He nodded, his hand on my neck. “You know . . . your grandma . . . she was there with Frankie when I got home that night. Watching over her. Caring for her. She helped to get me through that time.”
At the thought of my grandmother with Frankie, warmth spread beneath my skin. She truly had been a part of their lives. I guessed I’d only related it to the pies. But she’d meant something to them.
Without a doubt, they’d meant something to her.
“I’m so glad she was there for you.”
“She was amazing.”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
Contentment rolled through my being as a slow, slow caress, and I snuggled closer, laying my head on his chest, my ear against the steady thrum of his heart.
“Can’t believe what nearly went down this afternoon,” he muttered, lightly gliding his fingertips along my bare back.
Fear flickered in my spirit. “Me, either. But it’s over. I don’t want to dwell on what might have been or could have happened. I just want to be thankful for what did.”
“But the loan you were after that set that bastard off? What now?”
I kept drawing patterns on the rippling muscles of his pecs, words subdued. “I wait, I guess. Pray that they approve it and this whole mess doesn’t affect it in any way.”
“You mind me asking how much you were asking for?”
“No, I don’t mind. Two hundred thousand. When I found out my grandmother left everything to me, the attorney had an estimator go in to give me an idea of what repairs would be needed to reopen. He wanted to give me the option to cut my losses and sell it off for what it was worth.”
“And that’s what you wanted? To come back here and take all that on?”
Soft affection slipped from my mouth. “When I was growing up, running that restaurant was the only thing I wanted. I couldn’t imagine anything but being there at my grandmother’s side.”
“Why’d you leave, Rynna?”
Sadness wove into the fibers of my being and I tilted my face so I could see him. “Because I thought I was in love and it turned out it was nothing but a joke. I couldn’t be the joke anymore, Rex. It hurt too bad.”
“Fuck . . . I hate him.”
“It wasn’t just him. It was everything. Everyone. The school. This town. I knew if I stayed, everyone would be laughing at me.”
I could still see Janel, that evil, depraved laugh, no care as she crushed my soul and destroyed my world.
“I was humiliated. Betrayed. At the time, I saw no other option than running, thinking I couldn’t stay here and face the people I thought cared about me. I was so young. Looking back now? It seems ridiculous that I let them affect me so much.”
He tightened his hold. “It’s amazing how much power the ones we care about most hold. Especially when they’re hurting us.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I just wish I hadn’t stayed away so long. I wish I had come back when she was still alive. She wanted so badly for me to come home, even though she paid for my college, encouraged me to find what I loved. What made me happy. And I was fine in San Francisco, satisfied on some level, but it never brought me the true kind of joy I knew she wanted for me. And then . . . she was gone . . . and I was too late.”
He shifted a fraction, staring at me intently, almost cautiously. “Did you come back for her, or for you?”
“At first? I—” I blinked, wandering through the emotions I’d felt at the news.
Agony.
Grief.
Guilt.
The fear that had stumbled my feet and the hope that had pushed me forward.
“I was terrified to come back, but I did it because there was a part of me that had never let this place go. It didn’t take more than my walking through the doors of that restaurant for me to realize this was where I belonged. All the years I spent working in a corporate office and, it turns out, I just want my fingers buried in dough.”
Warm laughter floated out. “And here you are . . . home . . . right where you’re supposed to be.”
“Yeah.”
“Making pies.” A tease slipped into his tone.
A grin pulled at the corner of my mouth, and I edged back onto both hands, grinning down at him. “Oh, you like those pies, huh?”
He leaned up, kissing the tip of my nose, the caress of his lips chained to my heart. “Mm-hmm . . . I definitely like those pies.”
I could feel the heat flush my body, my voice growing quiet when I asked, “Did you eat the one I made you?”
He rumbled a greedy sound. “Every single bit. All except for the piece Frankie had to have. And fuck me, if I didn’t want that piece, too.”
“Stingy.”
“You can’t blame a man who knows what is his.” He was all smirks, this easy cockiness where he lay in the middle of my bed.
God. He was beautiful and I still couldn’t believe he was there. That this was real.
A rush of joy took me over. This happiness that spread far and fast. I fell into his playfulness, the ease I had no idea this man could show. “Is that what won you over? My pies?”
“Maybe . . . a little.”
I swatted his chest. “No more pies for you.”
A shock of surprise jutted from my lungs when he suddenly flipped me, straddling me from above. His fingers dove into my sides, this hard, callused man, laughing as he tickled me. “Those are just wicked words, woman. Don’t you dare tease me like that.”
“Oh my God . . . Rex, stop! Stop! I’m so ticklish,” I squealed, struggling to break free and never wanting to go anywhere.
“Not until you make me all the pies.”
I tried to catch my breath and fight him off and hold him all at the same time. “No. No more pies for you.”
“Tell me, Little Thief. Tell me you’re going to make me all the pies.” He kept on with his sweet, sublime attack until we were a laughing mess of prodding, tingling fingers, hysterical, shrieking laughter, and wild, pounding hearts.
It tapered off when he pinned my hands to the bed above me, those piercing sage eyes holding me firmer than the hold he had on my wrists.
