by Zoe Dawson
Trailing kisses across my belly, then up the inside of one leg, nipping, licking, lingering in the tender curve of my knee, then in the even more sensitive crease where my thigh met my hip.
I rose on my elbow and reached for him, intending to pull him back up to me, but Boone caught my hand and kissed it, sucking gently, provocatively, on my fingertips. His gaze hot and magnetic, caught on mine, his dark blue eyes glittering.
“Not, yet, darlin’” he murmured, an unholy smile curling the corners of his mouth.
My eyes widened, as he lowered his head and kissed me just above the patch of dark curls. Hot and cold at the same time, I said, breathless, “Boone, no.” Gasping, I tried to scoot away from him.
He held me captive with hands on my hips, his breath blowing warm and teasing across my groin as he spoke. “Don’t tell me no, Verity. I want to taste how sweet you are. I want to give you pleasure. I want to make you ready for me. Let me.”
Without waiting for permission, he parted me and kissed me again and again, light, teasing kisses that stole my breath. Sliding his hands beneath my butt, he lifted me and settled his mouth fully against me, exploring me, caressing me, arousing me with languorous strokes of his tongue.
Crying out, I fell back against the mattress, my mind reeling at the pleasure, at the exquisite agony. In my experience this was forbidden. And I hadn’t been with anyone but Boone, but he was taking me into womanhood, pulling me over the edge as if he had the right to my body’s most intimate secrets. The idea thrilled me in a way I knew it shouldn’t have, which only added to the excitement. I tangled my fingers in the black silk of his hair. My hips arched and bucked, twitching and turning, trying to direct his mouth to some mysterious sweet spot that he hadn’t quite discovered yet.
I threaded my fingers through his hair, holding him to me. I felt the crest of my release rising towards me, and waited, breath held, loving the soft, wet heat of his tongue, the pressure he applied, and loving, it oh, so very much when he oh, so very gently…sucked.
Terrifying freedom from the bonds I had lived within. The crest inside me gathered and deepened, detonating with the most intense pleasure, strung me out, his tongue still on me as I came, holding me in thrall to his mouth…Boone.
Boone, one of the unholy trinity bad boys who had turned out to be so, so good.
Driven past the edge of control, I felt the way Boone trembled against me as he reared over me and entered me in one powerful stroke, filling me, stretching me, touching off another explosive orgasm. He wrapped his arms around me and crushed me to him, holding himself still as my muscles tightened around him.
As the spasms eased, he began to move slowly, pushing me toward yet another peak. He kissed me softly, tenderly. He stroked the hair from my temples and smiled into my eyes. That Outlaw grin. Boone Swoon times ten and squared. God help me.
My breath hitched in my throat at each reaching stroke. I slid my hands down over his back, over the hot flexing, sweat-slick muscles. Then my fingers stretched over the tight, rounded mounds of his butt, and I groped and squeezed, urging him to increase his tempo until he was thrusting into me with fast, hard strokes, until we were both nearly frantic with the need for release.
He buried his face in my neck, his breath echoing harsh and fast in my ear, and he came, stiffening above me, his pleasure triggering my own. I was sinking and floating and couldn’t seem to hold him tight enough. My mouth was open on his shoulder, tasting him. I was filled with the scent of him, with the hard length of him, feeling the strength and heat of his body covering mine, and I never wanted it to end.
Afterwards, he wrapped me up in his embrace and I curled my arms around his neck and rested against him, exhausted, replete.
“Boone,” I whispered against his skin. “My Boone.”
He tightened his arms around me, needing to maintain contact with me as much as I did with him. And we cooled off and he drew a sheet over us to ward off the chill of the air conditioning.
He rolled and tucked me against his body. I snuggled in against him. I remembered the night he’d been out of his head with fever and all the things he’d told me in that vulnerable state. I wanted to clear that up with him.
“Boone?”
He took a heavy breath and said, “Hummm.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Not now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. What?”
“The night you had a fever, you told me some stuff. Well, that’s not exactly true. You told me stuff after I asked questions. I feel like I took advantage of you. I wanted you to know that I would never reveal anything you told me to anyone.”
“What did I say? Some of it I remember.”
“You told me that no one would give you a chance, see you for who you were and not lump you in with every other Outlaw that came before you. How you wanted to contribute, tried to get jobs, how cruel some of the townspeople were to you. You were only fourteen.”
He went still; then he roughly expelled his breath. “Really, I told you all that?”
I pulled away from him so that I could meet his sleepy, sexy eyes. “There’s more.”
An unsettled look darkened his eyes. “Shit, really?”
“You said that’s when you started feeling worthless, and when you got to high school, you turned to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain and to get you through the days.”
He looked away, his face going a soft shade of red. “Oh, fuck. I didn’t mean to subject you to all that.”
I knew shame, and that’s what I saw in his eyes. I didn’t want him to feel that way. “No, Boone, don’t be embarrassed. Not with me. All of us have done things we’re ashamed of. You didn’t subject me to anything…I–I want to know more.”
“You do? Like what?”
“Tell me about rehab.”
