by Sylvia Fox
He deserved for someone to show him just how good he was. He’d always seemed so lonely, and I hadn’t ever been able to understand why. Wyatt was undeniably the best catch in the town yet he’d been single all his life. He stood out from all the other men, shining in ways they only dreamed of. And none of the local boys had ever been able to hold a candle to his burning flame. I’d thought when I went to college that I’d meet someone else who would. I mean, out of all the boys in the city, surely one of them could measure up.
But I still hadn’t met anyone quite like Wyatt. And I was starting to think I never would, not in all the rest of the years of my life.
I still wished he felt a special protectiveness toward me and me only, one that was different to everyone else. I wanted him to see me, the way I saw him.
But I was his best friend’s daughter, and it was dumb of me to be so hung up on a man I could never have.
He was off-limits. He saw me as his friend’s kid.
It sucked.
“Of course I know that,” I said, breaking away my gaze and forcing myself to look at something—anything—else. Maybe he would stop reading my mind if I focused on something else. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m here by myself for the rest of the weekend, and there are some assholes out there robbing all the houses on this street.”
He frowned and dragged his hand down his face. Suddenly, he looked tired, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Shoulders I very much wanted to rub and rub and rub, until all the tension in his body melted away.
“I’m sorry I haven’t caught the culprits yet, Becca,” he said. “I’m doing my best to track them down, but they’ve done a good job of covering their tracks.”
“That’s very comforting,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
He moved back in close again and brushed my hair behind my shoulders, leaning down to look me straight in the eyes. My breath got caught in my throat and desire swirled through my veins. His lips were so close, I could taste his breath as began to speak. He smelled like pine needles, snow, and minty cologne, and all I wanted to do was close my eyes and breathe him in, forgetting everything else in the world but this man.
He was what I imagined sex smelled like.
Imagined. That’s right. I was still a virgin. Virgin Becca who had held out for a man she could never have.
What a loser.
“Look at me.” He tucked his finger underneath my chin. “I promise you don’t need to worry. They hit all those houses in one night, and that was several days ago. There’s nothing to suggest they’re going to hit again. They didn’t hurt anyone. All they did was steal some electronics and run. It was probably a couple of high school kids. Nothing to worry your pretty little head about, okay?”
Pretty. I blinked, time slowing as I processed his words. He’d just called me pretty.
“Okay.” My hand went to his chest out of its own volition. I had no control over what my body did now. I felt like a pussy cat, purring at his proximity and his touch, giving into the overwhelming desire to have my hands on him. Here, now, and for as long as I could.
My fingers pressed against the soft material of his uniform, begging to move down and down and down until they rubbed against the bulge below his belt. And there was a bulge. Even in the dim lighting, I could see his cock pressing hard against his uniform, the outline of a manhood bigger than it had ever been in my fantasies.
My heartbeat picked up speed as he unmistakable shifted toward me. Could he be feeling the same way? Could he feel the sexual tension ricocheting off the walls. The air felt thick with desire, but I couldn’t tell—yet again—if I was purely imagining it just because I felt it so deep down in my gut. I’d thought I’d felt it all those years before, too, and I’d been wrong. Was I wrong this time? Again?
As he shifted closer, my hand pressed tighter against his chest, and I could feel his heartbeat. It was racing, just like mine. And now I could feel his hard cock against my hip. More juice dripped down my leg, and it was all I could do not to moan aloud.
He wanted me. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, there was no mistaking how his body was reacting. Despite his best efforts, he oozed desire just as much as I did.
“I should go.” His voice came out a grunt, and suddenly there were feet before us instead of nothing but clothes. “The snow is coming down thick and hard…”
He swallowed, and my mind got stuck on his words. Thick. Hard. Just like him. My pussy ached so much it hurt. If he didn’t take care of my need, I’d have to use my own hand on myself or else the pain would become unbearable.
It was already unbearable now.
“Please stay,” I said quickly, in a whisper. I couldn’t make my voice speak louder than that. “What if they come here to rob the house?”
He shook his head and took a step back. That one step took away all the heat in the room. “They’re not going to come here. Just lock up tight and try to get some sleep.”
And with that, he was gone.
Chapter Four
The next morning, I awoke on the couch, still as confused as I’d been when I’d drifted to sleep the night before. I’d stayed downstairs since my bedroom window was smashed in, and I felt weird about sleeping in my parent’s bed. Plus, it just felt safer down by the fire.
One moment, Wyatt had been practically ravaging me with his eyes. He’d been close that I swore he looked as if he was going to kiss me. The next moment, he’d been beelining toward the door with such fierce determination that it took me back three years into he past. To the night when I’d tried to seduce him on the lawn, underneath the blazing stars overhead.
But this time, I knew I wasn’t making things up in my mind. I’d felt his hardness. I’d seen the way he looked at me. I could feel his heartbeat thrumming under my hand. He’d moved closer when I’d touched him, not pulled away. It was only until we were seconds from taking things further that he decided to run away.
He wanted me. Just like I wanted him.
