Take It Slow

by Scarlett Brooks

  “You know, I really have to hand it to myself. I pulled off this reception pretty well,” she said.

  “I’m pretty sure ‘pretty well’ is an understatement. Then again, you always do underestimate yourself.”

  “There you go with that flattery again, Levi. If you’re not careful, Emily is going to fall in love with you. Besides we both know, you underestimate me more than you should.”

  “Like with the auction?”

  “Exactly. Thinking you weren’t going to get on that stage, and look what it did for you. She’s a dream.”

  I peeked over at Emily, taking stock of her at the bar as she sipped her drink.

  “Do you like her?” Lauren asked.

  I drew in a deep breath. “I think she’s wonderful to be around. But I have a lot to focus on. Like my career, at the moment,” I said.

  “But…?” she asked.

  “But, you could say I have a bit of a crush. Yes.”

  “A bit?”

  I grinned. “Maybe a little more than a bit.”

  “I think you’re smitten,” she said.

  “And I think you’re much more perceptive than anyone gives you credit for.”

  “Trust me, I’m not the only one who sees it.”

  “I don’t even know where to begin to unpack that statement.”

  “Can I give you some advice?” she asked.

  “Depends what it is.”

  “You have all the time in the world to be focused on your career, Levi. Don’t let something like this go. She’s a freaking catch and you know it. I know you have differences but being the same is boring. She makes you better, or she could, if you let her.”

  I sighed. “Aren’t you supposed to be focused on your own love life right now? It is your wedding after all.”

  She laughed. “I just got married. Lucas is locked down. I’m fine! Listen to me, women like her are a rare breed. And if she turned your head, Levi, maybe you should let her do it.”

  As we turned on the dance floor, we came back around to the bar. I saw Emily standing there in her beautiful sundress. It cinched in at her waist and fell off her shoulders with her beautiful dark hair flowing down her back in effortless waves. Her steel gray eyes stared off into the distance. Into the darkened horizon as she sipped a pink drink that matched the pink swirls in her dress. The fabric fell to her knees and I watched her slide her free hand into one of the pockets of her dress. My eyes fell all the way down her smooth legs, taking in the way they flexed beautifully in the pink-swirls heels she wore for the nighttime occasion.

  And I realized Lauren was right.

  “Mind if I cut in?” Lucas asked.

  Lucas held out his hand for his wife and I gladly twirled Lauren into his embrace. She giggled and fell into her husband’s arms, yet again giving me a glance of what I could have with Emily. She was right. I’d never find someone like Emily again. I needed to snatch her up while she still looked my way as well. I backed away, slipping my hands into the pockets of my tuxedo pants. Lauren looked up at Lucas with that sparkling look in her eyes, and as Lucas gazed down into the eyes of his wife I saw a happiness ignite that I rarely got to see in his eyes. He cradled her with his right arm and held her hand to his chest with his left hand. Not once did their eyes disconnect, as if they had slipped into their own little effortless world.

  I admired their relationship. It was what love needed to look like.

  I backtracked away from the dance floor and made my way for the bar. Emily had moved herself all the way to the corner. She had gotten the closest she could to the quiet of the horizon without leaving the party. I walked up to her and slid my hand from my pocket. I stood at her side, holding it out as she finished her drink.

  “Care to go somewhere a little more private?” I asked.

  She set her glass down and turned her head to face me as a shocked stare came over her face.

  “What was that?” Emily asked.

  I slid my hand down her arm, taking her hand within mine and lacing our fingers together.

  “I asked if you wanted to go somewhere a little more private. You know, to talk,” I said.

  And when she smiled up at me as she slid from her stool, my heart skipped a beat in my chest.

  12

  Emily

  I walked hand-in-hand with Levi across the backyard. We made our way deeper into the landscaping, taking in the boxed hedges and the impeccably-groomed flower beds that scattered themselves over the property. We walked along a small cobblestone path, the silence hanging between us as the stars hung overhead. My heels clicked along the stones. We passed by the barn twinkling with little lights and walked through the lightning bugs as they lit up around us. It was magical, walking with him away from the noise. Away from the thumping music. Away from the decadent food that threatened to put me to sleep.

  He led me all the way out to the edge of the property before we came to a stop right beside a wooden garden shed.

  “I want to tell you something, and I didn't want others around to alter the way you reacted. Because I want your genuine reaction, Emily. Whatever that might be,” Levi said.

  I gazed up into his face as my back fell against the shed. “Okay. You’ll have it. I promise.”

  He stepped in front of me. “I want to be with you, Emily.”

  I blinked, trying to figure out if I had heard him correctly.

  “Come again?” I asked.

  “I know it’s sudden and I know it’s quick, but I want to be with you. More than any other woman I had ever come across.”

  “You--you want to be with me?” I was shocked, after his argument at his office I was thinking he didn’t want anything more from me.