That awareness spun. Fierce and intense.
“You belong here, Rynna. You’ll make it work. I have faith in you.”
And then he was kissing me as if he didn’t ever want to stop.
22
Rex
Fear tumbled through his veins and clanged in the hollow of his chest. Frantic, he stumbled through the brushy undergrowth, the world buried by soaring trees. Branches lashed at the exposed skin of his arms and thorns latched onto the fabric of his shirt in an attempt to hold him back.
It propelled him harder.
Faster.
He screamed her name. “Sydney.”
Sydney. Sydney. Sydney.
The howl of wind answered back.
Sydney.
I panted and thrashed. My head spun, fumbling through my thoughts to make sense of where I was. Warmth surged through my body when hands smoothed across my face, the softest voice cutting through the darkness. “Shh . . . I’m right here, Rex. I’m right here.”
Relief gushed out on a shattered breath, and I grabbed her and pulled her against my body.
I buried my face in her hair.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“I am now,” I told her. Because it was the truth.
Rynna.
Fucking Rynna.
Little Thief.
She was making me pie.
Fuck, she was making me pie.
She fluttered around her kitchen, this amazing girl spinning me up more with every swish and sway of her hips.
She had pulled on a pair of lace underwear and had slipped on a long-sleeved, red-and-black plaid button down that she’d rolled up her forearms. The bottom hem of the shirt just barely covered that glorious, round ass, and those sexy legs were bare. Long and sleek and driving me wild.
Obviously, she was right when she said this was exactly where she bel
onged.
I wasn’t talking some bullshit chauvinist crap like that fucker who’d thought he could take whatever he wanted from her, either. Her body. His vengeance.
I was talking about her ease and grace. The joy that was so apparent in her eyes, and the pride that poured from her every time she glanced at the recipe she’d clearly memorized. But still, she kept peeking at it with an outpouring of love. Like she felt her grandma right there with every step.
I shifted on the wooden chair, trying to rein it in. Ideas barreled out ahead of me. Everything I was so fucking stupid for wanting calling out for me like it just might be within my grasp. Of course, all the reasons I couldn’t have them taunted me just in the periphery. Threatening to reach in and pluck me straight out of this moment.
Problem was, that asshole piece of shit who had shown up at her door earlier this evening had stolen something from me, too.
My damned sanity. After what went down, there wasn’t a whole lot of it left anymore.
Proof of it? I was sitting at the small table beneath the kitchen window that faced my house.
At two in the morning.
After I’d woken from that same fucked-up nightmare. After I’d let this amazing girl see that part of me.
She’d comforted me, whispered her belief when she had no idea where my panic was bred. When she had no clue there was a part of me that was screaming out in grief. Terrified. Feeling guilty for letting her soothe me when that part of me was condemned to agony for all my life.
I’d rolled over her, taken her, soft and slow while she’d gazed up at me through the shadows of the night.
We’d showered and then fallen back into her bed where we’d slept for a few hours. I woke to her sweet body wrapped around me, and we were right back at it again.
It seemed once we got started, neither of us could get enough. Afterward, she’d tugged at my hand and hauled me downstairs. There was a knowing grin on her stunning face, turning me inside out when she’d plopped me right here and told me to stay.
Like I was going anywhere.
I’d already had her three times tonight. It shouldn’t have been possible, but there it was.
Lust. Curling in my guts. My dick way too eager for another round as I watched her light footsteps as she crossed the floor, the way her hair fell across the silky skin of her neck as she leaned over to pull the piping hot cherry pie from the oven.
A pie that smelled like its own kind of miracle.
Night pressed against the drawn drapes, and the simple globe light on the ceiling cast a pool of golden warmth over her. While she’d worked for the last forty minutes, we’d been chatting
About anything and everything.
Two of us completely at ease. I’d asked her about her time in San Francisco and what it was like to work for a corporate accountant. She’d told me all about her best friend, Macy, that sweet softness in her expression when she’d talked about the girl who’d helped her out of her shell.
Of course, she’d been all too eager to know how Kale, Ollie, and I had first met, the girl laughing as I told her about the trouble we’d constantly gotten into as kids.
I’d wanted to tell her. Just lay it all out. But how could I expect to rein her with something that was so complicated when I still couldn’t figure out how I was feeling myself? When I still didn’t know how much I could give her when there was this antsy part of me that wanted to give her everything?
“Just a couple more minutes,” she told me with a smile from over her shoulder.
“You really are trying to ruin me, aren’t you, woman?”
She giggled. Fuck, that was cute, too. “How’s that?”
“I think you know exactly what you’re doing.”
“And what would that be?” Playing along, each of her words dripped with the sexy tease.
“Charming me with those pies and bewitching me with that body.”
“If that’s all it takes,” she said, tossing me a grin as she cut into the pie.
“You got more ammunition in your arsenal? Because you come at me any harder, I’m done for.”
She laughed, shaking her head as she slipped an angled spatula into the pie and pulled out a steaming sliver, quick to set it on a plate. She padded over to the freezer, grabbed a gallon of vanilla ice cream, and scooped a heaping pile of that on, too.
