by Kadie Scott
She shifted against his shoulder and changed the subject. “What about you? Why the trouble sleeping?”
He was silent so long, she wondered if he’d even answer.
“I stopped sleeping when I found Georgia’s note. The paternity issue made it worse.”
She had suspected that might have been the case. “Yeah. I guess that would mess with you.”
He scratched at his stubbled jaw. “It made me stop trusting my own judgment. I’d known Georgia forever, and I was shocked such a thing could happen without my realizing it. I had no idea she was unhappy.”
“Oh, heavens.” Georgia really had gotten herself into a mess, and Holly had been a part of it. At least, that was how Cash probably saw it.
“More like hell. A part of me even questioned whether or not I was Sophia’s father, so when you came to me at the office and confirmed my worst fears, I just sort of lost it.”
And he hadn’t told anyone this. She couldn’t even imagine walking around with that fear. Alone.
Holly pulled away and looked into his eyes. “But now you have nothing to worry about. Even if Marcus had turned out to be her father, I think he would’ve let her stay with you. Anyone can see you adore each other.”
His lips compressed. “I’m glad I don’t have to find out what he would’ve done.”
“He’s not a bad guy, Cash. You grew up with him. He’s family, in a distant way. He was just trying to do the right thing.”
“Why do you keep defending him?”
“I’m not. I’m trying to help you.”
“By taking sides with the guy who wanted to take my daughter away?”
“By helping you understand that not every situation is black and white. You walk around as though waiting for the world to beat you down. But you have a precious daughter and a wonderful family to support you. You should tell them about everything. I think you need them, even now that it’s over.”
His lips hitched. “Man, you’re stubborn.”
Holly rolled her eyes. “When it comes to helping people I…care for. Yes, I am. You’re such a good man, Cash. You deserve to find happiness. To…trust in people again.”
She had no idea if she was getting through to him.
Cash’s gaze drifted over her face, and she tilted her chin up, determined he believe her. Then he reached up and traced her lips with a single finger. “Thanks.”
Heat stole into her cheeks. “Yeah…well…”
Had she just made a total fool of herself, pouring her idiotic heart out like that?
She tried to sit up, away from him, but his arm tightened around her. He went quiet on her, still tracing her skin in a barely there touch that had her catching her breath.
“I want to kiss you so badly it hurts,” he whispered.
Holly’s gaze drifted to his lips. “We shouldn’t.”
“No kissing rule?”
She nodded.
“Maybe we need to rethink that rule.”
She pursed her lips, holding back a smile. “We keep breaking it.”
With a groan he captured her lips. Immediately, he ran his tongue over the seam, asking entrance. Getting it.
Holly loved the taste of him, the feel of his tongue as it snaked inside her mouth to brush with hers. Every part of her body was instantly alive and alert and tuned in to every nuance of his.
The position was slightly awkward, though, with her neck contorted to give him full access. She broke away then giggled at the surprise in his eyes. “If we keep kissing this way, I’ll have a permanent crick in my neck.
She twisted in his arms, levered up and straddled his lap, facing him. “Much better,” she practically purred before bringing her lips back down to his. She caught his chuckle in her mouth and smiled around the kiss.
“Much better,” he murmured between kisses as his hands curled around her hips.
She pulled back slightly, giving him a sultry look that was as old as time. “What? You like that I can do this?”
She undulated her hips to grind along the hard length of his erection, which pushed through their thin pajama bottoms. He groaned and she grinned.
“I definitely like it,” she said, in a low husky voice. Because that small action had turned up her heat-o-meter times ten… The kisses already had her revved up pretty good.
She caught the flash of his grin. “What?”
He tipped his head. “I didn’t realize you’d turn into such a wildcat.”
Holly caught her lip between her teeth. She hadn’t been with many guys—too busy studying. Maybe he didn’t like it?
But before that thought could take root, he slid his hands down her sides, tracing the indent of her waist, and helped her to repeat that provocative move. “I like it.” His warm breath tickled her ear. “As long as you don’t mind if I return the favor.” And he did it again.
Holly was practically panting at his sexy display. “Not at all, Sheriff.”
“Cash.” He nibbled his way up her neck, across her jaw, to her earlobe. There he used his teeth on the sensitive flesh, drawing goose bumps from her oh-so-responsive body.
“Huh?” she asked in a daze.
He pulled back slightly. “You call me Sheriff when you’re keeping your distance or angry with me. When we make love, I want to hear my name on those sweet lips.”
She caught his face in her hands and lowered her head so her lips were barely resting on his. “Cash,” she moaned against the smooth warmth of his mouth.
He took everything she had to give with lips and tongue and teeth, heightening her arousal to previously never-reached heights. Holly wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to get closer, needing to be skin to skin.
Cash pulled back. “I desperately want to take this to where it’s naturally heading, but it’s way beyond breaking the no kissing rule.”
Holly looked into his eyes. “I can’t do a relationship, Cash, and I suspect you can’t either, but maybe we need this. A moment just for us, to feel again. But it can’t go past tonight.”
Doubt and need warred in his gaze. “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“We’ve got another problem then.”