  “I think we’re made for one another, Emily. I really do. These past couple of weeks, I haven’t been able to get you off my mind. I wake up thinking of you. I go to bed thinking of you. I sleep dreaming of having you next to me. I don’t know what you’ve done to me Emily Kennedy, but you have captured something inside of me that I don’t want you to let go.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Are you serious?” I asked. “I mean I was there, that day at the office, I didn’t know what was happening, but I heard you, you were so angry. And willing to throw this all away.”

  His eyebrows cinched. “You mean about Walton’s Market?”

  I nodded. “I guess so.”

  “Emily, I am so sorry,” he genuinely looked upset now. “I sent my VP to secure the deal with them, we've been working on it for ages. They really want Gunner Meats, so we had negotiated a higher price point and then my idiot VP messed up the numbers at the final meeting and they threatened to walk. I’m so sorry you had to hear that. I just have never sent anyone but myself, and that was a stark reminder as to why.”

  He sighed, “But I shouldn’t have put that first, not before you, before us. I see that now.”

  The man could admit when he was wrong. I admired that.

  “I know it’s sudden and I know it’s a lot all at once, but if you give me a cha--.”

  Before I could catch myself, I fisted the collar of his tuxedo in my hands and pulled him in for a devilish kiss. I had no words for the situation. No words that couple possibly express how I felt about what he was saying. So, I kissed him. I reached my hands out, fisted the beautiful clothing he was wearing, and crashed our lips together. He slid his hands out of his pockets and gripped my hips. He pressed me up against the garden shed, our lips undulating against the other. My tongue pressed through his swollen pout. I tugged on his lower lip, forcing a groan from his throat as his hand slid through my hair. He gripped my locks and pulled them back. Tugging my gaze up to his.

  “I’m not impeding on your career?” I asked.

  “No, Emily. Nothing is more important to me than you have become, I know I’ve been distant, and I will do better, I promise,” he said.

  As my eyes watered, I felt my legs give way. He caught me in his embrace as I slid my arms around
his neck, and slowly he brought his lips back to mine. I really did believe he was going to stay focused on his career. I really did believe that we had experienced all we would together. But in that moment, when he pressed his lips gently to mine and pinned me to the garden shed, I knew I couldn't have been more wrong.

  “Yes,” I whispered against his lips.

  “Yes, what?” he murmured as his hands slid down the backs of my legs.

  He hiked me up, picking me up off the ground as he walked us into the shed.

  “Yes, I believe we were meant for one another,” I said.

  He growled as he pressed me against the garden shed wall. “Wait, why were you at the office?”

  I blushed. “I made a picnic for us. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “And here I am, forgetting to ask you to be my date tonight. God, I’m terrible at this. Please forgive me.”

  “You’re totally forgiven.” I winked at him before I raced my hands through his hair, sucking on his lower lip as I heard him fiddle with his belt. I wrapped my legs around him, grinding against him as the wedding reception faded off in the distance. His pants fell to the ground at his ankles. I felt him pushing his boxers down as his cock came spilling out. It throbbed against my leg as his hands wandered my body. Tugging at my dress and pulling out my breasts. His lips kissed down my cheek. Down my neck. Down my chest. I felt my pussy warming as he lapped at my breasts, wrapping his lovely lips around my nipples.

  “Oh, Levi,” I moaned.

  “Oh, you’ll be much louder by the time I’m done with you,” he groaned.

  He coaxed my nipples to painful peaks with his tongue. His hands slid up the backs of my legs, gripping my ass and sliding my panties off to the side. I whimpered at his touch. At the way his face pressed into my tits and hummed his praises of my body. I dripped simply from his touch. Simply from the way he sighed against my skin. His cock hardened to a thickness that shocked even myself. The groans and the growls he peppered my skin with had my pussy leaking with joy. He rushed back up my body, our lips colliding as he slipped his cock between my pussy folds. Gathering my juices onto his skin before the tip of his dick breached my entrance.

  “Fuck, Emily. Oh.”

  “Don’t stop now, Levi. Take what you want,” I whispered.

  He slid all the way into me in one fell swoop and my walls effortlessly gave way. They molded to his cock, the veins of him rippling against my walls. My legs shivered. My arms tightened around him. My jaw quivered as our foreheads fell together. Levi gripped my legs and hoisted me up the wall one last time, pinning me with his strong hips and his toned legs.

  He set a slow, steady pace. Rolling his hips and gripping my thighs with his fingertips. I kicked my heels off, allowing my bare feet to dig into him. Allowing my toes the freedom to curl however tightly they wanted. I whimpered as my head fell back against the wall. I felt Levi press his face into it, running his nose along my pulse point. He nuzzled it. Kissed it. Licked it and raked his teeth over it. My pussy fluttered around him as my juices dripped down his balls, soaking him and wetting him as he dove inside my body. Skin slapping skin filled the shed. Every time our hips connected, it made the most incredible sound. We fit together as if we had been made for one another, and for once I allowed my logical and cold mind to fall to the wayside.

  “You’re so beautiful when you roll your eyes for me, Emily,” he groaned.

