She nodded and tilted her ice cream cone toward me again. “Want another lick?”
“Most definitely.”
I touched her hand as I brought the cone to my mouth and swiped another taste.
“See you soon, Kyle.”
“Not soon enough.”
Her cheeks pinked as she backed out of the driveway. Across the street, Billy Carmichael pulled into his driveway, got out of his car, and waved at me.
I didn’t wave back. Nosy bastard. He needed to live his own life instead of paying so much attention to mine.
I did force myself not to stare as Meredith drove away, though. Maybe I could keep Billy guessing.
Meredith
My dad walked into my office, his hand in a giant bag of beef jerky.
“How’s it going, Merry?” he asked, biting into a piece of jerky as he closed my door.
I took off my glasses and turned away from my computer to face him.
“I’m good, Dad. How are you?”
He sat down in the chair in front of my desk, a little breathless just from the walk in here. My worry for him was always present, whether in the front or the back of my mind.
“We’re selling like gangbusters, so I’m a happy camper,” he said, grinning.
He was financially secure, but the salesman in my dad loved it when business boomed. Morale at work this month was very high because everyone knew he gave out bonuses at the end of big sales months. I’d heard some of the guys in our repair shop talking about how they’d spend them already.
I loved that my dad didn’t just give bonuses to the sales staff. Every employee got one, because our business was a team effort.
“It might be our biggest month ever,” I said. “I’m all caught up, and it’s our biggest to date, so we’ll see if it holds.”
“People in this town know the importance of shopping local. We’re lucky to have that.”
“Shopping local is good for them and us. A big dealership wouldn’t have picked Jimmy Morris up in the middle of the night because the car he bought from them two years ago broke down.”
“Dead battery,” Dad said with a chuckle. “He sure felt like an ass for cussing out that new guy in the service shop who picked him up and changed it when he found out that was the problem.”
There was never a good time to bring it up, but I couldn’t keep watching him eat crap after bypass surgery and not say anything.
“So how’s the diet and exercise plan going?”
He smiled sheepishly and held up the bag of beef jerky. “It’s hard to eat healthy here. I had some broccoli last night with my meatloaf at the diner.”
I kept my cool, though I wanted to blow up and ask him if he had any idea how much it upset me to see him putting his health in danger.
“What about walking in the morning before work? Have you tried that?”
He chuckled and grabbed another piece of jerky. “I walk to the toilet, does that count?”
“Dad, I’m serious. I’ll come over and walk with you. You can do this—we can do it together. I’ll cook you dinner every night if you want.”
He waved a hand. “You’ve got a life of your own, Merry.” His expression turned serious. “In fact, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. Word has it you’re seeing Kyle Lockhart.”
My cheeks warmed with embarrassment. I was still feeling the glow of my first kiss with Kyle, still reveling in the giddy uncertainty of what might happen next. We definitely weren’t an official thing, but the Lovely gossip mill had churned it into more than it was.
“I’m not seeing him, really.”
“I can see by your face there’s something going on there.”
I looked down at my desk. “Yeah. There’s something. I’ve been tutoring his boys after work every day for a couple weeks, and I guess . . . Kyle and I . . .”
“You don’t need to explain the details.” Dad shook his head. “I’d rather you didn’t. I still don’t think any man out there is good enough for my little girl. And I don’t like to bring up the Lockhart family because I know how painful it is for you, but I can’t keep quiet on this. Don’t do this to yourself, Merry. Please.”
“There’s nothing serious between Kyle and me. And he’s a good man, Dad. He really is.”
His brow creased with worry. “You’ll never be welcomed by that family. They won’t let anyone forget what happened with Reed. Even after all these years, I see you left out of things and talked about, and it hurts.”
My dad was normally a happy-go-lucky guy with an easy smile. He rarely got serious like this, and it was tearing at my heart.
“That’s Grace, Dad. Not Reed. Not Kyle. And not anyone else in the family.”
He shook his head. “You think you can sit across from Reed and his wife at Christmas dinner? Grace Lockhart won’t stand for it.”
I sighed softly. “You’re way ahead of yourself. Kyle and I are just spending time together.”
“I’ve noticed how happy you’ve been these past few days. You haven’t found any man worth spending time with in a very long time.”
“It’s not like I’m in demand, Dad.”
He sat forward in his chair. “And why is that? You’re beautiful, smart, and everything else a man could want in a woman. It’s because Grace Lockhart won’t let go of her hard feelings over you not marrying Reed.”
“Well, I did leave him waiting at the altar. That was awful of me.”
“How many years should you have to feel like a pariah over it?”
“I don’t know that I’m a pariah, exactly . . .”
“You don’t get included in things, Merry. Hospital fundraisers, shopping trips, those damned blanket-making parties your mother used to go to . . . Grace Lockhart has made sure you’re shut out of all of it.”
I nodded. “She doesn’t like me, Dad. And she never will. I accepted that a long time ago.”
“If you accept it, stay away from Kyle Lockhart. I won’t see you hurt by that family ever again.”
