Seduced by Moonlight

by Carly Keene

  “Good evening,” he says in that deep voice I like so much. “I swear I’m not stalking you. It’s just that this is pretty much the only dinner place in town except the hotel, at least until summer comes and the Dairy Princess opens up to serve the tourist trade.” To the bartender, he says, “Hey, Micah.”

  “Hey, Mason. What can I getcha?”

  “Barbecue sandwich with cole slaw and a Moonlight.”

  “Comin’ up.”

  I stare at the beer in my glass, suddenly shy about where to put my eyes lest I embarrass myself staring at Mason Peters’s massive, sexy forearms. “I got one of those too. It’s really well-done.”

  “Micah does a good job with his ales.”

  “That’s nice,” I say inanely.

  “I thought you had to work tonight,” he says, regarding me with those deep blue eyes.

  “Oh, I do. It just took me longer than I thought to get done at the site.”

  He nods, and I find myself staring at his hands, which are strong, with long fingers and the occasional light scarring that shows he’s a working man. No ring. I’d assumed he was single when he asked me out, but it’s nice to see no indication of being married. “Yeah, I swung by my grandmother’s house to have another look at her push-button switches and pick up my granddad’s tool box. I think he’s got something in there that can handle the pipe-and-tube without smashing those ceramic insulators.”

  “I thought all the old stuff was coming out,” I say, feeling heat spread through my body and center in my ladyparts.

  I should not stare at the hands of beautiful men, especially not while listening to deep bass voices speak. It does things to me.

  “Oh, it’s comin’ out. It’d just be a shame to tear up historic wiring in good shape, interesting as it is.”

  Micah the bartender brings me a hamburger so perfect that I would hesitate to eat it, except that I’m starving. I start on the onion rings, closing my eyes in ecstasy at the first bite.

  “Nora does make good onion rings,” Mason says, and there’s something odd in his voice that makes my eyes pop open and stare at him. He stares back. I forget to chew, looking at the little sparkles in his irises. I can’t stop looking at him, but he doesn’t look away either. Only the arrival of Mason’s beer startles us out of the strange moment.

  God, he’s beautiful.

  To cover my unsettled feelings and the desire dampening my panties, I dive into my burger, and it’s so good that I can’t help making a little sound of pleasure. Mason shifts on his stool and clears his throat. “Sounds like you’re enjoying that.”

  I nod, mm-hmming through my gigantic bite.

  “Good to see a lady appreciate her food,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “My sisters were always complaining about getting taken out for dinner and feeling like they had to stick to a salad.”

  I nod again. What woman doesn’t feel like that? And what is it about us feeling like we should take up less space? Or not asking for what we want, for fear that some guy will think we’re bossy/fat/selfish?

  I’m suddenly glad I’m eating a burger in front of this gorgeous man, because he’s got eyes. I’m a big girl — I’m me. I shouldn’t have to hide it, no matter how hot he is.

  I finish my bite. “So. You’re local. Did you grow up here?”

  He leans on the bar and cracks open his beer. “Oh yeah. Next town over, actually, but there’s only one high school in the county, so we all know each other.”

  I lick some mayonnaise off my thumb and watch him shift on his stool again. “Sisters?”

  “Two older. Both married now, and I got three little rugrats callin’ me Uncle Mason.” He smiles. “I love it. You?”

  “One younger sister. She’s in college now.”

  “And you’re from Cleveland?”

  “I work in Cleveland, but I’m from a small town in Ohio. I like small towns.”

  “It don’t get much smaller than this,” Mason says a little ruefully, but he shrugs. “But it’s home.”

  “It’s nice here.”

  We talk more while we eat. He offers me a bite of his barbecue sandwich. Feeling reckless, I take it. It’s delicious, smoky-sweet tender pork sparked by the tangy, vinegary cole slaw, on a big buttery bun. I nearly moan again, except that I don’t want to sound like a porn star. It’s only when I realize that it’s already past nine p.m. and I haven’t started my report for the regional office yet that I come out of the dream that is spending time with this man.