But he’d stopped it from going anywhere, and I knew exactly why.
I was his best friend’s daughter. There was a nineteen-year age difference between us. I sure as hell didn’t care, but he did.
Sighing, I went upstairs to shower and get ready for the day. My whole body still clenched tight from the lack of release, from the pent-up desire still charging through me. I’d started to pleasure myself last night as I tossed and turned on the couch, but I’d stopped just as soon as I’d begun.
I didn’t want to be the one to do it. I wanted Wyatt to give me the release I so desperately craved. And even though he’d run away, I knew where he’d be tonight. I’d just have to remind him of what we both knew he wanted, of what we both needed.
Each other.
The Snow Peak Festival happened every year in early December. Most of the town would gather in the square and watch the fifteen-foot tree get erected in the center. Kids would join in and add their own handmade decorations to the bottom while the adults kicked off the holiday season with spiked egg nog. It was a yearly tradition going back at least a hundred years, and Wyatt always went in uniform, keeping an eye out in case of any trouble.
Of course, there never was any trouble. Not in Snow Peak.
The worst that would happen involved someone drinking too many steaming cups of egg nog, and they’d need a ride home in Wyatt’s cop car.
This year, I intended that to be me. Minus the egg nog of course. If I was finally going to realize my fantasy with Wyatt, I wanted to be one hundred percent sober. It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d ever want to forget.
Sarah, an old friend from high school who had stayed behind to help out her mother’s hairdressing business, swung by the house around six to pick me up. I’d spent the afternoon shovelling the thick snow from the driveway, breathing in the fresh air and working my muscles in ways I hadn’t in months. It felt good to be outside and hear nothing but the soft wind sighing through the trees, to look up at a clear sky with not
hing to obstruct it but the clouds rolling by overhead.
I felt more relaxed than I had in months, even though my body still yearned, unwaveringly, for Wyatt’s touch. It had been awhile since I’d visited home, and I’d usually brought my textbooks with me, spending my off hours studying instead of stopping for a moment to appreciate what I had here and now.
Maybe, I’d thought to myself at times, I could move back home after I graduated. Live the kind of life I missed. But then what would have been the point of my degree? There was no way for me to use my my law studies in a town like Snow Peak. I needed to be in the city where all the big firms were headquartered. There was one lawyer in our town, and he barely got by. It just wasn’t the kind of place that could support that kind of career. So, I was stuck. Stuck moving forward with a life I wasn’t sure I even wanted anymore.
Not to mention I had so many more years to go if I really wanted that kind of career. My undergraduate degree was only the beginning. And I just wasn’t sure how much longer I wanted to be in the kind of atmosphere I’d been in for the last three and a half years. Competitive, fast-paced, gruelling.
I’d thought it was what I wanted when I left. But as the years went by, I’d started doubting that more and more.
But my parents would flip out if I didn’t go ahead with what I had planned. They’d paid for college, and they expected me to go through with what I had planned with their help. How would they react if I told them I didn’t want to take this all the way to the top? Horror. Absolute horror.
It hurt my heart to imagine the disappointment on their faces.
Sarah honked the horn, knocking me out of my reverie, and I jumped into the passenger side while she cranked up the radio. She’d put on our favorite song from high school, the one we’d played on endless repeat every time one of us needed a pick-me-up. I’d called her that morning and told her everything about Wyatt. I’d expected her to respond in shock, but she laughed instead, telling me it was about damn time the two of us admitted the way we really felt.
We, she’d said. Not just me. She was convinced Wyatt had been in love with me since the day he showed up with that damn telescope talking about the stars.
I didn’t dare hope she was right.
“It’s so freaking good to see you, Becca,” she said as she reversed the car out of the drive and pointed the nose toward town. “You need to come home more often.”
I thought about telling her that I’d definitely be here a lot more often if I decided not to continue on to law school, but I still couldn’t voice the words aloud. They felt like they belonged to a different person, a different life, a different Becca who hadn’t decided to run away in humiliation.
Instead, I went the vague route. “I’ll be done in May, and I might come home all summer this time.”
Something I hadn’t done before now. Instead, I’d stayed in the city for work experience, racking up internships like they were going out of style. I’d told myself that it was to improve my chances at getting a job down the line, but now that I was home, it felt like my motives had been a lot different than that. It felt like I’d been trying to avoid coming back.
Like I’d been trying to avoid seeing Wyatt.
And deep down in my gut, I knew I was right.
Sarah squealed and grabbed my arm. “That would be so freaking awesome. You have to come home for the summer. And…” She wriggled her eyebrows. “Just imagine how much time you and Wyatt would get to spend together if you were here for a few months instead of a few days.”
My heart thumped. Oh, I had imagined. Over and over as I’d fallen asleep on the couch.
“We don’t even know if he’s going to make a move,” I said, trying to calm myself before my fantasies ran my mind into overdrive. “He’s my dad’s best friend. I have a feeling that might be a deal breaker for him.”
