by Lori Ryan
She didn’t know if it was the way his mouth was both soft and firm at the same time. Or the way his body pressed toward her ever so slightly, hovering just enough to let her feel the warmth, the promise of more. Or the way his hands came up to cup her cheeks. Or all of it. She sighed. It was probably all of it.
Garret took her hand in his as they walked down the drive to his car. “Is it always that—”
“Crazy? Insane? Chaotic?”
“Yeah. That.”
She laughed and let him tug her close when they reached the passenger side of his car. He held both of her hands in his, but wrapped her arms around his back before putting his arms around her. She felt safe, but the anticipation of what was to come sent a whirlwind of butterflies dancing through her. No, not butterflies. An entire hive of honeybees, all buzzing crazily in her stomach.
Her hands brushed up his black polo shirt and she felt a corresponding tingle of awareness rush through her.
“I had a really good time today,” he said, with that little bit of gruffness to his voice that sent shivers through her. The kind of voice she wrote about that said her hero had something on his mind that should probably be happening behind closed doors.
“I did, too,” she said, and she meant it. They’d gone for a hike that afternoon before going to her family’s Sunday dinner, which was anything but routine. Ashley had never laughed as hard as she had when she’d watched Cora and Emma grill Garret about his “intentions” toward their sister. The boys hadn’t even had to lift a finger to defend her honor. Her mama bear sisters had taken that role on wholeheartedly.
Watching Garret squirm had been entirely too entertaining. But then her heart had damned near flip-flopped out of her chest and onto the floor when he had looked Ashley right smack in the eye as he’d answered them. “I plan to do everything I can to get her to fall for me. To convince her I’m good enough for her. To see that one day she’ll want everything I’m willing to give her and more,” he had said.
Well, thunk. She gave up the fight. There was her damned heart right on the floor.
And now he held her as though she might break. Firm enough for her to feel safe and wanted in his arms, but gentle enough, she knew he’d never use all the strength he possessed against her.
“It’s going to take everything I have in me to drop you off on your front porch again tonight,” he said as he nuzzled her neck, brushing his lips to the skin just below her ear.
Part of her wanted to tell him he shouldn’t fight it, he should take her inside instead of leaving her on the porch, but another part knew that would be a mistake. She needed to get to the point where she felt comfortable telling him anything, talking to him about all that needed to be said. If she couldn’t do that, she had no business having him in her bed yet. She knew that. It was her body that was having trouble with the concept. She leaned her head to the side and he nipped at her neck.
She might have moaned. Yeah, she had. All needy and wanton like the romance novelist she was. Damn.
“But, I will,” he said, pulling back.
Will what?
He must have seen from the look on her face she had no clue what he was talking about. His laugh was easy and genuine and it warmed her all over again. “I will leave you on the porch, Ashley,” he explained. “Until you’re ready for more. Then I’ll take you inside and make love to you all night.”
He punctuated his promise with those tantalizing lips of his, kissing her senseless. She was both relieved and disappointed. Disappointed in herself that she wasn’t ready yet, but relieved that he knew it and wasn’t going to push her.
But oh, her body. Her body seemed to be on board with the make-love-all-night option.
“Hey, hey, hey, you two!”
Crap. Her brother, Sam, stood on the front porch, his car keys in hand, one arm covering his eyes as though tragically wounded. “Take it home where we can’t see it, at least.”
Ashley bit her lip. “Sorry,” she whispered into Garret’s dancing eyes.
He reached behind her and opened the car door, tucking her into the seat before waving to her brother. “Night, Sam.”
“Yeah, yeah. Stop mauling my sister in public. In fact, stop mauling her altogether.”
Ashley watched as Garret laughed and jogged around the front of the car.
He kept his promise, kissing her goodnight on the porch before sending her mushy brain and distinctly turned-on body inside to bed. Alone.
*
Michelle paced the living room, looking around at the mess the police had left when they’d searched the house. Fucking bullies, that’s what they were. They bullied their way in with that warrant full of lies, then claimed Billy did all kinds of unspeakable things. Then they helped those damned social workers bully her daughter away from her. As if she hadn’t always taken good care of Evie.
Someone from social services had called to arrange a supervised visit with Evie. Ha! As if her daughter needed to be protected from her. She told them she’d see her daughter when they were ready to let her see her alone. Not a minute before. She wasn’t about to let those fucking busybody bullies from child services push her around. She’d watched her own mom be pushed around by them for years. She and her sisters and brothers would be taken away and her mom would practically fawn over the caseworkers trying to get them back. They need to be with their mommy, she would say.
Her “mommy” had never been able to put enough food on the damned table for all of them. She wasn’t capable of taking care of all of them. Not like Michelle. Michelle knew how to take care of her own. She wouldn’t kiss ass and kowtow to get Evie back. They could damn well hold on to her until she became such a nuisance to them—they’d come begging to Michelle to take her off their hands. Begging to have her let off the state’s dime. That kid was always underfoot. The foster parents would be calling the social workers soon asking when they’d let her go home.