“What’s that?” She tipped her head and used the tip of her tongue to trace the corded length of his neck.
Cash shivered. “Umm, there’s no place to go. Sophia’s in my room. You’re sharing with Carter. And I wouldn’t risk getting caught out here.”
Holly lowered her eyes and smiled—seduction mixed with mischief. “I have an idea…”
“Yeah?” Cash murmured against her neck.
Holly bit her lip at the hope in that one little word. “Mmmm. What about the barn?”
Cash leaned back with a huffed laugh when he registered her words. “The barn?”
“Mmm hmm… We can hide away in the loft where the hay is clean. Bring a soft blanket or two up there.”
He shook his head. “I’m not making love to you in a barn.”
Holly chuckled and leaned back slightly to look him in the eyes. “Given that it’s me, and my love of all things horses, a barn could be considered particularly appropriate.” She paused and gave him a sultry glance from under her lashes. “I’ve always sort of fantasized about—”
Cash jumped up before she could finish that sentence, the swing rattling around at the movement. Luckily he kept his hold on Holly, or she would’ve ended up on her butt. “Let’s go,” he said eagerly, and a bit too loudly.
Holly put a finger to his lips. “Shhhh.”
Her breath hitched when he pulled her finger into his mouth, where he alternated sucking and licking at it with his rough tongue.
“Um…” She could barely think. What he was doing to her finger was pulsing in a spot deep inside her. She barely realized she was moving her hips in time to what he was doing. “So the barn idea?” she choked out.
He released her finger. “Yeah. I’m thinking…yeah.”
Slowly he let her slide down his body until her f
eet were firmly on the ground, every single nerve alive to the lean length of his body. “Wait here.” He gave her one last long open-mouthed kiss.
Holly stayed where he left her. The haze of desire didn’t cool in the few minutes it took him to run inside and grab a few soft, clean blankets and a flashlight. Before she knew it, he was back in front of her.
He held out his hand. “Last chance to put a halt to this insanity. Because I sure as hell can’t do it.”
Holly searched his eyes and discovered the same need there that was coursing through her body. She smiled, a feminine smile that would tell him everything he needed to know, and she placed her hand in his.
He grinned. “Come on.” He tugged her after him.
They half-ran across the open space to the barn. Holly had missed this in high school and college. She’d been too serious, maybe, had never had any heady, rash moments with a guy she couldn’t keep her hands off and who couldn’t stop touching her either. A lighthearted, giddy sensation of excitement and wanting filled her.
Cash closed the barn door behind them. Mischief poked his head out of his stall and whickered softly. Holly inhaled the scents of hay and horses and leather. She loved the smells in a barn. Always had. In an odd way, it added to the intoxicating passion swirling around them.
Cash took her hand again and led her to the ladder that would take them up to the loft. “Ladies first.”
Holly didn’t hesitate. Turning, she started to swiftly climb up. After the second rung, Cash stepped up behind her. The heat and strength of his body warmed her. He was so close. His arms landed on the ladder on either side of her, caging her in.
Giving in to an urge, she leaned back slightly and rubbed against him. She’d never felt so desirable when she heard his groan.
“What?” she whispered, teasing.
“Have I ever mentioned how delectable your backside is?” One of his hands left the ladder. He cupped and squeezed one cheek. “Remind me to pay particular attention to that part when we get up there.”
Holly doubted her brain would work by then. “We’re not going to make it to the top if you keep that up,” she muttered, her voice thick.
Another low groan fizzed through her blood. “Then move it.” He gave her rear end a gentle smack.
Together they climbed the rest of the way up. She waited while he found them a spot and arranged the hay and blankets to his liking.
“Come here.” He held out his hands to her.
Holly went into his arms without a moment’s hesitation. As his lips closed over hers once more, she felt as though she were coming home. Being with him, here like this, felt incredible.
The kiss heated quickly to an inferno. They couldn’t kiss deeply enough, get close enough, touch enough. Sweet shifted to hot…then to desperate…in a twinkling.
His hands dipped under her T-shirt, where he paused to savor the skin there, before he pushed the thin cotton up over her head. At the sight of her bared breasts, he inhaled sharply and lowered his head to take one rosy peak into his mouth. Holly spiked her fingers through his short hair, enjoying the thick, silky texture of it against her fingertips, as his mouth did wonderful things to her body.
He kissed his way back up to her lips, pulled back suddenly and yanked his T-shirt over his head. Holly couldn’t help herself. The need to touch, to know the texture of the hard muscles under his skin, to feel his heat, consumed her. She reached out, running her hand over his pecs and down the ridges of his abs, savoring the warmth of his skin. She hesitated when she reached the band of his low-slung pajama pants.
Desire guiding her hands, she pulled them down around his ankles. Standing up gracefully, she kissed him again. He hungrily pressed forward, but his legs were hampered by his bottoms. They toppled over onto the hay, landing on the waiting blankets. He nuzzled her neck and chuckled.
“A tad eager, are we?” she teased.
Before she could answer, he captured her bottom lip between his teeth then sucked on it delicately. The pull triggered a similar sensation deeper inside, and Holly writhed in his arms.
When he released her, she said breathlessly, “I guess we’re both eager.”
