime opportunity.
But I couldn’t. Dreams are there to chase for a reason.
Too bad I had hoped he’d chase them with me.
* * *
When I look up, there is a group of women with sorority sweatshirts on, talking to Saint. I do a double take, startled by the sight and the similarity to what I was just writing.
I stare for a beat and my breath catches when Saint looks my way and smiles. “You good?” he mouths the words.
I nod quickly in response before averting my eyes back to my screen, embarrassed as if he knows I’m writing about him.
But a slow smile slides onto my lips as I realize I’m writing. Actually writing.
How did I not see this plot all along? How did I not realize how Luke was pushing Sophie away because he knew with one word from him, she’d stay in that Podunk town and never chase her dreams? How did I not see that he truly believed in her and her talent and was simply doing what was best for her? How did I not understand he was hurting her so she wouldn’t blame him later for it?
And more than anything, how did I not see that he’s smiling through the pain because he still truly loves her?
The adrenaline hits. It’s been months since I’ve felt the high of finally understanding my story and wanting to write like the wind. Of worrying that I won’t be able to type as fast as my thoughts fly.
So simple, and yet it felt like I was trying to prove Einstein's Theory of General Relativity over the past few months.
I mumble thanks to Vix when she slides my plate of food next to me, but don’t look away from the screen as I build the scene. One word upon another until the sexual tension is so thick the reader will all but beg for it to be broken.
* * *
“What’s your problem, Luke?” I ask as he strides past me. The air is full of sounds and thick with the scents of the annual town carnival. The same carnival we shared our first kiss five years ago. “Hey. I’m talking to you,” I shout after him, but he keeps walking as if he can’t hear me. As if he doesn’t care and that hurts even worse.
It’s been a week since I’ve been back, and if there’s a way for him to avoid me, he’s made sure to find it
I should take the hint that we really are over. I should let go of the hope I’ve been holding close to my heart. And yet, I keep remembering the way he looked at me in the bar that first night back to town.
I know he still loves me.
Without giving it a second thought, I jog after him behind the Main Street Feed Store.
“Luke. Luke!” I shout until he stops and turns to face me. The muscle in his jaw twitches as the moonlight washes over his face and my heart falls to the ground.
Tears threaten, but I force myself to push them away.
“Why do you hate me?” I ask him, my voice so very quiet.
“I don’t hate you. I never have.” He takes a step toward me.
“Then why can’t you just be happy for me? Why can’t you be nice?” I all but beg and hate the desperation in my voice.
“I am being nice.”
“That’s bullshit. You’ve done everything you can to push me away or avoid me over the past week. You’ve purposefully—”
I go to grab his arm as he strides past me, and before I can process one heartbeat to the next, Luke has me spun around and pinned to the wall of the building behind me. His hands tighten on my wrists as he stares at me in a frustrated anger I’ve never seen from him before.
“Don’t push me, Sophie,” he grits out.
Those words urge me to do just that as I try to yank my wrists from his grip. “Why? Why not, huh?”
“Because this town, this place, it’s not what’s best for you. You don’t belong here anymore. We don’t want you here anymore.”
I hiccup over a sob as his words tear through me and break my heart all over again. “Luke. Please.” The first tear slips down my cheek, and I hate myself for it. “Why can’t we at least be friends? Why can’t—”
“Because, as you said, old habits die hard.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
There is a moment where I feel like the world fades away. Where it feels like the Ferris wheel stops turning, the crowd stops making noise, and my lungs stop breathing.
Luke releases my wrists and slides a hand to my throat, where he places it just short of its hollow, his thumb brushing back and forth over my collarbone. His eyes flicker to my lips and then back to my eyes as a whole host of confusing emotions rage within their blue depths.
“Christ,” he mutters, seconds before his lips crash against mine.
Moments before everything that’s been wrong with my world suddenly rights itself.
From the taste of his kiss. The feel of his lips. The swell of my heart.
The feeling like I’m home.
* * *
I jolt when someone blows a noisemaker across the room from me seconds before everyone joins in singing “Happy Birthday” to Ed. Whoever Ed is.
That’s my cue for a break.
Chapter 6
Harley
I shake my head as I leave the bathroom. It shouldn’t surprise me that it’s all decked out in Christmas décor as well.
It’s par for the course in this weirdly fascinating town.
I take my time heading back to my table that Vix said she’d watch for me and check out the black and white pictures lining the walls. And I was right. They’re all pictures of Saint Nick’s Hollow during various decades.
Despite the growth that’s documented from one picture to the next, one thing is still the same: the town’s obsession with Christmas and the holidays.