“It’s not Kyle’s fault.”
“Don’t waste your time on a man whose loyalty lies with his family, when his mother is a spiteful old witch. You’ll end up hurt.”
“Like I said, Kyle and I are just—”
My phone dinged with a new text, and I looked down at my desk.
Kyle: Thinking about you.
I flipped it over so the screen faced the desk and cleared my throat. “Anyway . . . I hear what you’re saying, Dad.”
He shook his head. “Just like I hear what you’re saying about my diet?”
“It’s similar, yes. Only Kyle Lockhart has a minimal chance of killing me.”
He blew right past my dig about his diet. “Just think about it, will you? Please?”
“Yes. I will, Dad.”
He left my office, but his concerns stayed with me. Deep down, I knew he was right. Kyle and I could hook up at his place, but could there ever be anything more between us? Anything real?
Not likely. My dad was right; the Lockharts were a fiercely loyal family. Kyle would never turn his back on them to be with me. And I’d never want him to.
I left work a couple hours early and took Jordan and Eric out to a movie at the downtown Lovely theater. It was a beautiful old building with lots of fond childhood memories for me.
“You want some candy?” Eric offered, holding his box of M&M’s out toward me.
“I do, thanks,” I said. “Trade?”
I gave him the popcorn and took a few M&M’s, letting them melt slowly in my mouth. The movie we were watching was animated, and it was cute. Mostly, I was enjoying the mental break, and the snacks were a nice bonus.
I’d texted Kyle about taking the boys to the movie, and when we got back to the house, his Range Rover was in the garage. I pulled into the driveway, planning to let the boys out and go home.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Jordan asked.
“Um . . . sure.” I put my Jeep in park and followed them inside through the garage
.
“Hey, guys,” Kyle said when we walked into the kitchen. “How was the movie?”
“Good,” Eric said.
The boys both went into the living room, leaving Kyle and me alone.
“How are you?” he asked, leaning a hip against the kitchen counter.
I shrugged. “Kind of wishing I lived in a city of a million people.”
“Yeah, Lovely’s a little too small at times. Is someone bothering you?”
“Not really,” I said softly. “I’m just realizing you can never reinvent yourself in a place like this. The past is always there, and everyone always knows about it.”
“Everyone has a past, though.”
“Yeah.” I leaned against the kitchen counter across from him. “You know, the finance guy at the dealership calls me ‘The Runaway Bride.’ Never Meredith.”
“Sounds like a real asshole.”
“Yeah, he is. He doesn’t do it in front of my dad.”
“Have you ever thought about telling him to stop?”
“After so many years, I’ve started to feel like he’s right. Like that’s who I am to most people around here.”
“Definitely not to me.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, when Jordan came into the kitchen.
“Practice starts in five minutes, Dad.”
Kyle glanced up at the wall clock. “I forgot that was tonight. Let me turn off the heat on the stove.”
“I can take him,” I said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, it’s no problem.”
“You want to come back for dinner?”
“I would, but I’m full from all the snacks at the movie.”
He arched his brows with amusement. “I take it the kids are, too?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re a bad influence.” He winked at me, and I warmed all over.
“Let’s go,” Jordan said, tugging on my arm.
“Don’t forget your glove,” Kyle called after us.
I dropped Jordan off at the baseball diamonds, drawing a glance from Louisa Jones, who had graduated high school with me and was dropping off her son.
But I was out of energy to care for the day. I went home, changed into my running clothes and shoes, and went for a long, mind-clearing run through town.
At least, it was mostly clear. I couldn’t get rid of the thoughts about Kyle kissing my neck and pressing my body against his. Or the vulnerability in his eyes as he told me he’d never had a blow job. Or my burning desire to give him one.
There was no amount of running that would take away those thoughts.
Kyle
The weekdays passed by painfully slow. I was focused at work and at home, but when I had downtime on the drive to work or after the kids were in bed, my mind wandered to Meredith.
I wondered what she was doing, and I replayed our evening together over and over. When I was fantasizing about her in bed one night, a thought slipped into my head unconsciously.
Reed had fucked her.
I tried to force the thought—and the images—from my mind, but I couldn’t. He’d probably been her first. It wasn’t jealousy that I felt—hell, she was eight years younger than me, and I couldn’t have been with her back then—but it was something I didn’t like.
He’d been places I hadn’t. He’d gotten her off. Her long, perfect legs had been wrapped around his waist with nothing between their bodies.
It was an odd feeling. I’d never been with a woman one of my brothers had been with. It was sort of an unspoken rule that we didn’t go there.
He knew how she sounded when she came. She’d probably done all sorts of dirty things with him when they were together.
And now I wanted her to do all those things with me. What would it be like for her? Would she compare the two of us?
From my one evening with Meredith, I could tell sex wasn’t a chore for her. The way she’d moaned and rocked her hips against mine in the hot tub had shown me she was just as worked up as I was. I’d never experienced that.
