“Because a Tipton can’t rely on anyone but themselves,” she said bitterly. “No point in pretending otherwise.”
His brows came together. “You never used to sound like your father. You do now, though. Just further proof that people change.”
When she didn’t respond to Peter’s comment, he reached over and tapped her knee with his beer bottle. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought up your dad.”
“I still miss him,” she said, quietly.
“Of course you do. I miss my mom. Doesn’t matter that she died when I was an infant, before I could even form memories of her. It hurts like heck that she’s gone.”
For a moment, they both let the sounds of the night surround them. The quiet chug of a truck engine on Main Street, the soft slam of a screen door at Cuppa Joe’s when Joe took out the recycling, the faint laughter and music from the party below. Neva cleared her throat before saying, “So is your offer to give me your apples one of those ‘being neighborly’ things again?” Her tone sobered.
He sighed and put his beer down. “No. This is me, giving you apples because you need them.”
“I can’t accept, you know. I need that contract signed. Everything has to be above-board. I have too much riding on this business venture to accept a handshake and a verbal promise.”
“A handshake, huh?” Peter switched his beer bottle to his other hand and took her hand in his. Her skin immediately warmed.
One, two, three seconds ticked by as he held her hand in the palm of his. Tingles skittered up her arm. Neva found herself holding her breath, oddly fascinated by how Peter’s palm was at first cool and damp against hers, then how it warmed, so quickly. She blew out a frustrated breath. Yet again, she’d misjudged his actions.
He gave it a quick squeeze and a shake. “For now, a handshake will have to do,” he said. “If you need a contract, you’ll have to wait for Maude. That’s the deal. But I’m sure she’ll sign.”
Neva jerked her hand away, feeling oddly stung by the fact that Peter wouldn’t give in on this contract.
“I should get back to the party,” she said. “Trudy and her friends were so kind to put this shindig together. I’m feeling a bit rude, hiding out here on the rooftop.”
“No, you want to get away from me. All because I want to give you free apples.” He noticed her beer bottle was empty and took it out of her hands, placing it back in the paper sack. “By the way, I spoke with Trudy earlier. She’d noticed you seemed a bit overwhelmed and figured you’d already headed home.”
Neva winced. “Now I feel guilty.”
Peter chuckled. “Don’t. She understands us introverts.”
“Introverts unite—in the privacy of our own homes!”
He grinned at the old joke, then shifted, as if to get up, but in doing so, came close to Neva. Suddenly she could smell his aftershave.
A quiver started low in her belly and moved upward, sending goosebumps down her arms.
She gasped, quietly, but the sound was loud enough for Peter to take notice.
He froze in mid-movement and turned his head slightly, just enough for them to be face-to-face, with only the soft breeze between them.
“Neva…”
She knew what he was saying with that one word, with the soft way her name came rolling off his lips, with the way his pupils dilated as he held her gaze with his.
Oh, no. No, this wasn’t good. Not good at all.
Years before, she’d kissed Peter when he’d thought she was Carla. He’d been her first kiss. And she’d loved every moment. Loved how strong and yet supple his lips were against hers, loved how he’d grabbed her forearms and drew her near to him, loved how she could feel heat from his core against her body.
She’d even loved how she couldn’t stop shaking because this had been Peter she was kissing, Peter who was running his hands down her back, over her top, kissing her clavicle, neck, lips—
They’d been friends for so long, but she’d always wondered, somewhere in the back of her mind, what it would be like to have Peter Leary as her boyfriend. So she’d melted into that kiss, loving every second of their connection.
That is, until he pulled back and had started to say something, but all she’d heard was the word “Carla” come out of his mouth. At that point, she’d yanked back, jumped up, and ran.
Peter had thought he was kissing Carla. He hadn’t recognized Neva like she thought he’d had.
That was the last time she’d pretended to be her twin sister—and she’d vowed never to do it again.
“What are you doing, Peter?” she asked shakily.
He continued staring at her, the seconds stretching long and wide, then reached out and brushed a stray hair off her cheek. His hand remained at the base of her neck.
“I don’t know.”
“I told you I wouldn’t date you.”
“Do you hear me asking you out again?” He stroked her neck with the pad of his thumb.
She trembled at his touch. “Seems to me like you’re about to kiss me.”
His hand cupped the back of her head. “Feels like I’m about to kiss you.”
Her belly warmed, but she didn’t move away. “This would be a bad idea, you know.”
“I know.”
Logic told her to throw on the brakes. Her body told her to ignore logic. “I’m not one of those women easily impressed just because of your heroic career.”
“I know that, too.”
“Need your better sense to have a conversation with your libido?”
“Just did.”
“And?”
“My libido won.” Peter angled his head and pressed his lips to hers.
For a moment, all Neva could hear was the soft sound of her shallow breath as she inhaled…exhaled…
And then Peter was kissing her. And she didn’t want him to ever stop.
Peter was no longer a nervous teenage boy, Neva realized as he held her head firmly and took over her mouth. He pressed his lips against hers, swept his tongue inside, teasing the tip of her tongue and tracing the outline of her teeth. When she gasped, he wove his other hand into her hair and held her tight, mating her mouth with his. Bliss spread through her body and she quivered.