  “Oh, shit. Levi. I can’t… you never… you feel… I just…”

  “That’s it. Lose those words. Lose yourself in me. Fall into me. Never let go.”

  “Never, Levi. I’ll never let go,” I whispered.

  He pounded his hips against me, his hands roaming all over my body. My eyes rolled into the back of my head as his cock grew against my walls. Spreading me in ways only he ever had. I dug the heels of my feet into his back. I clung to his hair, bringing his face closer to me as he kissed and sucked every inch of me he could find. I moaned out into the shed. Electricity blinded me and fire made my body lock up. My legs contracted. My pussy walls fluttered. I felt myself growing breathless as Levi’s hips began to stutter. His tightly-wound curls flicked against my clit, raking the tip of that precious nub as my entire body jumped for me.

  “Cum with me, Emily. Do it. Fall over the edge with me,” he panted.

  “So close. So close. So close. Levi, yes. Levi! Please! Yes!”

  I arched into him, fisting his hair and dragging him into the valley of my breasts. My jaw unhinged and my eyes rolled back as broken moans left my lips. My hips pressed deeply into his. I felt his cock slide against parts of me that had never been touched before. His arms wrapped around my lower back, holding me to him and pinning our worlds together.

  “Oh. Holy. Fuck,” Levi grunted.

  I felt him spill into me as my pussy milked his dick. Colors sizzled and died behind the lids of my eyes as I threaded my fingers through his hair. His hands fisted my ass. My legs. My thighs. I felt hot threads of cum painting my walls as our mixture was pushed from between my legs from the pulsing of my pussy. I pulled him further with my walls, forgetting where my body ended and his began. His teeth sank into the meat of my breast. He marked me as his, lapping his tongue over the teeth marks that I knew would bruise come morning. I felt his legs give way, collapsing to the shed floor and taking me along with him. I fell against his body as he caught me, my mangled and sweating body leaning against him as my head fell to the crook of his neck.

  “Be mine, Emily,” he whispered softly.

  And all I had the energy to do was nod.

  13

  Levi

  The sun streaming through the curtains of my bedroom woke me up. The window was open, letting in the fresh summer breeze. But even having the window open in my room hadn’t changed the beautiful scent wafting around my head. Buried into my pillow. A smell that had marked my body and now permeated the sheets of my king-size bed at home. I felt her slide against my chest. I felt her leg tighten around mine. I looked down, gazing into the top of Emily’s head. The white sheets of my bed we tainted with our bodies the night before had slipped down, revealing her welted breasts to me. The teeth marks I had left against her body. The suction marks my lips had left around her pert nipples. My fingertips danced along her bare back, reveling in my handiwork. She looked good in my grasp. With her arm slid over my waist, her naked leg tucked between mine.

  Her cheek pressed into my beating heart.

  I slid my fingers through Emily’s effortless waves, untangling the knots I had fisted into her hair. The night slowly came back to me in trickles. Our dancing. The way the moonlight looked in her steel gray eyes. The way she came for me in the garden shed. The way she completely fell apart and collapsed into my body. That sweet little head nod. The one that changed everything between us. The small head nod that caused us to stuff ourselves back into our clothes, sneak through the woods hand in hand, and make our way for my car so we could come back to my farm.

  I never wanted her to leave this place.

  “Mmm, morning.”

  I grinned down at Emily as she slid her head up, not stopping until she locked her tired eyes with mine.

  “Morning, beautiful,” I said, grinning.

  “I don’t feel very beautiful right now,” she said.

  “Well, you look the part. How do you feel?”

  “Sore,” she groaned.

  I chuckled, moving her head against my chest. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have struck up the acrobatics when we got back.”

  “Me? You’re the one who offered me a soak in the tub to ease my aching muscles. Not my fault you can’t keep your hands off me.”

  “Not my fault you slapped my ass going up the stairs.”

  “Not my fault you have a nice ass,” she said, smiling.

  I slipped my arms underneath hers and pulled her up my body. She giggled as she slipped on top of me, her luscious curves falling between my legs. She folded her hands over one another on my chest and rested her chin on t
op of them. I slid myself up a bit, enabling myself to see her a little better as the morning sunlight grew hotter through the window. A breeze kicked up and ruffled her hair. It tossed a couple of waves against her face, accenting the beauty of her features. The apple peaks of her cheeks. The cute lower lip pout she had. Her stark gray eyes that somehow held the magic of the entire world within them.

  And I was ready to learn every bit about the world, with her.

  Thank you so much for reading a Texas Forever book!

  If you enjoyed this book please consider leaving a review!

  It takes only a minute and helps me continue to write more books.

  Want more Texas Forever stories?

  Take It Series

  Take It Slow - AVAILABLE NOW

  Take It Easy - AVAILABLE NOW

  Take It Back - PREORDER NOW

  Firehouse 22

  Big Engine - Available April 2020

  Hot Rescue - Available April 2020

  New Flame - Coming Soon

  And a brand new three book doctor series releasing in May 2020