Moments later, I collapsed on top of him, completely spent and unable to move. “That finish was even better than the start,” I told him, making him laugh.
Scott pressed a kiss to the side of my forehead and held me until our bodies separated on their own, then he pulled me flush against his chest and wrapped those big, caring arms around me as my eyelids grew heavier and heavier. “Sweet dreams,” he whispered. “Love you.” The words were whispered so low as he kissed my shoulder that I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.
I was too orgasm drunk to say if it was dream or reality, but as I drifted off to sleep, I secretly hoped it was more than a hazy memory when the sun came up.
Scott
The smells all around me in the kitchen were almost enough to distract me from the words that had been replaying in my mind since I’d woken up. An hour ago. Sweet dreams. Love you. My only defense, if I needed one, was that my defenses were down. Taking her, being with her the way we’d been together, it was an out-of-body experience. My mind and my body were as relaxed as they’d ever been in my adult life, and she was soft and smelled so fucking good, with that sexy satisfied smile on her face was everything.
It had all felt so right, Stevie in my arms after loving on her for so long, falling asleep before we woke up to do it all again. That little kiss on her shoulder, still damp from the exertion of our lovemaking, and uttering those soft words, had just fucking felt right. I wasn’t sure if I owed her apology, but I damn sure hadn’t planned on it, and she hadn’t asked for one when she’d woken me up with her mouth in the middle of the night.
“Did you mean it?”
Shit!
I turned and found Stevie scowling at me, arms crossed over what looked like one of my old college t-shirts. It was too big and covered too much, but she looked good to me. “Good morning, Stevie.”
“Morning,” she grunted like it was a chore to perform even that one social nicety. “So… did you mean it?”
So, she wanted to dive right into it? Well, fine. I arched a brow and fought the grin tugging on my muscles. “Did I mean what?” I had to pull my lips into my mouth to stop the smile that was threatening to break free when her glare darkened and she pointed an accusing finger my way.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about, Scott.”
I did, and I was glad in that moment that I wasn’t smiling. This was serious business, and I’d never imagined I would be such an amateur to tell a woman I loved her for the first time while I was inside of her. Or when she was half asleep and unable to enjoy it.
She looked like a scared little kitten, trying to figure out if she should run or claw my eyes out, so I figured it was about time to stop messing with her.
“I do mean it. Have a seat.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, notching her chin so high up in the air, I thought she might get carried away.
I turned a glare on her and growled, “Have a seat, Stevie.” Stubborn damn woman was determined to drive me out of my damn mind.
She huffed out a breath before she dropped down in the nearest chair like it was some favor to me. There was already a plate of fruit on the table, along with sausage and bacon. “Well?”
“Hungry?” I knew she wanted to get right down to have the conversation, but she was too tense. I wanted her relaxed for this talk. Before she answered, I turned to the eggs just before they started to burn.
“I feel like I’m being screwed with, Scott, and I don’t like it.”
The vulnerability in her voice got to me and my shoulders sank. “I’m not trying to screw with you, but dammit, why are you so angry about this?”
She smacked her hands on the table and I turned to find a terrified, wide-eyed violet stare aimed at me. “Because I’m trying to figure out if that was post-orgasm bliss or reality!”
I nodded, sighing, and turned away. “I meant it.”
“But you wish you didn’t?” The hurt that mixed with hope in her voice was what strengthened my resolve. My determination.
“No, that’s not it at all.” I sucked in a deep breath and let it out for ten seconds before turning back to face her. She deserved to see my face and hear the sincerity in my words. “I wish I had chosen a better time to say it. It’s not how I would have done it if I’d been thinking about it. But I meant it.”
She still didn’t seem completely convinced, and I took in another deep breath, knowing I would have to say the words again. “So, you didn’t mean to say them to me? Out loud?”
I shook my head and dumped the eggs into a big bowl, which I brought to the table with more force than it required. For some reason, I’d decided to fall in love with the world’s most skeptical woman. I stood in front of her, big and imposing because I knew she wouldn’t be able to risk glaring up at me. “I didn’t plan to say it when I did.” That much was true.
“Okay.”
“Stevie.”
“What?”
“I love you.”
Shock. That was the main expression on Stevie’s face, which surprised me more than it should have, but there was also fear and hope, and that gave me hope.
“You love me.” The words came out on a shaky breath.
When Stevie looked up at me, I nodded, expression serious so there was no misunderstanding my intentions.
“Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“Okay, but how?”
I sighed and took the seat beside her, pulling her close. “I’m sure because I know myself. Because I’ve had other relationships and I didn’t feel anywhere close to how I feel about you. Or when I think about losing you.” That was what had convinced me if I was honest with myself.
“But how can you say that with such certainty? We’re so different, you said so yourself.”
“Yeah,” I snorted. “A hundred years ago.” At least, it felt like she’d been part of my life for a lot longer than mere weeks.
“Sure, but you weren’t totally wrong, either. I mean, this”—she waved back and forth between us, which I took as a good sign that she was already thinking of us as a couple—“could blow up in our faces.”