It’s kind of cool.
I shake my head and chuckle. There is something definitely wrong with me if that thought is crossing my mind.
With a quick glance behind the bar as I make my way back to my seat, I’m more than disappointed when Saint’s nowhere in sight.
I tell myself my disappointment stems from the fact that he—the flirting with him—is what helped to get my creativity going, but I know the truth.
Saint makes me feel good. He looks at me in a way my ex never did. Like I’m beautiful and desired, and there is no shame in wanting to be looked at like that again.
When I reach my table, I’m surprised to see Saint leaned back in my booth, arms crossed over his chest, and one eyebrow lifted as he studies me.
I stand there for a beat until I notice that my laptop is open with my screen lit up as if someone—meaning Saint—was just looking at what I was writing. Without asking, I snap the lid of it closed and question myself over whether I left it open or if he opened it and snooped.
Either way, I round on him and his blasé expression, annoyed as hell, wondering how much of an ass I’ll look like when I accuse him and he says he didn’t.
“You left it open,” he says, answering my question for him, but I don’t know if I believe him.
“That wasn’t an invitation for you to help yourself to its content.”
He twists his lips and continues to stare at me with those inquisitive eyes. “Why are you embarrassed about what you write?”
/> “I’m not.”
“Hostility. It’s always welcome from a gorgeous woman.” He winks, and I hate that I want to smile at his ridiculous statement.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Do you always make it a habit to apologize to men you’ve just met?”
“No. I don’t.”
You just fluster me when I’m not a woman who gets flustered easily, so I don’t know how to handle it.
“So why are you embarrassed that you write romance?” he asks again and earns a snort from me.
“I told you I’m not.”
It’s his turn to chuckle. “I hear what your lips are saying, Harley, but everything else about you—the way you look around every time I say the word ‘romance’ as if you don’t want anyone to hear me. The way you keep glancing at your computer. How you keep chewing the inside of your cheek. I mean, I’ve gotta admit, those things tell me the exact opposite.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Romance is that genre so many people read but most deny reading. It’s the taboo one that’s labeled as smut or mindless reading and often looked down upon by people in publishing as well as readers in general,” I explain and expect him to nod in agreement.
“And?”
“And?” I repeat.
“Yeah, and? From the looks of your bio, you’re wildly successful. That means you have a following of people—probably the majority of them women. They use your books to escape the daily grind—kids, work, husbands who take them for granted. Who cares what the non-romance readers think? Who cares about the naysayers who think what you write is smut? In the end, aren’t you the one getting the last laugh?”
I stare at Saint, blinking my eyes as if I’m trying to make sure he’s really real and he actually just said that. Things only other romance authors say and not something the public openly admits.
“Wow.” I open my mouth, then close it, uncertain how to respond, and then open it again because he deserves something for putting into words how I feel. “I’m not even sure what to say.”
“Say, ‘You’re right, Saint.’” His grin is more a cocky smirk than a smile. “I never get tired of hearing that.”
“Jesus.” I roll my eyes, plant my hands firmly on my hips, and give a shake of my head. “That’s not exactly the thought that came to mind. Seriously though, why would you say that?”
He shrugs as he rises from the booth. “I may have read a romance or two in my day.”
“You?” I cough the word out.
“Me.”
“I doubt it.” I go to move past him into the alcove where my booth is, and he catches me completely off guard when he grabs my arm. In a split second, he spins me so that my back is against the wall and his body is intimately close to mine.
Every fiber of my being stands at attention as our eyes meet, and the warmth of his body radiates against mine.
My heart stutters.
My head swims.
His nearness overwhelms me in every deliciously incredible way possible.
He runs the back of his hand down the side of my cheek before turning it to frame the side of my face with his other one.
And as my breath hitches and my senses take a momentary hiatus, Saint leans forward and brushes his lips against mine. For a split second, my whole body freezes, but when his hands direct my chin up, and his lips come back for a second one, I do the only reasonable thing I can think of—I kiss him back.
My hands fist in the waist of his shirt as his tongue coaxes my lips open. He tastes of mint and desire, and I can’t remember the last time I sampled such an intoxicating combination.
It feels like the world fades away as I sag into him and allow myself to enjoy the moment.
His kiss is demanding yet attentive. Soft yet hungry. Fleeting but all-consuming.
It’s his hands on my face, the heat of his body ghosting mine, and the soft hum of appreciation in the back of his throat, that hits my senses and brands them into my memory.
And when he ends the kiss and takes a step back with a devilish grin, there is raucous applause interspersed with a few whistles and shouts of encouragement that sound off from the crowd in the bar.