Sex with Kim had always been perfunctory—her on her back, me on top, I fucked her until we both came. She’d never been open to anything else. Why mess with what’s already working fine, she’d said?
It was how she’d gotten her way when she wanted something from me—by withholding sex. Vacations, jewelry, and the addition on our house had all been granted when I couldn’t take any more blue balls.
Sex after giving her something she wanted had always felt tinged to me. She didn’t want me, she wanted things, and sex was her only hold on me.
A woman who enjoyed sex purely for what it was? That sounded like an impossible dream to me.
Until now. Meredith had no reason to pretend to want me, and I wanted her more than my next breath. I felt like I was counting the minutes until she came over Friday night.
I’d dropped the boys off with my parents and was making homemade pizza when she rang the doorbell.
“Hey,” she said when I opened the door.
“Hi.”
She bit her lip as she walked inside. “There’s something very sexy about you drying your hands off on that dish towel.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Maybe it’s your big, manly hands doing something so domestic.”
“So you checked my hand size?”
She laughed and took me by surprise when she grabbed a handful of my shirt and tipped her face up to mine. “I already know what you’ve got going on down there, Lockhart. You tortured me with it last weekend.”
“Tortured, huh?”
“Don’t worry, Dickory finished what you didn’t.”
I dropped the dish towel, groaned, and cupped her ass, pulling her closer. “I’ll finish it right fucking now if you want.”
“Do you want to? In general, I mean? Have sex with me?”
“Are you serious?”
She flushed. “Kind of. I mean, we both said we don’t have casual sex.”
“You wouldn’t be casual to me. But if you don’t want to—”
“No, I do.”
She looked up at me through thick, dark lashes, her chest rising and falling against mine. I couldn’t take it—I shoved her against the wall, cushioning the back of her head with my hand, and crushed my mouth to hers in a hard, punishing kiss.
I felt her moan vibrating against my chest as she wrapped a leg around my waist and pressed her body to mine, practically climbing me.
The heat between us was more than physical. I craved her on a deep, primal level I had no control over.
“We can skip dinner,” I murmured in her ear.
“It smells so good, though.” She slid down me, her feet landing on the floor. “And we have all night, right?”
“We do.”
She cupped my cheeks in her hands and gave me a serious look. “The way you look at me . . . it makes me feel amazing. Sexy.”
“You’re unbelievably sexy.”
“Not in my mind. It’s been so long that . . .” She cleared her throat. “What I’m trying to say is, I feel the same way about you. I think you’re crazy sexy. And you’re like me—not getting laid by someone new every week. I like that.”
I brought her hand up to my lips and kissed her knuckles, then led her into the kitchen.
“Pizza and white wine or beer,” I said. “Figured we probably shouldn’t mix them again.”
She smiled. “So we don’t end up passed out in bed by ten?”
“Pretty much. And I can’t drink at all because I’m on call.”
“You might have to go into work?”
“Only if there’s an emergency. The on-call surgeon has the flu so we switched weekends.”
We talked about work and the boys over dinner. I was getting to know Meredith better, and I’d figured out she wasn’t one to talk about herself. I had to pry that stuff out of her. There was an underlying self-consciousness to her, which was hard to believe.
/> When we were done eating, she picked up the dishes from the table before I could get to them and took them to the sink to rinse.
I approached her from behind, put my arms around her waist, and spoke in her ear. “Leave those.”
Her long dress was sleeveless, and I felt goose bumps break out on her arms. She set down the plate in her hand, and I leaned down to brush her hair aside and kiss her neck.
Sighing softly, she tipped her head to the side, and I kissed all the way up her neck and back down again, sliding down the shoulder of her dress.
“Kyle,” she whispered, pushing her ass back against me.
At my height, my erection was halfway on her lower back, but I still felt a hot, clawing need for her when she rubbed against me like that.
I lowered my hands to gather the bottom of her dress, working it up until it was around her waist. She gasped and then moaned as I ran my palms over the silky fabric of her panties and then down her bare thighs.
“You want me in here tonight?” I said in her ear, slipping my fingers beneath the seam of her panties.
“Oh, God.” She braced her hands against the counter and let her head fall back against my chest. “Yes.”
“I bet this pussy tastes sweet, doesn’t it?”
She spun around and wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her body to mine and kissing me hard. I kept her dress hiked up so I could slide my hands under her panties and squeeze her ass.
Her moan told me she liked it when I was a little rough with her. That was uncharted and very hot territory for me.
I pulled away from her and spoke against her mouth. “Bend over the island and show me your ass.”
As her chest rose and fell breathlessly, she licked her lips and went to the island, facing it. My cock throbbed with need for her as she hiked the dress around her hips and then shimmied a little as she slid her panties down.
“Stop right there,” I said when they were past her ass and around her upper thighs.
I couldn’t let myself get too close to her pussy yet, or I’d lose what little control I had.
She leaned her elbows on the island, and I approached, eyeing her perfect, round ass. I ran my palm over the soft curves of it, and she sighed.
“Smack me,” she said in a tone so low it was almost a whisper.
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