He shifted and started to pull away, but I clutched him to me. “Boone. I want to know everything about you. Please don’t pull away from me now.”
He closed his eyes and I could see him visibly fighting with his memories. “It’s not something I like to remember. How I was. What a fucked-up loser I was.”
“Don’t say that. You’re not a loser. I was just as screwed up, only I channeled it into being the perfect preacher’s daughter. I felt like just as big a loser.”
“What? How?”
“I let being a preacher’s daughter dictate to me how I lived every moment back then. I regret letting the stigma of who I was turn me into a hypocrite.”
He cupped my face, his palm warm and comforting. He gave me a sympathetic look, like he knew exactly how I was feeling, and I believed he did.
“I didn’t have pure thoughts, nor did I believe everything my daddy preached about. I was sometimes cynical and unhappy in my role. No one wanted to cut lose around me. They all felt constricted by who I was. I was always uncomfortable at parties. The graduation party wasn’t any different.”
He smoothed his thumb along my jaw, his blue eyes confused. “Why did you go?”
“I wanted to see you.”
He stared at me, then inhaled unevenly. “What?”
I looked down. Being honest with him did some healing of my heart. “I thought you would be there, and I was hoping to get up the courage to talk to you. Finally talk to you.”
“No shit, Verity. I’m blown away. I had no idea.”
“Before I could, you disappeared, and then I finished the drink with the X in it and you know the rest.”
His voice was unsteady when he whispered, “Sitting next to you, breathing in your scent, the forbidden girl I promised my brothers I would never touch. But I wanted to. I wanted to touch you. Even then you drove me crazy. I got wasted so I’d keep my hands off you. Fucking ironic, isn’t it? That if I had been sober things might have turned out differently.”
“Yes, they might have,” I agreed. “So tell me about rehab.”
“You really want to hear this?”
I slid my arm aro
und his waist, met his eyes head-on. Never more honest in my life. “Yes, every word you want to tell me.”
His chest heaved and he blinked a couple of times.
“Remember what I said about guys crying,” I said. He gave me a wry look.
“Yes, that it doesn’t bother you.”
“So, if you cry, I won’t call you out for being a wuss.”
He laughed and pulled me tight in a hard hug. “You’re always giving me sass.”
“You like it,” I said, hugging him just as hard.
Sensing his pensiveness, I continued to hold him.
He hesitated briefly before he answered. “After high school, I was so fucking lost, Verity. I partied and continued my reckless ways. One night I got really wasted and passed out in my truck just at the edge of the swamp. I’m not sure if I knew it was too much or not. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I was so broken and felt so alone…fuck.” He drew an unsteady breath.
“I’m sorry.” It was simple and heartfelt. His arms tightened around me, and I felt so comfortable with him, so connected to him.
“My brothers found me just in time, got me to the hospital and they pumped my stomach and saved my life. After that, they wouldn’t leave me alone. We have tripdar, you see.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like that sixth sense you get when you’re a multiple birth. In our case, triplet radar. You just know when something’s wrong.”
“Uh-huh.”
He took a shaky breath. “They badgered me for days, but I kept refusing. Until…”
I pressed my face against his. “Until?”
“My ma. She visited every day, and one day she just completely broke down right in front of me. I’ve only seen her cry a couple of times. When Dad left, that was the worst, but she always held it together. She begged me to go into rehab, and I couldn’t refuse her. I was pretty scared about what had happened, even though I was pissed as hell.”
I smoothed my hand down his back. “And rehab changed you?”
He snorted. “No, Verity. Rehab cleaned me up and gave me perspective, but the only thing that could really change me is me. While I was cooling my heels, angry that my family had done this to me, I got so bored that one day I just walked up to one of the landscapers and asked him to put me to work. He did. I always had an affinity for plants. A green thumb. But I never thought about using it to make a living. When I got home, I stayed clean and channeled all my energy to taking online classes in landscape architecture. In the fall, that’s when Booker hit it big. He made a ton of money when his book went viral. And then he invested his money in me and Brax. After he built his house, he let me use it for a final project in one of my classes, and that’s when Breebree’s ma saw it and hired me to do her back yard.”
“It’s really beautiful, Boone, and the pool area that you added is amazing.”
He smiled at me, pleased. “Thanks.”
“How did you get into Architectural Digest?”
“Booker sent my portfolio for a contest to remodel the Lafayette mall. I won and the mayor saw my work. He hired me, and that’s when I got the spread.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
I leaned my head back to look up at him and he kissed my mouth slowly and sweetly. Brushing hair off my cheek, he smiled. “Thank you for listening, for wanting to know. It’s not easy to tell a girl you like a lot that you didn’t have total confidence.”
“I told you. We all make mistakes. I’m no different.”
“I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”
My heart jumped. “What?”
“Your designs. The ones you showed me on our iPad. They looked like they were on high-fashion models. How is that possible when you were in Kenya last year?”
It was time for me to release just a bit more of my secret to Boone. My stomach clenched, but after he’d told me such heart-wrenching things about himself, how could I do anything less?
