Even Apple flirted with him, in her own way, and Lemon knew from her own experiences that hate did not mean indifference.
“Sweet Lemon, you have to know that the only McCoy for me has always been you.”
Tristan sat behind Lemon in the claw-foot tub, washing her hair while she leaned against his chest. Every so often her sweet ass would press up against him and his erection would swell even more.
But now wasn’t the time for that. She deserved to be pampered.
He’d made love to her all Friday night and Saturday morning and afternoon, until she had finally confessed she was too sore to take him again. So he made love to her with his mouth instead, until he exhausted her and she fell into a sleep so deep that she didn’t wake up until twelve hours later.
Not sex. Not fucking. Love.
“This is better than going to the salon,” she said.
“They don’t have nude men waiting on you?”
She giggled, then said, “No, but I’m going to recommend that on my next visit.”
“Tart,” he said and began to rinse her hair, careful to keep the soap out of her eyes. “You have such pretty hair.”
“People generally like carrots.”
“I haven’t called your hair that color since we were twelve,” he said.
“It’s not much different.”
“Yeah, but I am. Your hair is like liquid fire.”
“Read that in novel?”
He dipped his head close to hers. “All the best lines are from books.”
She turned slightly to look up at him. “Are you going to whisk me away for the weekend every time we have a misunderstanding?”
Leaning back in the tub, he stretched his legs alongside hers. “I’d like to say no, but I’m not sure.”
“Next week, you can’t do this because I have to fulfill my duties as Cotton Queen and preside over the annual—”
A grin kicked up the corners of his mouth.
“I take my duties as queen very seriously.”
“I know you do, and I’m not making fun of that.” He canted his head from side to side. “Anymore.”
“Thank you,” she said primly and he wanted to laugh at the erotic picture she made that was in direct contrast to her tone.
Her bare breasts, tipped with the sweetest pink nipples he’d ever tasted, much less seen, bobbed in the water while a dark red strip of hair held center stage on her sex below the surface. “Stop staring at me like that.”
“Can’t help it. You’ve got the prettiest little pussy, Lemon.”
Twin red spots flagged her cheeks as her mouth opened and closed. She twisted back around and began to pull what was left of the bubbles toward her, but they were popping faster than she could cover herself.
With a tiny growl, she brought her legs up to her chest and said, “A gentleman doesn’t mention how pretty a lady’s pussy is, but thank you for the compliment.”
She sounded so adorably proper that he threw his head back and laughed. “God, I love you.”
She froze.
So did he.
“Um... The water’s getting cold,” she said before scrambling out of the tub—with his help of course. “I need to dry my hair.”
“Lemon, I...” With her reaction, he didn’t know how to follow up his ill-timed declaration, so he settled for saying, “We need to get back home.”
Chapter Thirteen
It had been two weeks since Tristan had said he loved her, and Lemon wondered if she would ever hear him say it again.
“Why didn’t you say it back?” Skylar asked.
Lemon sighed into her teacup. “I panicked.”
“More ice?” the server asked.
“No, thank you,” she and Skylar said simultaneously.
Usually, that would have made them snort and promise each other a coke, but this time, neither of them felt like being silly. Not even while wearing ridiculously large hats and sipping tea from cups made of fragile porcelain.
The brim of Skylar’s flopped over one eye. “Why do we keep coming here?”
“Because there’s no danger of our men overhearing us.” Lemon took a bite of cookie. “And they give Bailey Yates a run for her money when it comes to desserts.”
“I’ll eat to that,” Skylar said cheerfully as she pushed her hat back. “If you hadn’t had panicked, would you have said it?”
“Maybe?” Lemon shook her head. “I don’t know if he really meant what he said... you know, like when you’re starving and can’t get away from work, and a friend brings you lunch, and instead saying thank you, you’re all I love you. I love this sandwich. I love—”
“Tristan Lawson.”
“Exactly.”
Skylar barely held back a laugh.
“No, that is not what I meant.” Lemon banged her teacup on the table, then sucked in air through her teeth. “Look at me, I’m falling apart.”
“Wish I looked like you when I fell apart.”
Lemon rolled her eyes. “Wish I could play any instrument I wanted to, but that’s not going to happen.”
“I’m not sure if I should be offended or—”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant that we can’t control what others do—only what we do in response to what they do in uncontrollable circumstances.”
Skylar’s nose scrunched up on one side. “I think your speeches are mixed up.”
Pressing her fingers against her eyes, Lemon struggled not to burst into tears. “I’m mixed up.” If she couldn’t keep her speeches straight, how would she ever be able to be a good mother? A baby required that things be kept straight.
Skylar got out of her chair and kneeled beside her, rubbing her hand on Lemon’s back. “Of course you are. You’re newly married and have a baby on the way. How wouldn’t that turn your life upside down?”