  “I’m Cinderella at the ball,” I say with regret. “I really need to go work now. Thanks for having dinner with me.”

  “I enjoyed it,” he says solemnly, and when the bartender lays my check on the bar, Mason snatches it before I can pick it up.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I protest. “I get a per-diem for meals.”

  “I’d like to,” he says, smiling. “I’m being gentlemanly. A lady like you deserves that.”

  There’s no need for that, but I like being treated like a lady even if this isn’t a date. “Well . . . Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “May I drop you off at the hotel, Willa?”

  I can walk perfectly well. But again, I like this. I nod, and we walk outside together to his truck, a big white behemoth with “Peters Electrical” painted on the side. He opens the passenger door for me.

  I don’t know what comes over me. It’s unprofessional, probably unwise, completely unlike me—but I lean up and kiss him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mason

  Willa kisses me.

  I think it might have been unplanned, because her lips aren’t square on mine. I turn my head a little and kiss her back, full on. Gently, but with all the longing that’s built up in me over the day.

  We don’t stop. The kisses get deeper and hotter, and before long, I’ve got her pressed up against my truck, our bodies tight, one hand on her waist and one hand in her hair, her mouth sweeter than I’d ever dared dream. She’s so tall that we fit together. There’s no bending down to get close enough to kiss her like there would be with a small girl, and there’s no worrying that I might break her with my pinky finger, either. It’s incredibly sexy. She’s incredibly sexy.

  She finally pulls away a little, panting. “I never do this. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I don’t go kiss-attacking hot electricians I just met, ever.”

  I’m mind-whacked from the kissing, but I get it. “No. No, I understand.” I kiss her forehead. “You still have to go finish your report.”

  “I do,” she says, like a little kid who doesn’t want to go to bed. She leans forward and rests her head on my chest.

  “I don’t kiss random women in bar parking lots, either,” I tell her. “It’s just—it’s you. The minute I saw you . . .”

  The minute I saw her sitting at Micah’s bar, with her back to me, I knew her. I knew the way her hair would fall to her upper back, dark gold streaks through the brown like sunshine. I knew she’d be comfortable just about anywhere, even if she didn’t know anyone.

  “Yeah, me too,” she whispers. “But I have to go now.”

  I hate the chilly air that sweeps between us once we’re no longer pressed together.

  “Besides,” I say, trying to shake some sense into my head, “we’re in the parking lot. Anybody could see what we were doing. And then the gossip would fly.”

  “Well, your truck is probably identifiable,” she says, shakily, “but I might not be. And anyway, we’re on the side away from the road.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Gossip would fly whether you were identifiable or not.” I sigh. “Okay. Let’s get you back to your hotel room, and I’ll leave you in peace.”

  “That is not going to be anything like peace,” she mutters under her breath, climbing into the passenger seat and clicking the seatbelt latch.

  For some reason, it makes me feel better to know that she’ll be thinking about me while she works. Because I’m not going to be thinking about anything b
ut her tonight.

  At Moonlight Hotel and Cabins, I behave like a gentleman. I open her door and help her down the way I’d help my mamaw out of my truck. I say goodnight. I wave. And then I get back in my truck and head home, knowing I’ll dream about Willa tonight.

  About the warmth in her eyes, the taste of her mouth, the feel of her body both soft and strong against mine.

  About how I might have found the woman I’ve been waiting for all my life.

  After work shuts down on the Harris house the next day, I catch Willa taking off her hard hat on the front porch. Her pretty hair, brown with caramel streaks, tumbles down from the hat to her shoulders, and her lips curve into a smile when she sees me.

  “Hey there, Mr. Electric Man,” she says.

  “Hey there, Wonder Woman.”

  She looks startled for a second, and then her smile gets huge. “I’m starving. Want some dinner?”

  “That’s what I was coming to ask for, the pleasure of your company over a meal. Tavern, hotel, or my place? I cook a mean steak.”

  “Tavern, please. Your barbecue sandwich looked so good last night, I want one.”