In the meantime, Michelle needed to figure out how to take care of Bill. He needed her right now. And she’d be there for him. If she was there for him now—if she proved herself—he’d never let her go. He’d want to marry her. He’d love her forever.
“It’s just a matter of courage, really,” she said to herself, hands fisted at her sides. She had done it before and she would do it again. That was all. It was a simple matter of courage.
She sat on the couch and looked around at the mess, not sure where to begin to clean up. She was unsure of a lot of things. The biggest of all was where to find the courage to do what Bill needed her to do. Michelle put her head in her hands and closed her eyes. For now, she would wait. Maybe his lawyer would come up with something. She had to hope whoever was assigned to represent him would know what to do, so she wouldn’t have to act. Because she didn’t know how she could stomach what needed to be done.
20
Ashley and Garret had taken to sitting on the porch swing after dinner most nights. On the nights Garret could get away from work, that is. His schedule was more demanding than Ashley’s, and he never knew from one night to the next if he’d be called in for a case, but when he could join her for dinner, he did. Then there was the issue of distance. It was an hour and a half from Branson Falls to Evers.
He’d often drive the distance to pick her up, then take her outside of town for dinner, given Evers’s limited selection of restaurants, before driving her home. She worried about that, knowing he had to work early most days, but he told her he was used to functioning on little sleep.
Ashley leaned into his shoulder, loving the comfort of his arms around her and his chin resting on her head. She knew she needed to come clean with him. They’d been getting closer and closer to sleeping together, and God, she wanted to. She really did. She just didn’t know what he would think of her when he realized her experience was limited to her teen years. She didn’t have any experience being in a healthy sexual relationship with a grown man.
“Garret?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to tell you some things,” she began.
“Anything,” he said, using his foot to kick-start the swing again, continuing their lazy back and forth. The easiness in his tone belied the thickening tension swirling in the air around them.
Ashley had never been one to hold back, so she took a deep breath and blurted it all out. “I haven’t slept with anyone since I was seventeen.”
She felt the slight freezing of his limbs before he loosened them. He didn’t answer so she kept going. “What happened with Bill Franks…I guess for some people, it would have made sex seem unappealing, even frightening. Something to be avoided at all costs. But it didn’t for me. I didn’t enjoy it exactly, but I wasn’t as scarred from it as one might think I would be. Well, not scarred in the way you would expect, anyway. Instead of trying to avoid ever being in that position again, I saw it as something I could use.”
His murmured response encouraged her to go on. “I used sex to try to manipulate guys, to try to create closeness where there really wasn’t any. To try to make myself feel like I belonged, like I was wanted. You name it, I used sex for it. Oral sex was something I used a lot, because, well, I guess because on some level I didn’t really want to have intercourse all that much. I mean, I did, but more often than not I would try to get away with other things.”
“That changed?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at her. He kept his gaze straight ahead and she sensed he was trying to make this easier on her. She wasn’t at all proud of the way she’d been when she was younger. She’d been lucky. The Walkers had loved her and adopted her when she thought she’d never have a prayer of finding that kind of acceptance. That kind of love. And yet she’d put them through hell those first few years. Sneaking out, fighting with her adopted siblings, and being known as the town slut. Not exactly something she was proud of. It had taken a lot to overcome it, especially in a town this size.
“It was Sam who helped me figure out that what I was doing wouldn’t lead anywhere good. I don’t know if he even meant to. He just looked at me one day when the rumors about me giving Paul Cantor a blow job behind the bleachers were all around school, even though that was actually one time I hadn’t done what people said I did. Sam just looked at me and asked how that was working out for me? You know, kind of in this snotty way only a big brother could, but something about it struck me. I think it was the bit of sadness in his eyes. He sounded like a snotty older brother, but he didn’t look like one.
“He looked at me like he was sad for me. Not disappointed, not disgusted. Truly sad. And suddenly, I was sad for myself. It struck me that what I was doing wasn’t getting me anywhere. I wasn’t finding the intimacy I wanted so badly. Because sex didn’t equal intimacy. I wasn’t going to get close to these guys by doing what I was doing, by giving them what I was. I was only going to hurt myself in the long run. So I stopped.”
He pulled her even closer, holding her tightly to him as she continued.
“The talk didn’t stop right away. If anyone wanted to brag about how great they were, how cool they were, they talked about banging Ashley Walker. It took a long time and there are people in town who won’t ever forget, but eventually a lot of people realized I wasn’t sneaking away at parties anymore. I was sticking with groups of other girls. I was hanging out around my brothers more. I was sticking where people could see that I wasn’t off in the back of a car with a guy somewhere. Eventually, I started to like myself more. I began to care about who I was. I think I started to value myself. I started to see what my family and friends saw in me, and I don’t know,” she shrugged one shoulder, “I just seemed to get it. I just realized what I was doing wasn’t going to get me what I wanted. And it wasn’t going to make me feel better about myself. I had to do that all on my own.”
She paused for a minute, feeling like she’d lifted an elephant from her chest, but still wondering what he was thinking. “Anyway, I just never really found someone I wanted to be with after that. Not enough to go through this conversation, I guess.”
He cleared his throat. “Good. So…no pressure then, huh?”