Tears got caught in her throat. “I’ve been married for four weeks, sleep with the same man every night, and I feel more alone than I ever have in my life.” She jumped to her feet, flinging her hat to one side and grabbing her purse. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
She hurried out of the teashop and onto Main Street. Of course, she ran into every one she knew and had to smile the entire time. Luckily, she found a pair of large, dark sunglasses in her purse before she ventured too far.
Before she knew it, she stood in front of the town’s library. Tristan was inside, probably reading to kids or doing his budget for the next year, after refusing a contribution from her father.
Breathing out a shaky sigh, she marched up the steps and went inside. Since it was lunchtime, the library crowd was rather sparse, so it took her no time at all to find Tristan deep in the stacks, reading a book and eating an apple.
Why was she here?
She nearly spun around when she saw him, but the toe of her shoe squeaked a little and he looked up.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, coming to her in an instant.
No, everything was not okay, but now she felt dumb for coming to him in the first place. He looked so calm, so composed... so much like the man she spent years detesting.
So it made perfect sense for her to kiss him right then. He tasted tart, like the Granny Smith apple he was eating, and she wanted to pull away, but his hand came up to cup her cheek. His book dropped to the floor with a thud and his other hand wrapped around her back, fitting her tightly against him.
He kissed her back until she was breathing hard. “You’ve been on my mind all day.” His hand drifted lower until he cupped a butt cheek. “Let me play with you.” He began fisting the material of her skirt. Cool air hit her legs and she shivered.
When his fingers began to caress her, she moaned.
“Shhh,” he whispered, sounding exactly like a librarian would. Then his head dipped and his tongue was in her mouth, while his clever fingers slipped inside of her.
While they tortured her and made her knees weak. He circled his clitoris with her thumb until she clung to him, helpless to pull aw
ay. “There you go, beautiful.”
She shattered into a thousand pieces as he covered her mouth once more, drinking in, it seemed, the sound of her cries of pleasure.
A tender yet very hot smile curved the corners of his lips. He was so damned pleased, and now that she could think mostly straight again, she was more discombobulated than ever—if that was even possible.
“I have to go,” she said for the second time that day and whirled away from him, making sure her skirt was in place.
She was halfway down the street when she heard him call her name. With a defeated sigh, she stopped, her shoulders sagging.
“What was that about? Not that I minded. I enjoyed it, but you never come to the library.”
Automatically, her eyes narrowed.
“I don’t mean that as an insult. I meant that—with only one or two exceptions—you’ve never come there with the expressed purpose to see me, much less attack me in the stacks and let me have my wicked way with you.” He gave her a wicked smile. “Thanks for fulfilling that fantasy.”
“Yeah, right. I’m sure you had more than enough—” She burst into tears. “I hate this.”
“Seeing me in town?”
“No.” She sniffed, misery coating every pore in her body. “I hate having no control over my emotions.”
“I’ll take off the rest of the day, and we can go—”
She stomped her foot. “I don’t want to go anywhere just to have mind-blowing sex with you,” she shouted.
More than a few heads turned their way, but Lemon didn’t care.
“Fine,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender, but he didn’t look particularly upset at her outburst. In fact the odious man looked... pleased. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
He eyed her. “Yes, you do.”
“Well, if you know what I want, then you should take care of what I want.”
“Let me walk you home and I will. Again.”
“Fine, but no sex. Not even with your fingers. Or mouth.” His brows rose, as if to say that’s all?. “Or tongue.”
“What if I know that is what you know you want?” he asked, and she wanted to smack him. And kiss him.
Okay, and have sex with him.
Tristan walked his wife home, feeling completely responsible for her public meltdown. It was all his fault. He should have talked to her about what he’d said before now.
“Have a seat,” he said and bounded to the kitchen to fix her a glass of water. “Have you eaten?”
“At the tea room with Skylar.”
“I didn’t know you had plans with her,” he said, moving back to the living room and handing her the glass.
She drank it down, then placed it on the coffee table in front of her, directly on a coaster. A coaster that matched three others. He didn’t have those before she moved in with him.
“I don’t know your schedule either.” Her pretty hazel eyes blinked up at him. “We haven’t bothered to get to that part of being married.”
“Would you like my schedule?” he asked.
She nodded and shrugged at the same time. “I guess.”
He sat down beside her and took her small, cold hands in his. “I read that the baby would make you very emotional, but that’s not the sole reason you’re upset and that’s my fault.”
“I’m not just emotional; I’m questioning my ability to be a mother.”
“Welcome to the club,” he said with a small smile, then sat back and pulled her against him. Thankfully, she snuggled right up to him, kicking off her wedge sandals and curling her legs up on the sofa. “I have my doubts, too, about being a dad.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “A baby manual is great, but the hardcore stuff, the tough decisions, and the inevitable rites of passage that will happen, I have no clear plan as to what to do. Playing things by ear has never been my style.”
“Does that mean you planned to write to me after you deployed to Afghanistan?” she asked.
“Not exactly.” Wondering how they’d gotten down this bunny trail.
“You wrote beautiful letters,” she said.
“So did you.” Over the years, he had demanded that she return his letters, but she would always answer, What letters?