  “You got it, ma’am.”

  We stand there smiling at each other until Jeff walks by us, whistling. Willa seems to jerk awake, and she loses her smile. “I’d like to clean up a little before dinner, though.”

  “Absolutely,” I say, though if you ask me, a woman in work gear is pretty fucking sexy, and Willa especially so.

  She brushes sawdust from her jeans, and watching her hands on her hips gets me hard inside my pants. She’s such an armful of woman. I can’t wait to kiss her again.

  I rush home for a quick shower, and when she comes out the door of her little bungalow, I’m thrilled to see her. Her hair’s down again, bouncing in waves on her shoulders, and her yellow top shows her shoulders as well as a hint of deep cleavage. Her jeans fit her very well. I’ve been semi-aroused all day, thinking about her, but my dick wakes up again at the sight of her looking like dessert before dinner. “Hi. You look great.” She blushes. I help her up into the truck, buckle my seatbelt, and we pull out.

  Three minutes later we’re pulling into the Tavern parking lot and I’m helping her down from her seat, looking forward to spending a couple of hours in her company.

  Five minutes after that, we’re jammed into a booth with my friend Wilder and his wife Anna, and my friend Wyatt and his wife Tia. I’d forgotten that tonight was a jamboree night, with some local musicians on the tiny stage. The place is packed, and Micah and the servers are rushing. We have to wait a long time for food and drinks, and now it makes sense that the parking lot is crowded.

  Not that I mind so much, with Willa’s thigh pressed tightly to mine and the smell of her hair intoxicating me every time she moves her head.

  And she’s moving it a lot, because she and Anna and Tia are talking nineteen to the dozen. Girl stuff, seems like: a certain kind of shoes, a show on Netflix, a movie, Willa’s cute shirt showing off her shoulders.

  Wyatt’s talking about a big furniture order he’s working on, and Wilder’s asking him questions about it. Then the talk turns to the Harris house reno and the discussion becomes more general. Willa’s explanation of what we’re doing to make Mrs. Harris’s house right for a wheelchair user is short and detailed just enough for people who aren’t well-versed in the construction industry to understand, and my respect for her goes up once again. Stupid to be proud of someone you just met, but there it is. Everything about this woman makes me want her more.

  Every time Willa moves, a little more blood leaves my head and travels south. By the time we’ve finished our meal and Wyatt’s brother Wes shows up with his wife, Cassie, explaining that their babysitter was late, I’m so hard that my jeans barely contain me and I’ve probably got zipper tracks on my prick.

  I insist on picking up Willa’s dinner tab. She protests at first, but I remind her that I invited her, so I pay for dinner. She finally gives in, looking down and tucking her hair behind her ears. “Come on, let’s get you back to your room.”

  I head for the truck, but by now it’s hemmed in by several other vehicles. Micah’s going to have to expand his parking lot if he keeps getting this kind of traffic on jamboree nights.

  “It’s not far,” Willa says. “We can just walk to my place. You can just come in and we can hang out until the lot clears.”

  So we walk. I make sure she’s on the inside, farther away from traffic, and I enjoy the feel of her hand on my arm, her warmth close to me. She smells like warm skin and clean laundry, and her hair smells like oranges.

  The bungalow is #6, the farthest away from the main building, back in the woods. It’s cozy inside, with a sofa and coffee table in front of the fireplace, a desk near the wall, and a wide comfortable bed that I keep dragging my eyes away from.

  “I love it back here,” Willa says. “Reminds me of summer camp. I left the curtains open last night after I turned out the lights, and I feel asleep looking at the stars.”

  “The moon’s out tonight,” I say inanely, wanting desperately to hold her. Instead, I sit down on the couch. “So. Tell me about how you got into construction.”