Years before, Peter had kissed her and she’d felt like she was flying. Now? Peter had her soaring with the angels—they were even singing in her head.
This was good, was her only coherent thought.
So very, very good.
Peter pulled back and sucked in a deep breath, then claimed her mouth again, his lips soft and smooth but oh so strong. Supple and warm. When he bit her lower lip, she mewled and arched forward, bringing her breasts to touch his forearms.
This was not the kiss of two teenagers necking on the high school gym roof. This was the kiss of two experienced adults. Two adults who knew what they wanted.
Or at least, their bodies did. Neva’s mind, on the other hand, screamed run!
She didn’t, of course.
Peter ripped his mouth away from hers, his gaze washing over her face. He held her head in both of his and looked deep into her eyes. His gaze was penetrating, heated, full of want and need.
Her hands shook as she pressed them against his chest. She hadn’t even realized she’d tugged open his button-down shirt and had been stroking his chest. Crazy stuff, this, she thought. They both breathed deep and heavy, staring in each other’s eyes as if daring the other to speak first.
But then, instead of informing her they’d made a bad decision the way she expected, Peter kissed her again. And again. And again. And Neva let her mind drift off as her body took over.
Her hands drifted, too, and made their way under his shirt to caress his chest, brushing over the light spray of hair and palming his hard nipples. He mimicked her actions, unbuttoning the front of her dress to dip one hand into the cup of her bra, caressing and gently squeezing her breast, pinching her nipple.
She gasped, then made some sort of a moaning sound
and dove for his neck, where she bit and licked a path down to his clavicle. Under her lips, she could feel his heartbeat, fast and strong. Solid. Like the man Peter had become.
He put his other hand on her bare knee and brushed her dress aside, sliding his palm up along her inner thigh until he almost touched her quivering core.
Neva jolted, jerked. Her body writhed, in a desperate quest for Peter’s touch. She was wet and ready.
He wanted to have sex with her, Neva knew. And her body sure as hell wanted to have sex with him. Her mind, though? She could never be attached to someone who would always be thinking about her sister. Been there, done that.
Peter was leaving town, though. And once he was gone, he’d be out of her life for good.
She pulled back, then, and Peter met her gaze. A smile tickled the corner of her lips. Because Peter leaving town was a good thing. A very good thing.
And for a very, very good reason.
She was about to get laid and she’d never wanted a man so badly in her life.
Neva tasted so damned good, Peter thought. There was a hint of cinnamon on her breath—a taste that jolted him instantly back to high school. He’d kissed Neva once before, and that amazing kiss would be forever etched in his mind.
He ran the tips of his fingers along the vein transecting her neck and slid his hand lower, caressing the top of her breast where the soft mound strained against the buttons of her polka dot dress. Man, how he adored her in polka dots.
She’d filled out since their senior year of high school, and he loved the roundness he felt under his hands. Neva had muscles, too, but there was a luscious softness and brightness to her body as well, a womanly form that had been hinted at years before but now was deliciously clear.
He shifted. His pants were tight at the crotch and he wondered if her panties were wet. He’d almost touched her there—had come close to nudging her panties to slip a finger inside, but he’d held back. He’d waited ten years for this, and he didn’t want to screw it up by moving too fast.
She gazed at him, her pupils dilated, dark and velvety deep, like the night sky. Oh yeah, she had to be just as turned on as he felt.
Peter stared into Neva’s eyes as if expecting to find the answer to life there. He didn’t, sadly, but maybe he could find the answer to the question that was forefront in his mind: would she go to bed with him?
But before he got that answer, he needed to make sure she understood what that would mean. “I’m leaving town soon,” he grated out.
“I know.”
“Even though I’d asked you out, I’m not interested in a full-blown relationship.”
“Neither am I. And I’m still not dating you.”
“Just sex?”
She nodded.
“If we do this, it will be short-term. Nothing more. Once I leave there won’t be any long-distance video chats, no commitment, no anything.”
He’d been careful for years—sure, once he’d become a firefighter and women had been all over him, he’d slept around often enough. Especially in Meadowview, where no one knew him as the geek he once was. But he’d always been clear with the women he dated that he wasn’t a settling down kind of man.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, he’d thought about sharing a life with Neva, back when hope filled the air and the future seemed bright and shiny and full of infinite possibilities. Now, however, he was realistic. She might want him physically, but there was still reserve in her eyes that he knew he could never get past. Plus, getting seriously involved with someone who was rooting her life in Meadowview when he was about to fly away was simply not practical.
He waited, searching Neva’s eyes while waiting for her final answer. The moment was brief, but her hesitation long enough to throw his mind into multiple layers of doubt.
Then she breathed out softly and smiled. “No commitment? Sounds perfect.”
His gut twisted that she’d dismissed a relationship with him so easily and rather happily. Then he kissed Neva again because hell, he just couldn’t help it. After a long moment, he slid his hands out of her hair, letting her go.
“You know what we’re agreeing to, right? And you’re really okay with it?” he asked, torn between wanting her to say both yes and no.