“I wasn’t in Kenya, Boone.”
“Fuck. Where were you?”
“I was in New York City.”
“What? How?”
“When I got to New York City, I emailed the mission director and told him I was ill. I still did my mission, though. I joined a literacy project and taught people to read.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I had to, Boone.”
“Why?”
I closed my eyes, the truth hovering on my tongue. Just tell him. “I…wanted to be a fashion designer, and I knew that it would never happen if I didn’t establish myself first.” My fear won out again and I felt ashamed of myself. But our relationship was just so new. I wanted to give it some time before blurting out he’d fathered a child. It would come as a great shock to him.
“Geezus,” he said. “That scares the crap out of me that you were there alone.”
I buried my face in his shoulder and stubbornly held back the tears that clogged my throat. I heard my cell go off, but I figured it was probably my parents. They would have to get used to the new Verity. I was old enough to take care of myself. I had a job and considerable money in my bank account. I couldn’t cry to release the strain of holding back on him.
“The designer’s name is Minnie Tattersall. She loved my sketches and my ideas. I worked with her for a year, and I have a collection ready to show at Fashion Week in September. I came back to Suttontowne to tell my parents that I was leaving.”
Boone stiffened at my words, and I felt terrible, but also glad it was out in the open between us. I didn’t know where this would go with Boone, but I suddenly wanted the chance to find out.
“I don’t want you to leave, Verity.”
“What is it that you do want? With us, Boone?”
“I want to build something with you, Verity. Something meaningful.”
“In Suttontowne? Do you even think that’s possible, or are we doomed to fail?” I snuggled my body against his, and he responded by kissing my forehead. “And for the record, we already have something meaningful,” I said. “But I’m scared, Boone.”
“So am I, darlin’.”
That admission made me breathe easier. Boone cared enough to be scared.
We dozed, and each time I woke, he was still holding me, even while asleep.
I spent the night in Boone Outlaw’s arms, slept with the daddy of my child—our child. Even as his room lightened from the rising sun, a tremor of fear rumbled through me.
And more of my secret had been revealed, but I still had to decide on whether or not to take that final step and tell him the rest. Something that was too fragile, too painful, too final for me to reveal. Once I told him the ultimate part of the secret, how could I ever keep my daddy from finding out what I had done? How could I keep it all contained?
But the fear was so strong. And, I had to wonder. Had I come back to break the news to my parents? Or had I come back for this? To see what there was between us, if anything. Two people who had collided on a sultry night, and I had conceived a precious, sweet little boy who had changed my life.
He was…
A perfect mistake.
Our perfect mistake.
Chapter Thirteen
Boone
I couldn’t believe that I had Verity in my bed and I was pumping iron. My dick was just as incredulous and really disgruntled. But it wasn’t the head I needed to be thinking with. I was freaking out a little. After what she told me last night, I had to wonder if I shouldn’t pull back. I could see I was heading for a fall. If Verity decided to go, to leave Suttontowne, how far did I want to be in?
How deep was I already in with her?
Maybe too damn far.
My dick was convinced I wasn’t in far enough, but we had a different measurement system and that fucker was biased.
Fuck me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck me.
I set the bar back in place and pulled off my soaked t-shirt, mopping at my face. I walked over to the bar and pulled myself up, crossing my ankles. The s
heer concentration I needed for pull-ups helped.
I found lifting replaced my need to retreat and helped me stay away from drugs and alcohol. Exercise and the stress relief it provided had been my refuge. But today it wasn’t giving me the breather I wanted.
Finished with the pull-ups, I lifted myself up and hooked my knees around the bar, hanging upside down and started on my sit-ups.
“Boone?”
I heard her gasp as I did my last sit-up. Hanging upside down, I could see her standing in the doorway.
She wasn’t moving or speaking. She was just standing there staring at me. What the fuck?
I grabbed the bar and lowered myself down and turned around.
She had on my t-shirt again and she looked adorable, tousled and sleepy-eyed. She stared at me, her eyes roaming over my chest and down my stomach. She liked what she saw, and I knew it was too damn late. I was already buried to my chest in quicksand and going under fast.
She came into the light and I said, “Shit, Verity, your face.”
She reached up and cupped it. “Really? It’s bad?”
I nodded as she walked right up to me and went to wrap her arms around my neck. I stepped back. “I’m all sweaty.”
“I don’t care,” she said and stalked me. Grabbing me around the neck again, she pressed her body against mine. “Boone, you are so gorgeous, so powerful. Do you have any idea how many women in Suttontowne would pay to see you do sit-ups upside down on a bar?”
I laughed. “Really? It’s just exercise.”
Then I remembered what Booker said about those hip muscle thingies girls really liked. “What do you think about these?” I pulled down my shorts enough to reveal my hips.
She licked her bottom lip, then bit it. Reaching out she ran her index finger along the ridge of muscle. I reached up to the bar and gripped it, grinning as I leaned forward, tightening all the muscles in my upper body.
“I think they’re amazing.” When she dropped to her knees, I almost backed up. She looked up at me while she gripped the waistband of my shorts.