  Turns out she got hired by AmeriShelter because she had a background in sociology, and she’s learned all the construction stuff on the job. “I had part of a degree in architecture,” she says wistfully. “I loved it, but I couldn’t handle the engineering. So I moved sideways, and I was happy. And then I got this job, and I was happier. “They’re considering having me and some of the other site coordinators work from home more often,” she says, playing with her hair. “I like on-site, but honestly, the part I really love is meeting people who have applied for help and figuring out if they’re good candidates, if we have the budget to help, et cetera. A lot of that could be done remotely.”

  “Sounds nice.” I carelessly pick up a throw pillow and hold it on my lap to hide my hard-on.

  “I think so. I like Cleveland, but I grew up in a much smaller place, and I’d like to raise my kids, when I have them, out of the city.” She cocks her head, looking at me. “Tell me how you got into electrical?”

  I tell her about my papaw and how he used to teach me things. I tell her about four years in the Army, and how coming back to Pocahontas County made me sure this was where I wanted to spend my life.

  There’s a small silence when I stop talking. Her eyes are open wide, looking at me, and I could fall in. To distract me, I ask if she played sports. “Basketball? My sisters, who are both tall too, played.”

  She nods. “Not that I was good, but it was fun. You?”

  “Yep. Same.”

  The pause falls again, and then she reaches over and plucks the cushion out of my lap. “Mason? If I don’t get to kiss you soon, I think I might die.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Willa

  “I think I might die if I don’t get to kiss you,” I say, surprising myself. I am never this bold, never.

  Well, not about kissing. Give me a jerkwad who thinks women don’t know anything, and I can certainly disabuse him of that notion without a qualm—but a man I like? I’ve always been too wary of being called Girl Sasquatch.

  Mason doesn’t look at me like I’m Sasquatch, girl or otherwise. When I say the thing about dying, his eyes go hot blue, like sparks, and he leans over to put a strand of hair behind my ear. “Well, we can’t have you dying,” he says in a deep husky voice.

  And then he kisses me.

  I practically melt into the sofa. He tastes like barbecue sauce and ale, and he smells like man and cedar, and every nerve in my body is vibrating with desire. His hand is gentle on my face and then in my hair, and then around my back. Then my waist. And then we’re lying back on the sofa, his fingers warm and slightly rough on the skin just under the hem of my blouse.

  My own fingers touch his beard, which is both soft and rough; it’s so very sexy the way it rubs at my skin. I shiver involuntarily, thinking about Mason kissing me somewhere b
esides my mouth. I unbutton his shirt and run my hands over that incredibly muscled chest of his, lightly dusted with hair, the nipples firm on his pecs. His hands slide up under my top, up over my bra, touching my breasts gently. I’m so aroused.

  “We should turn off the light,” Mason whispers, and then gently nips at the skin of my neck. I moan, not able to come up with words. “People might see.”

  “See what?” I say, breathless and dizzy.

  “See me kissing you in all kinds of improper ways. They don’t need to know what we’re doing.” He gets up and turns off the lights. Locks the cabin from the inside.

  I can see a bulge in his jeans, and knowing that he wants me—knowing how much he wants me—makes my nipples perk and my ladyparts get even damper than before. When he steps back to the sofa, the small cabin is lit only by moonlight shining in the high windows. Everything is pale blue light and shadow, and I must be crazy with need, because I sit up enough to unfasten his jeans. “I never do this,” I say, remember how I’d told him that last night. “I mean, I have done this. In college. With my boyfriend. But not with someone I just met, I never would do this. I don’t know why I’m doing it now.”

  “I can tell you why,” he says, and shudders and my hands caress him through his boxers. “Because I belong to you.”

  I stop moving. Some rational part of my brain says, Yes. You just met him. He might not be who you think he is.

  And then my heart says, No, he is. Because I just know, that’s why. Because he was right when he said he belonged to me. Because I belong to him.

  My body says, Quit stalling and get busy, hon.

  Brain says, Have it your way.

  So I do.

  I reach inside his boxers to touch him, and he groans. “Willa.”

  He’s long and thick. Hard, heavy. Manly. I want everything that’s not us out of the way, and there’s a few chaotic minutes when we’re pulling frantically at our clothes. Kicking off shoes.