“Oh please.” Sarah whipped the car sideways, bringing the courthouse clock into view. “If he was so against going there, he would not have acted how he did last night. That man is half a second away from bending you over and shoving himself inside you.”
“Sarah!” My face flamed, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. She’d always been blunt and to the point and had no qualms talking about sex like she’d talk about anything else. Her favorite band, having dinner, the various flavors of ice cream. Sarah, unlike me, was not a virgin. And she hadn’t been since she turned fifteen. Part of me was always jealous about her experience but then I remembered that I didn’t want any other man. All I wanted was Wyatt.
“You know I’m right.” She parked the car at the curb just outside of her hairdressing studio and pointed at where Wyatt’s cop car squatted on the opposite side of the street. “He’s here. Just like clockwork. As soon as the tree goes up, I’ll disappear, giving him the perfect opportunity to give you a ride home. And by ride, I mean a ride on his cock.”
Chapter Five
Sarah and I weaved through the crowd, my hand permanently raised in a half-wave. Every face I saw was familiar, and a deep sense of belonging and rightness settled over me. There was Mrs. Johnson, the geography teacher from high school. There was Mr. Mason, the elderly gentleman who refused to stop running the post office even though he was pushing eighty. And Wanda Wickers, Jessica Armes, and Alison Baker, girls I’d gone to high school with. They all three had rings on their fingers and babies on their hips.
I felt a pang of jealousy and kept moving through the crowd.
With the career I had planned, I didn’t have the time or the opportunity to have children for a long while yet. I’d need to get through law school first, get established in a firm, and prove myself before taking time off to have a baby. Other women I’d talked to in the field had waited until their thirties to have children, if even then.
At twenty-one, I was still so young, but I already felt my womb aching for a baby. Or two. Or three.
Frowning, I scanned the crowd for Wyatt’s ruggedly handsome face. Overhead, the festive lights twinkled under a dark sky. Snow Peak loved to decorate our quaint downtown streets during the holidays, and this year, they’d gone all out. Everywhere I looked was draped in red and green, even the egg nog cups that cheery residents held in their mittened hands.
Suddenly, I froze. There he was. He stood just off to the side, his arms crossed as he watched the festival. The blinking lights flickered on his face, highlighting the smile that donned his lips. My gut clenched at the look of pure love in his eyes. This man was so fond of this town. Proud even. He gave a nod to every person that passed by him, murmuring their name and giving them a pat on the shoulder when they did the same to him.
His eyes shifted toward me, and then suddenly our gazes caught. The whole world around us seemed to slow. His smile brightened for just a moment before he shut it down again, like he was dousing water on a flame that refused to go away. But he even though he’d erased the smile, the heat in his eyes told a different story. There were so many people between me and him, but none of them even mattered. The intensity in his eyes made me feel as if we were the only two people in the square.
But just as suddenly as his eyes had been on on me, they were gone. Old Mr. Weathers, the organizer of each year’s festival, stopped in front of him, patting Wyatt’s arm to thank him for being here tonight. Wyatt dragged his eyes away from me and made polite conversation, but he kept glancing at me in between his smiles as I moved away, heading toward the center of the square where everyone gathered to watch the erection of this year’s tree.
I could feel his eyes hot on my back, but I didn’t know if I imagined it or not.
“He’s looking at you,” Sarah whispered into my ear. “You seriously were not kidding. I thought he looked at you a certain way before, but this is something else.”
An hour later, Sarah had disappeared and some of the crowd was beginning to disperse as well. The parents of younger kids were leaving to tuck them into bed, and the elderly folks were heading home to tuck themselves into bed. All that remaine
d were the middle-aged adults without kids and a few rowdy teenagers who were—I knew from experience—sneaking egg nog into their cups no matter how closely anyone watched.
And Wyatt.
I wound my way past the tree and its blinking lights and stopped as I reached his side. He leaned against a railing with his arms crossed over his chest, exuding pure strength. “Evening, Becca. You enjoy yourself tonight?”
“Yes,” I said, rubbing my mittened hands together. “Though I might need a cup of egg nog to warm myself up. It’s cold out tonight.”
Hint, hint.
He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think your dad would forgive me if I let you have some alcohol on my watch.”
“Let me?” I frowned, irritation bubbling inside me. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe he did see me as a kid if he didn’t realize it was perfectly legal for me to drink. Maybe he still thought of me as a kid. All the fire doused in my belly at the thought. “You know I’m twenty-one, right? I can drink whether you like it or not.”
My voice came out more of a snap than I intended, and his eyebrows went even higher on his forehead. “Twenty-one?” He shook his head and smiled. “I thought you were still twenty. You’ve sure grown up, haven’t you?”
“Oh, I’ve grown up in more ways than one.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. They were a challenge, almost a dare. I was flirting with danger here, but it was time to stop dancing around the subject. We both knew what I wanted, and his hard cock had told me last night what he wanted, too. We were both adults, and he needed to see me as one. The flirting was on.
His eyes dropped to my chest. My breasts were covered in my thick coat, but that sure hadn't stopped him from instinctively glancing at my curves. “Yes, I noticed.”