It used to infuriate him. Now it made him sad.
“Did you keep them?”
“Every single one.” She sat up a little. “Do you still want them back?”
He shook his head. “Keep them.” What about his last letter? Should he ask about that one in particular, or let things lie? They had been kids then, stupid kids who went right back to assuming the worst about one another as soon as thousands of miles and the Atlantic Ocean didn’t separate them.
Yet, it still bothered him.
“My last letter to you... were you surprised?”
“A little but when Apple gave it to me, she’d already read it and said that you’d finally come to your senses. And that I needed to do the same.” She blew out a breath. “Wasn’t easy though, and that kiss we had... it didn’t make any sense, none of it, given what you’d written.”
Something wasn’t right. There was no way Apple could have thought he’d come to his senses, or she wouldn’t have prevented him from seeing Lemon and then telling him—Fuck.
“I mean, it was a breakup letter disguised as a thank you note,” she added.
Apple had lied. She’d lied to them both.
“How did your sister get that letter?” he asked, his gut churning.
“She happened to be staying with us while her apartment was being renovated.”
His jaw worked. “And the letter after that?”
Lemon gazed up at him, her brow creasing. “There wasn’t another letter.”
There was he wanted to say, but then he would be accusing her sister of theft and deception while it could still be sitting in some FOB halfway around the world. He had to tread carefully. Lemon loved her sisters, and Apple had always looked out for her.
Damn it. He hated being put in this position, but that was the past and here she was right now as his wife. The mother of his child. Either he could make things worse and insist on being right, or he could look to the future and put it all behind him.
“We did write a lot to one another. It’s possible I’m mixing things up.”
Lemon’s gaze turned sympathetic. “That’s all I’ve been doing lately.”
He kissed her temple. “Maybe you should consider slowing down—at least a little.” The woman always had somewhere to be, something to judge, and ran her nail salon business like a professional.
“My reign is almost over as the Cotton and Watermelon Queen,” she said. “I’ll miss wearing the tiaras and gowns.”
Guess she didn’t hate everything about beauty pageants. Or she simply liked pretty things. “You can wear them for me.”
Lemon nibbled on her bottom lip. “I like to wear my tiaras while I take a bath.”
“I’d really like to see you do that.” He could totally picture his wife in the tub, bubbles gently rubbing her luscious breasts, while one of her crowns sat atop her head. She could give him orders, and he would perform them on her...
“Are you getting turned on?”
“Getting? No. I’m already there.”
Color suffused her face. “Oh.” Her gaze flicked to his lap, where his cock was straining against the zipper of his trousers. “I could help you with that.”
“All yours.”
Her fingers went to work. In no time at all, he was raising his hips to help her. “Stop for a minute,” he said. “Go put on your favorite tiara.”
She didn’t question him, merely stood and walked to the bedroom, her curvy hips swaying. When she returned a minute later, the smallest tiara he’d ever seen her wear sparkled on her head.
“Thought it would be bigger,” he said as she kneeled at his feet.
“You said my favorite, not the biggest.” Her small hands wrapped around him,
and he groaned. “However, this is my favorite and it is the biggest I’ve ever seen.” She kissed the head.
“Keep talking.”
“I don’t think it will fit, but I’ll try to please you.” Her head dipped and the tiara she wore tumbled to one side.
He grabbed it and set it on his head. Lemon peered up at him through her lashes, gave him a smile hot enough to melt ice in the dead of winter, and took him in her mouth.
The moment her tongue touched him, his hips threatened to buck against her. It was all he could do to sit there and let her have way with him. But he would.
Then he planned on having his way with her.
Chapter Fourteen
The next day, Lemon drove to her mother-in-law’s house. Her own mother was meeting her there to discuss a belated reception.
Although she was excited to plan the party, her conversation with Tristan the day before kept creeping back in her head. Something wasn’t right about his careful responses when it came to those blasted letters he’d written her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him. She did, but she couldn’t help but think that there really was another letter. One that had possibly been hidden by her sister or simply lost in the mail. What had it said? It couldn’t have been any worse than his thanks for writing me, pal letter.
Did she want to open that Pandora’s box, or continue to let things stay as they were? Or how she hoped they were heading, anyway.
Hope was such a dangerous thing, especially when it offered to give you everything you wanted.
Lemon parked her car next to her mother’s and got out, then started up the front porch steps.
Dinah Lawson and Viola McCoy were already inside. Lemon could hear them chatting happily away, so she paused by the storm door and waited for a bit.
Okay, so she was eavesdropping. Still...
“Never thought I’d see this day,” Dinah said.
“To be honest, it was a shock for me as well,” her mother replied.
“I do hope you’re not unhappy with Lemon’s decision to change her last name. I know how much tradition means to your family.”
“Can’t say that I was exactly pleased at first, but once I talked to Mr. McCoy, he pointed out traditions were only good if they made the family stronger. I think that my daughter’s decision to marry Tristan has helped to make our family stronger.”
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