“I know,” I told her in mock seriousness. “We could even, gasp, end up married!” My words shocked her. Hell, I was waiting for my own shock to kick in, but it never did. I wasn’t running for the hills and I wasn’t even nervous at the idea of more.
“Don’t joke about that.”
“Who’s joking?” She needed actual reassurance and I wanted to give it to her, so I grabbed her by the wrists and laid her palms over my chest. “I love you, Stevie, and I suspect that you love me, too. I know it shouldn’t work, but it does, and I care more that I want you than I do that we might seem odd together.”
“Might seem?” She let out an adorable unladylike snort that made me smile. “People will look at us and wonder when we’ll flame out.”
I smiled and leaned in. “Then I guess we’ll just have to prove them wrong by not flaming out.” But more than that, I didn’t care. “If people can’t look beyond your sense of style to see how amazing you are, how funny and witty, how sexy and smart, too, then they don’t deserve to know you. Which works out for me, because I get you all to myself.” The truth was that I wanted her to make friends, to settle into Tulip and have a life here.
With me.
“Scott.” The word came out half plea and half whisper. “What if this is just hormones and newness and orgasms? I mean, we’ve had some incredible ones together.”
“True.” I could help but smile at her use of the word ‘incredible.’ “But those don’t happen with everyone. Not like that.” Stevie sighed and I tilted her chin up so those strange violet eyes were trained on me, so I could see the love she couldn’t hide completely staring back at me. I held her close, my breath mingling with hers as we soaked each other in. “The fact that we shouldn’t work but we do, and we want to, is a good thing. It means that we’ll try harder to make this work. We won’t let issues fester, we’ll talk th
em out and we’ll kick ass in this relationship. What do you think?” I held my breath, waiting for her walk away or smack me or laugh in my face. The way my heart was beating, all three were distinct possibilities.
“I think that you’re crazy.”
It wasn’t a no. “I can work with that.”
“I think you’re crazy and I love you anyway, but we’ll need more than that. I think so, don’t you?”
She was scared that she would start to love me and love Tulip, and she would have to leave. I knew it and she’d hate it if I reminded her of that. “I think we got the bones of a solid relationship, Stevie. The fact that I love you helps a lot. So does the chemistry.” Her cheeks pinkened and I grinned. “Care to share?”
“Nope,” she said quickly and dipped her head, as if that could hide the blush staining her pale skin.
“Too bad.” It didn’t matter, not when I planned to give her plenty of memories like that one from this point forward. I knew it with a certainty I hadn’t had about anything since my decision to leave the NFL. That was why I wasn’t haunted by it. “I love you and I promise not to hurt you on purpose. I don’t have any more of a guarantee than that.”
My words sank in and Stevie nodded. “Okay. Yeah. So… we’re doing this.”
“We are.” I stood and pulled her flush against me, wrapping both arms around her waist so she couldn’t get anyway. “I mean, I love you, and if you’re sure you love me.”
“I am,” she said, quick enough that it made us both smile. “Last chance to back out, Scotty. After this, you’re mine.”
“I think I’ve been yours since you barged in and took over my office.” On the surface, it was a ridiculous statement to make, given how angry I had been that day, but since she’d arrived my reactions to her had been anything but ordinary. “But since you don’t seem sure, I guess I’ll just have to show you how I feel.” In fact, nothing sounded better than laying her out right here among all the other breakfast foods and feasting on her until she was sure.
“I was promised breakfast,” she insisted with a phony pout and a lackluster shove at my chest. “It’ll be here. When we’re done. Sometime this afternoon.”
Heat flared in her eyes at the promise and, because I loved her, I pretended not to notice the way she shivered. Or the way her nipples hardened. “I’ll be cold by then.”
“You’ll be hungry, so it won’t matter. Besides if you’re really good, maybe I’ll make it all over for you. Naked.”
With a roll of her eyes and an overdramatic sigh, Stevie leaned into me. “You better live up to the hype, Dr. Henderson.”
I wrapped my arms around her and reached for the hem of her t-shirt, tugging it up over her head and dropping it on the chair behind me. “Oh, I will. I promise.”
She licked her lips, mesmerizing me while her hands made quick work of my boxer shorts. “I plan to make sure of it,” she told me and pushed me down on the chair and straddled my hips. “I love you, Scott.”
Perfect. It was the only word to describe how I felt in that moment. Hearing Stevie say those words felt right. It was like everything I never knew I wanted had just slotted into place and we came together hard and fast, exploding together in just minutes. “Love you too, Stevie.”
She let out a laugh and reached for a slice of bacon, breaking it in half to share. “Good, because I don’t think we should work together anymore.”
I frowned, ready to argue, but maybe she had a point. Maybe she didn’t. What mattered was that I wanted something else. “Fine, but you live here. With me.”
“And Hershey?”
“Of course. We are a package deal.”
Her smile brightened and she nodded. “Then I guess I’m moving in.” Before I could let out a whoop of surprise, Stevie’s arms were wrapped around me and her mouth was on mine, tempting me beyond reason as I hardened inside of her. It felt like we kissed for hours and hours, the perfect start to the rest of our lives.
The sound of the doorbell caused simultaneous growls to erupt out of us both. “If we’re quiet, maybe they’ll go away,” I whispered.