Ashley burst out laughing as he grinned at her, and the tension she’d felt was gone. But then his gaze dropped to her mouth and she saw the heat in his eyes, saw what he wanted. In an instant, the tension she’d felt moments before took on a new form. Her body warmed and she felt her breath catch simply from the look in his eyes.
He leaned in, his mouth hovering over hers, separated only by the barest of breaths. “Invite me in, Ashley.”
It was part plea and part command. All sexy and all male. And all she needed. She nodded, and instantly he pulled her up, taking her hand in his and walking through her front door by her side.
Ashley had spent the last couple of years writing scenes filled with sexual tension, sensual passion, and heat meant to burn up the pages of her books. A small part of her had been half afraid when she finally did take a man to bed, it would be a letdown compared to the fantasy world she lived in. Garret proved her wrong within seconds of closing the door and turning the deadbolt lock.
He lowered his mouth to her shoulder and grazed her skin with his teeth. “Are you sure you’re ready for this, Ashley?” His words were husky and low, the heat of his breath another caress across her bare skin. He’d done it on purpose, she knew. And she loved it. Reveled in it as every part of her body began a low hum of appreciation, anticipation, and arousal.
She arched into him, her breasts brushing the hard contours of his chest as he groaned. “Yes. I’m absolutely one hundred percent completely sure.” She didn’t want there to be any doubt.
His laugh was husky and devolved into another groan as her mouth found the hot skin in the vee where his shirt unbuttoned.
Her hands shook as she moved them up to his shoulders, where she gripped him hard, pulling him to her. She wanted more of him, more contact, more heat, more—everything. She felt his arms come around her and lift her, holding her body pressed tightly to his as he walked them back to her bedroom. And then he was laying her back, coming down on top of her as his hands and mouth continued to explore her body.
This was nothing like the awkward coming together of bodies she’d experienced as a teen. This was passion. Mutual passion where each of them wanted nothing more than to bring pleasure to the other.
He held his weight off of her as he stripped her of her clothes, then pulled his own shirt off. He kept his jeans on, the hard length of his erection evident just the same. Ashley wriggled, wanting him inside her, but wanting other things as well. She wanted to taste him and have him taste her. She wanted to feel every inch of him. His skin was so soft, yet beneath it, taut muscles rippled and tempted her at every turn. As she touched him, her body began to swell with an aching need for him. The kind of need that had her hips pulsing as he took her nipple between his teeth and teased it to life.
As she tried to hold onto her sanity, his hand slipped between her legs, spreading the moisture he found there over her clitoris. Once, twice, again and again as she began to writhe and moan in his arms. And still, it wasn’t enough.
“Please,” she whispered. “I need more, Garret. More of you.”
She clutched at his jeans, wrenching the button free and reaching her hand in to his cock, hard and ready. She wanted to feel it stretching her, impaling her. Pounding into her over and over. At her urging, he shucked his jeans and found a condom, but before she could wrap her legs around his waist and trap him against her, he was gone. She felt momentarily self-conscious when he drew one leg over his shoulder as his mouth came down on her, but then he was suckling, licking, nipping—and she was lost.
He spun her up to the heavens and back down again, drawing an orgasm from her so intense, she thought she might have blacked out for a moment. Without letting her recover, he was there, inside of her, right where she’d needed him all along. Pressing into her hard and deep, and God, it felt so incredible, she could only gasp and hold tig
htly to him.
“Ashley.” The word was ground out between his clenched jaws, and she knew his need was as great as hers. She reached between their bodies and grasped the shaft of his penis as he pulled from her, letting her hand work him as he plunged in and out of her. He slowed to let her tease and taunt, sweat beading on his brow.
“You’re killing me, Ashley.”
“Should I stop?” she whispered as she watched him sink back into her.
“Never.”
But then he gave her no choice but to stop as he cupped her behind and lifted her hips, increasing the pace, the depth, as he sank into her over and over. She couldn’t do anything more than hang on, struggling to meet his thrusts with her own. And as she felt him come, her body clenched, her muscles gripping him tightly in ecstasy. Sheer pleasure tore through her in wave after wave. And she knew she didn’t want to give this man up. Ever.
*
“You need to get me out of here, Chelle.” Michelle’s heart broke seeing Bill so beaten down. His face now sported black and blue marks in various stages of healing, and his nose looked like it had suffered repeated blows. There was an edge of desperation to his voice she’d never heard before.
“I—I’m working on it, Bill. I just have to figure out how.” She had spent the morning following that damned librarian, watching her go to the grocery store, living it up at a coffee shop with friends, and then meeting that fucking pig cop who had put Bill here. The woman was a whore. That much was clear. She’d tried to trap Bill into some kind of sick relationship when she was young and now she was fucking the cop on the case to try and screw Bill over. All while she waltzed around free and clear.
But Michelle was still trying to figure out how to do what Bill had told her needed to be done. She needed to get up the courage to do it—and she was—but she also needed to come up with a plan. She couldn’t just walk up to the woman and do it right in the open. She needed time to figure things out. She looked down at the nail she had chewed to the quick, before glancing nervously back up at Bill.