She responded by reaching out and grabbing his hands. One hand she held in hers and the other she moved between her thighs, underneath her dress.
He sucked in a sharp breath as the wet heat from her core permeated the fabric of her panties and warmed his palm. Neva’s scent clung in the air—not the perfume she wore, but the scent of her arousal. He groaned, and his erection, which had grown hard and stiff in his pants the minute he’d reached out for a handshake, grew even more, straining at the fabric of his jeans.
“Sex,” she whispered. “Only sex. No relationship. No anything, just a few days of quickies to get us both by until you leave town.”
He cupped her mound, squeezing gently. Yes. She was wet and ready and he was beyond desperate to sink himself into her. “Your place or mine? Because attempting sex on a rooftop will lead us both to the emergency room.”
Neva laughed lightly and then stood, tugging his hand and getting him upright. “My place.”
Something unknown tickled his mind, sending worry into his chest. He shrugged it off. He was finally about to be with Neva. This wasn’t time for second guesses.
Fifteen minutes later, Peter slammed his truck into Park, shoved the emergency break into position, ripped out the keys, only to get stuck as he tried to untangle himself from his seatbelt, his hands shaking like he was back in high school again. He gave a short laugh. How funny was it that he’d be as nervous as a teenager arriving at Neva’s.
He’d groaned when she said she wanted to drive her own car home, but it made sense. In a small town like Meadowview, if she’d left her car on the street overnight, people would talk. Questions would be asked. At both Camden and Dillard’s Groceries, comments would be flying about how was it that the new girl, Neva Tipton, got herself the five miles home after the party. The gossip wouldn’t be mean, but people were curious. But with their houses miles from town with no other neighbors in view, no one would notice if his truck happened to be at her place overnight.
Yep, best that she’d driven herself and that he’d followed. But damn, he would’ve given anything to continue stroking her thigh during the drive. Or stopping alongside the road for another kiss. All of that was waiting for him if he’d only get himself out of his car and onto her porch, where Neva stood, bathed in a pool of dim yellow light emanating from the porch light, beaming at him…waiting. For him.
He opened up the truck door and jumped out, his heart beating wildly in his chest.
This was crazy, right? Right? Sleeping with Peter Leary? Neva’s mind continued having the same argument it had been in during the entire drive home. She’d spent years being angry with Peter and now she was going to jump in bed with him?
Apparently so.
From the porch, Neva gave Peter a hesitant wave. He’d followed her over in his truck, right on her tail the entire five miles home. Every time his lights flashed in her rearview mirror, her heart jolted a little and her thighs quivered even more.
She waited on the porch, the chorus of crickets and frogs loud in the damp night air. She couldn’t remember leaving the porch light on, but moths fluttered desperately around it, responding to their internal draw to the flame. Nor did she remember leaving the bay window in her living room wide open either. But since the gauze curtains were billowing in the night breeze, it was clear she had. She must be growing used to country life—where everyone was trusting of one’s neighbors—much sooner than she’d expected.
The pea gravel in her driveway crunched loudly under Peter’s boots. Neva sucked in a deep breath of air as he came closer, out of the dark and into the light.
He stepped up the porch steps, taking them one by one, a crooked smile on his face, and her knees grew weak. She backed up against her front door,
fumbling around for the doorknob. When Peter reached her, he stayed her hand from opening the door.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “I have to taste you again.” He dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers, then nudged the seam of her mouth with his tongue, asking—no, ordering—her to open to him. She did.
Peter shoved his hands under her dress, grabbed her by the hips, and hauled her up against him. Nerve endings tingled everywhere in her body. Thigh to thigh, pelvis to pelvis, with her breasts pressed against his wide and strong chest, she and Peter melted together in the kiss that went from questing to demanding to penetrating in the flash of a second.
She moaned and slid her hands around his back, then lower still, cupping his butt—his exceptionally hard and firm butt—with her palms.
Peter pulled his mouth away from hers and nuzzled her neck. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she breathed out, grasping him even tighter with her hands and pressing herself into his hips. Then she bit his neck. “Does that answer your question?” she murmured in his ear.
His soft chuckle drowned out the nighttime sounds surrounding them.
About to reach out for another kiss, Neva hesitated when Peter pulled back and stared at the open bay window.
“Do you have company?” he asked, a puzzled expression crossing his face.
“No. We’re alone.”
He furrowed his brow. “Okay…”
She pulled back, out of his embrace, worry tamping down her arousal. Had he changed his mind and was coming up with excuses? “Look, if you decided against going to bed with me on the drive over, tell me. I’d rather know now instead of five minutes from now when I’m trying to do a seductive striptease and you suddenly walk out.”
“No chance of me walking out. I promise.” Peter shifted his attention back to her, the lines on his forehead quickly erased as one eyebrow shot up. A grin flashed across his face. “Oh, and I’ll take that striptease now, thank you.”
Relief flooded her. Thank goodness. He wasn’t backing out. But why had he asked if she had company?
Charming the One: (Meadowview Heroes # 3) (The Meadowview Series Book 7) Page 6