The world didn’t fade away.
I was wrong in having that fleeting thought.
Instead, they stopped and stared and watched Saint kiss me deftly.
I want to cover my face in embarrassment as it hits me that our little public display of affection just held everyone’s attention.
“Hey, Humbug,” Saint says, drawing my attention back to him.
Just meeting his eyes again has chills chasing over my skin and the urge to taste his kiss front and center. “Yeah?”
“That right there? That’s what Luke needs to do to Sophie. That is what women like. What you claimed to have wanted.” He winks as I stand there, trying to make sure I heard him properly for the second time in as many minutes. “I need to get back to work.”
“You read the work on my screen.” The words come out in a flustered stutter.
“I did. I liked it. I just wanted to make sure you knew where I thought their story needed to go . . . being an avid romance reader and all.”
“Where my story needs to go?”
How can we be talking about Luke and Sophie when all I can think about is how I want him to kiss me again?
“Yes. From what I read, you’ve created the tension . . . now the two of them need a little release.” He takes a step back toward me and lowers his voice. “He needs to kiss her like I just did you. You don’t state it, but the readers know he misses her like crazy. They know he’s the good guy in the story because he’s not holding her back from chasing her dreams. Now he needs to give in to that desperation he feels every time he looks at her and kiss her senseless . . . just like I did you.”
I must look like a guppy as I stare at him, gobsmacked by his comment. “I don’t . . .” know what to say or how you inferred all that by the small portion you could have read in the limited time you were able to read.
“You can say it now,” he says as he runs a hand over his jaw and fights his smirk.
“Say what?”
“Yes. You’re right, Saint.”
I glare at him, but it’s hard to be truly angry when everything he said is one hundred percent true. Yes, it’s that time in my story where Luke and Sophie need to kiss and have angry makeup sex. Yes, I will picture him when I write it.
Yes, I want him to kiss me again.
“What was that?” he asks, holding a hand to his ear and drawing more glances from his patrons. “It’s okay, it’s hard for me to admit I’m wrong too, but I’ll take that kiss of yours as evidence that I’m right.”
He flashes one more grin and then heads toward the bar without another word. Another round of applause sounds off as he takes a mock bow once he’s behind the bar, but his eyes find mine one last time, and they’re definitely not mocking me.
They’re laden with desire and hint that he wants more too.
I force myself to look away and sit back down at my laptop, my story that suddenly has legs to it, and my mind fixated on what just happened.
And on Saint.
How can it not be?
“Fine, you win,” I mutter. “Yes. You’re right, Saint.”
Chapter 7
Harley
He’s distracting.
Plain and simple.
Sure, I’ve written almost four thousand words while sitting here—which is an insane amount—but I know it could be a ton more. How? Because every time I hear his voice just above the fray of noise, I stop and look up. Then I proceed to get lost in staring at him for the next few minutes.
The way he throws his head back and laughs heartily with the guys. How he leans on his forearms and dips his head down to have a conversation with someone at the bar. His undivided attention seeming to make the person he’s speaking with feel like they are the only person in the room. All w
hile keeping an eye on every table and directing Vix and a few other servers at times.
Not to mention the few winks he’s thrown my way, followed soon after by a fresh glass of wine.
Winks, mind you, that have me daydreaming about things that can only be described as not safe for work.
Infatuation much, Harley?
With a deep breath, I return to Sophie and Luke and how they’re supposed to be getting it on when Vix stops right in front of me and stares.
I glance up to meet her eyes. “Yes?”
Her grin is wide and playful. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Then why are you staring at me?”
“Because Saint told me who you were and, holy shit, I can’t believe you’re you. You’re her. Do you have any idea how hard I fell for Giovanni and Drea in Heart’s Fall?” she asks.
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you.” She stares at me for a beat longer before shaking her head in my awkwardness at being recognized. “I’m sorry. That probably makes you feel all kinds of awkward. I’ll go now.”
“No. You’re fine. Compliments unnerve me and to add to it, I think I’m just really tired.” I offer a smile and then startle when I glance at the clock on my computer and see that it’s almost two in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I stayed up this late writing without feeling like my brain was being squeezed in a vise.
“It’s really that late. You’ve been working hard over here for a few hours.”
“I guess I have. Wow.” I close my notebook. “Thank you so much for tending to me all night. When you get a moment, can I get my check?”
She waves a hand at me. “Saint said it’s on the house.”
I glance over her shoulder to where Saint has his arm around a man and is having what appears to be a rather serious conversation.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s what he says, and since he’s the boss”—she shrugs— “what he says goes.”
'Tis the Season for Romance Page 14