I could see it almost sizzle when it hit the pie, melting fast. My stomach growled in anticipation.
“Since you’re so impatient, this is still super hot, so it’s going to be more like cobbler.”
I grunted. “You can’t expect me to wait with something that smells that good.”
Redness heated her cheeks, this humble sweetness taking hold.
Damn, I really liked that. I liked that she was proud and brave and didn’t hesitate to say what was on her mind. Her pride came with this modesty that made me want to wrap her up and sing her every praise that could ever fall from my lips.
I was starting to believe she deserved every single one of them.
She was still smiling when she moved my direction. My mouth watered. Wasn’t sure if it was because I wanted to devour that pie or sink my teeth into those hips that swished back and forth.
Hypnotizing.
Stirring.
Inciting.
Fuck. This woman.
I leaned back in the chair when she came to stop at my side. Setting the plate down in front of me, she leaned close to my ear, her voice soft. “At least somebody appreciates my pie.”
My hand went out, palming one of those hips, voice turning sincere. “I won’t be the last. I promise you that. People are gonna flock to that diner in droves as soon as the word gets out.”
She cupped the side of my face, and my heart was doing that crazy thing again, speeding and knocking and thrumming.
“How do you make me feel like I can do anything?” she whispered.
“Know you can.” The words were gruff as my hand slid from her hip to her waist.
She let out a little yelp when I hoisted her onto the edge of the table, then she was giggling as she grabbed the fork and scooped up a bite, holding it up in front of my mouth. “What, you need me to feed you, too?”
For an answer, I cinched down on the outside of her thigh and tugged her closer. “Apparently, I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me.”
“How about this?” She waved the fork in front of my face, teasing me, taunting me. I reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, opening wide and pulling it inside.
On all things holy.
It melted on my tongue, an explosion of tart and sweet.
“Good?” she asked. A sudden dash of insecurity threaded its way into her tone.
My approval rumbled around the fork as she slowly pulled it free. I chewed and swallowed, watching her face the whole time, her expression nervous as she waited for my reaction. “It’s perfect, Rynna. Perfect like I’m starting to believe you might be.”
Her delicate throat bobbed, her expression wistful when she glanced at the pie. “I’m not close to being perfect, Rex. I just want to do it justice. Make my gramma proud and find joy in it at the same time.”
A soft puff of laughter jetted from her lungs. “And sometimes it seems silly . . . how badly I want it. How much it means to me.”
I brushed my thumb across the top of her thigh, hand still clinging to the side of her, needing that connection. “You want all the good things, Rynna. There isn’t any shame in that.”
I took the fork from her and scooped some onto it. “Here. Taste.”
Nearly died when she moaned around the fork, the way her eyelids drifted closed.
Savoring.
“See. You’ve got nothing to worry about, baby.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and her lips parted. A fleck of sugar was stuck to the corner of her bottom lip. Edging forward, I licked it clean.
“Delicious,” I murmured at her mouth, and she was moaning again, her fingers locking themselves in the ski
n of my shoulders. I kissed her a little deeper, and that sweet tongue slid against mine. Slowly this time. Like she was savoring me just the same as she was savoring the pie.
Pulling back, I dug the fork back into the pie and slipped another bite into her mouth.
She chewed slowly, watching me.
The air shifted between us.
Charged.
That current coming alive.
I swore that this girl emitted her own kind of gravity.
I dove back in.
Tasting her mouth.
Her tongue.
Her lips.
Relishing.
Wondering how a single moment could feel this good.
She took a fistful of my hair, nudging me back so she could take the fork and feed me another bite. She watched me chewing while my fingers tapped across the top of her thigh and to the inside. I brushed my fingertips along the edge of the lace that covered her.
A whimper, and she was feeding me more, just as I was pushing those panties aside, exposing her pussy, which was just as delicious as the rest of her. Wet and throbbing. I slicked my fingers through her slit, circling them around her engorged clit, my eyes never leaving her face while I rolled that pie around on my tongue.
“Rex.”
“Yeah?” I rumbled, not minding a bit when she was feeding me another bite. With my free hand, I gripped her knee and hooked her heel on the edge of the table, teasing her the whole time, before two of my fingers were pressing inside the warm well of her body. Her walls clamped down, throbbing and needy. I began to drive them in and out, the girl all spread out on the table, as delectable as her dessert.
She cried out when I pulled my fingers free, and then I watched her eyes glaze over when I dipped those fingers in the pie and lifted it to her mouth.
“Oh . . . God . . . what . . .” It was all a strangle of words as I pressed my fingers between those lush, full lips.
The girl sucked them clean.
“A little dirty and a whole lot sweet. Just the way I thought you’d be,” I said, gruff and hard.
She moaned. The sound vibrated around my fingers, and I ripped them free. In the same second, I was grasping the back of her neck and jerking her forward. I kissed her mad while my fingers went back to work, sliding deep and sure, because shit, I wasn’t leaving this house without driving this girl just as wild as she was driving me.
Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection Page 49