Cash looked at her through eyes lit by desire. His gaze felt almost like a touch and her swollen lips parted from his kisses. His heaving chest, turned her on even more when she realized he was panting just as heavily as she was.
“God, you’re gorgeous,” he breathed, reverent. Then he lowered his head, and they were silent. They kissed and caressed and touched until neither could stand it any longer. Cash managed to produce a condom from somewhere. He quickly rolled it on and positioned himself. Then he grasped both her hands, threading their fingers together, and lifted her arms above her head.
He stared into her eyes, and she couldn’t look away. Slowly. Oh, so slowly, he slid inside her. It was easily the most intense instant of her life.
For a brief moment, Holly savored the feel of him—his weight, his heat, the fullness inside her. She inhaled the spicy scent she’d probably always associate with him.
“Cash,” she pleaded softly. “Make love to me.” She caught his grin.
“I thought that’s what I was doing, darlin’.”
She smiled back, but that smile slipped as he began to move, replaced by passion. Their bodies naturally found a rhythm. At first he used long, deep strokes, but gradually their pace quickened.
The rush built inside her and she groaned low in her throat.
Cash tightened his fingers on hers. “I’m right there with you. Come with me, baby.”
As if responding to his commands, her body toppled over the precipice. Sensation washed through her in wave after wave. Cash shouted as he reached his own peak, and together they fell into oblivion.
When she returned to her senses, Holly stirred. Cash, who still lay heavily upon her, shifted to the side, gathering her into his arms as he moved.
He laid a trail of kisses across her cheek and hair, and she smiled to herself.
“That was…unbelievable,” Cash murmured sleepily.
Holly sighed, feeling almost like that one single word had made the moment complete. “Yes. It was.”
Leaning down, he kissed her, and she felt the stirring of his arousal against her.
She grinned. “Again? So soon?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “We don’t have all night. We’ll have to go back to our rooms eventually.”
And back to our lives.
He hadn’t said it, but the words hung there between them.
Determined to not waste a single second of their night together, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Then we’d better take advantage of the time we do have.”
He chuckled, and they both smiled as their lips met again in a lover’s kiss.
Chapter Sixteen
The soft beep of the alarm on her phone woke Holly at six. She’d set it when she snuck back into Carter’s room in the wee small hours of the night. Now she grinned like a fool as she remembered those last minutes with Cash.
She’d woken to the butterfly-soft flutter of his fingertips over her face, as if he were a blind man memorizing the contours.
When she opened her eyes, he’d smiled. “Hey, there.”
“Hi,” she whispered.
“It’ll be dawn soon. Time to get back to our rooms.”
Holly wrinkled her nose. “If we have to, we have to.”
He nuzzled her neck. “My thoughts exactly. I don’t want to leave you, but…”
“Time to return to the real world?”
He softly kissed the base of her throat. “Something like that. Yeah.”
Holly licked her suddenly dry lips. “Okay.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Okay? No arguments or regrets?”
She shook her head, suddenly shy. “I’ll never forget our night together. It was beautiful.”
His expression was satisfaction mixed with something indecipherable. Then he smiled, and it was gone. “Let’s get dressed an
d I’ll escort you back.”
She’d floated back to the house, struck by the loveliness of the first rays of light on the eastern horizon turning the black sky navy with a golden glow. The beauty of the morning around them somehow added to the beauty of the night they’d shared. She refused to let sadness that their time was over weigh on her. Not yet.
She’d made it into Carter’s room without getting caught, and without disturbing Carter, and had set the alarm on her phone so she wouldn’t rudely oversleep. Then she’d sacked out and slept like a baby.
Now, sitting up in bed, she rubbed her eyes. She hopped up and quickly showered and dressed in jeans and a white top made of some floaty material. Her long hair she left wet and loose, but she took the time to apply a light layer of makeup. She wanted to be as fresh-faced as possible, and those bags under her eyes definitely needed cosmetic help.
She stopped in the hallway outside the kitchen to gather her thoughts and school her features. Now came the hard part…returning to their previous behavior. By the sound of it, everyone was already sitting down for breakfast, except Sophia. Holly assumed the little girl was still asleep or off playing somewhere.
“I have something I need to tell you.”
Cash’s words had her hesitating. What was he going to tell them?
The rowdy Hills fell quiet, waiting for Cash to continue. After a long moment of silence, during which she had no idea what was happening, he finally spoke.
“There are some things about Georgia I haven’t told you.”
Holly’s heart lightened, even as her stomach clenched. Cash was finally going to share his burden with his family. Whether he’d listened to her or come to the same conclusion himself didn’t matter. She was just glad he’d decided to.
Not wanting to interrupt, she listened as Cash finally confessed all the things he’d been holding on to, everything he’d been trying to deal with alone—finding about Georgia’s plan to leave him after she died and the question of Sophia’s biological father.
By the time he was through, Evaline was crying softly. “Why didn’t you let us help you?”
Holly could just picture his shrug. “There was nothing you could’ve done about Georgia leaving, because I found out after she died,” Cash said. “And, if Marcus had turned out to be the father, I would’ve told you, but until I knew, I figured why worry you?”