“Scotty! Are you in there? Is Stevie in there with you?”
“Eddy,” I mouthed to Stevie and she started to shake with laughter.
“Maybe we should be really loud and scare her off.”
“No.”
Stevie tightened and clenched around me and I couldn’t suppress the groan. “Or, yes.”
“Janey, do you see anything?”
At those words, I stood, our bodies still wrapped around each other’s, and turned to the back door just in case Janey made an appearance. “We’re being invaded.”
She laughed. “Might as well answer the door. You do have your Hometown Heroes duties to tend to, and as the mayor’s future executive assistant, I have to encourage this behavior.”
It was the first I’d heard about the job with the mayor, but it meant she was sticking around. Growing her own roots. “I guess you have a point,” I told her with a kiss. “But things were just getting good again.”
“No kidding,” she agreed on a throaty sigh and tightened around me again. “But the good news is we’ve got plenty of time to pick up where we left off. Later. Tomorrow. Next week. Next Month.”
“Next year,” I growled and kissed her again, slow and hot until I wasn’t sure I’d be able to open the door at all in the next hour. “Forever.”
“Only time will tell,” she said on a smile that told me she hoped as much as I did that time was kind to our love story.
The End
Next is an Epilogue featuring all three couples featured in this boxset.
Extended Epilogue
Maxine
“Did you wake up today feeling loved, Maxine?” Derek held me in his arms and smiled down at me with love shining in his beautiful blue eyes, looking as handsome in his wedding finery as he did in his scrubs.
I couldn’t help but smile back as I remembered his words the day he’d told me he loved me. I’ll make sure you wake up every day feeling loved. And I did. Every single day.
“Today? Absolutely I did.” A shiver crept up my spine at the memory of just how thoroughly we’d loved each other this morning, waking up happy because we’d skipped the tradition of spending the night apart and leaving early to get ready for the day. “How about you, husband, did you wake up today feeling loved?”
His smile brightened as he twirled me around the dance floor, dipping me low like we’d done a thousand times in our kitchen—at least, on those rare nights we were both home to have dinner with Callie. “If I felt any more loved, I might have been late to my own wedding.” His blue eyes darkened with heat as he leaned in and kissed me while most of the crowd clapped politely, along with a few scattered laughs.
But the table where the hometown heroes and their dates sat was louder than the rest, whistling and hooting like we were on a KissCam instead of at a wedding reception. I didn’t care, because he responded with another one of those hot but too-short kisses that he’d been giving me all day.
“Happy wedding day, Max.”
My heart was so full, I was pretty sure it would burst. “Happy wedding day to you, too, Doctor.” This day was so different than my last wedding—or maybe it was just that I was different, less nervous and more sure of myself. Of our relationship. Of his love. “I’m so very happy, Derek.”
“Me, too. And think, this is just the beginning of our story.”
When he said things like that, I couldn’t help but love him just a little bit more. Derek didn’t let things like being cheesy stop him from being sweet and it only made me love him more. “That’s why I can’t stop smiling.”
He twirled me again and I laughed out loud. “I’d do anything to hear that sound at least once every day for the rest of my life.”
“Then I guess you better brush up on your knock-knock jokes, Doc.” Callie always got a kick out of his dad jokes, which meant as much as if the jokes were actually funny. “Are you ready
for the big daddy-daughter dance?”
Derek sighed and dropped his head to my shoulder, but not before I saw his cheeks turn bright pink. “Absolutely. I mean, I will be in just a sec.” He flashed a smile before kissing my hand and tugging me off the dance floor, toward the long table reserved for the bridal party. His best man, town vet Scott Henderson, handed him a pair of bright red sneakers, which he quickly put on. He smacked another kiss to my lips.
“Now I’m ready. Sit back and watch the show, babe.” He sat me in a chair beside Mikki and met Callie in the middle of the dance floor.
Mikki leaned in and bumped my shoulder. “What should I be expecting, here? To laugh, or clap like a proud idiot?”
I shrugged. “This is just as big a surprise to you as it is to me. They practiced in secret.” It was another thing I loved about this man—the fact that he had his own special relationship with my daughter. Considering her own father was absent on good days, it only made me love him more.
“Knowing the good doctor, they’ll probably do the final dance from Dirty Dancing!” Jase Callahan loved to joke around, but he probably wasn’t far off.
The lights dimmed until it was pitch black and the music started, only it wasn’t the nostalgic summer music of the familiar movie. Instead, it was a throbbing hip-hop beat, and when the lights turned back on they both wore mile-wide smiles. “Oh. My. God.” It wasn’t some slow ballad about the precious relationship between fathers and daughters. Not at all. It was a choregraphed dance—and it was incredible. “How adorable.”
Derek was usually too uptight to let himself go like this, so I knew it was Callie’s idea. And I knew the fact that he was out there, dancing with his tongue sticking out on one side, a smile on his face, meant the world to her. And to me.
“Damn, girl, I don’t see how you’re not gonna get pregnant tonight.” Penny took the empty seat on the other side of me, pausing to rub Mikki’s belly before she turned to me. “So?”
Misters of Love: A Small Town Romance Boxset Page 45