by Tessa Bailey
Based on her lack of reaction, it was obvious the wedding planner had considered that fact already. “We don’t have to worry about it now. There’s time.”
Peggy’s hesitant laugh eased the tension. “Yeah, let’s focus on getting away from the murderous Thanksgiving dinner.”
Wanting to help dissipate the heavy atmosphere that had descended, Grace sat forward, rubbing her palms down the woolen stockings. “We need a distraction. To draw him away while we climb into the car.”
“This doesn’t seem like your first turkey run, Pendleton.”
Grace smothered a smile. “Oh, it is. But hopefully not my last.” She blew out a quick breath, emotion clogging her chest. “This is the best night I’ve had in a long time. I’m sorry if that’s the kind of thing I should think, but not say out loud.”
Sage and Peggy looked at each other with indiscernible expressions, making Grace almost positive she’d made a mistake. But then, in a move she never saw coming, Peggy and Sage tackle hugged her against the windshield, immersing her in warmth, inside and out. And then they just lay there, huddled together, waiting for the turkey to leave.
Chapter Sixteen
Aaron was making a Herculean effort to focus on the shitload of work that needed accomplishing before tomorrow morning. When the sun came up, there would be scads of staffers, volunteers, interns, and press, all looking at him for direction, and he refused to be unprepared. Unfortunately, every time his attention strayed to the clock in the lower-right-hand corner of his laptop screen, the urge to phone Peggy made his eye twitch speed up to triple time.
Honestly, what could three girls get up to in this low-key part of Iowa?
He never should have asked himself that question, because his mind had conjured up farm boys and house parties and shenanigans in the hay. He’d anticipated them being back hours ago, after discovering how little nightlife was available in the area, but no. Midnight had descended without so much as a courtesy text message from his sister, who would be hearing all about that oversight in the morning.
He knew Peggy well. Knew she’d dressed Grace up like walking sex to drive him fucking insane, dangling her like a carrot in front of his face, before jerking her away. God, her thighs. Her thighs. He could smell the combination of her sex and whatever lotion she’d rubbed on them. Could feel the smooth texture against his lips. If they’d had enough time in the Suburban before leaving, if he’d been given the slightest opportunity to lick her pussy, it would have been like sinking into a slice of sun-heated watermelon after two months in the desert.
And she could be anywhere right about now, fresh from telling him to shut the fuck up. Probably being presented with a variety of male options that didn’t treat her like a child. Or dry hump her until she was begging, then walk away, leaving her primed and confused. Didn’t matter that they couldn’t have a physical relationship for a multitude of reasons. His job, her past, and how those two things intersected. The vast difference in the way they lived their lives, treated people, viewed the world. None of that meant shit when Aaron didn’t know her whereabouts. Was she safe? Had he finally succeeded in putting the kibosh on any attraction she felt for him?
Shut the fuck up. She’d looked…beyond beautiful when she’d said those words to him. Fierce, sexy, challenging. Why hadn’t he yanked her out of the Suburban when he’d had the chance? Instead of spending the night memorizing her voice, her mannerisms, he’d cursed through the process of pitching a tent in the mess hall, aware that sharing a cabin with Grace was bad news, whether or not his siblings slept nearby. Yeah, he was that depraved. That desperate to get Grace’s thighs up around his waist, to hear her whine for him to pump faster in his ear.
Beneath his laptop, Aaron’s cock grew thicker, the heavy flesh pressing against his right thigh. He’d grudgingly resigned himself to self-pleasure, sliding a hand down the front of his sweatpants, when Belmont crouched down in the tent’s entrance. Aaron jolted and retrieved his hand with a lightning-fast move, his daydream starring Grace in nothing but stockings busting into fragments.
“Jesus.” Aaron settled the laptop more firmly over his arousal, keeping it hidden. “You could have announced yourself.”
Belmont didn’t comment on Aaron’s reproof. In fact, it seemed like the farthest thing from his mind as he stood and began to pace, leaving Aaron with the view of his brother’s legs. “They should have been back by now.”
Aaron sighed and shoved the laptop aside, his erection waning at the reminder Grace could be experiencing the goofy courtship of some local farmhand named Josh. Or Brady. “Yeah, I know. Peggy won’t answer my texts.”
“She’s doing it on purpose.”
“No shit.” Aaron watched his brother pace a minute, before climbing out of the tent to go join him. Even after hours spent in the cramped Suburban and sharing rooms in both New Mexico and Iowa, it was weird spending time with Belmont. Talking to him. Their conversations had been sparing and stilted before their mother died, but since then, they’d ceased altogether. He wasn’t even sure where to start. Or if he should start at all. “Give them another half hour and we’ll take the van down the mountain.”
“Ten minutes.”
Aaron nodded, relieved someone else was in the mood to be irrational. “Fine. Ten minutes.” He leaned back against one of the few cafeteria tables they’d decided to keep and crossed his arms. “If it makes you feel any better, I think Sage is probably the least likely to paint the town red.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Okay, then.” Aaron reached into the tent and brought out his electric lantern, setting it on the table behind him. “When did you meet Sage anyway? I’m blurry on all the sordid details.”
Belmont stopped his back and forth stalking in favor of staring out the large picture window, out into the forest. “Nothing sordid about it,” he rumbled. “She could never be sordid.”
Yeah, definitely shouldn’t have attempted this brotherly talk. Aaron grabbed his lantern and started to duck down, intending to climb back into the tent and resume his work, but Belmont spoke, halting his progress.
“Peggy asked me to walk her down the aisle. She was marrying the first guy. The Padres fan.” He rubbed the crease of his chin. “Sage…she was planning the wedding. And I didn’t do well at the rehearsal. Didn’t want to hurt Peggy’s feelings by saying no, but I’m not…it’s not—”
“I get it,” Aaron cut in, knowing the rest. Knowing his brother didn’t like attention of any manner. Didn’t like having the spotlight directed at him, nor did he like being put in a position to interact with unfamiliar people. Basically, Aaron’s polar opposite. “You don’t have to explain.”
“Sage,” Belmont continued on, as if Aaron hadn’t spoken. “She has this way of…slowing my heartbeat down, speeding it up, slowing it down again. Is that normal?”
Thinking of Grace, how she commanded his senses like a maestro, Aaron sat, running a hand over his stubbled face. “No, it’s not normal. But in yours and Sage’s case, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think you should let her.”
“No.” His brother, usually so stoic and unmoved by anything he said, turned on Aaron with dawning horror. “No, I can’t.”
“Okay,” Aaron said carefully. “Why not?”
Again, Belmont circumvented Aaron’s direct question. “I didn’t mean to…gather her up so no one else could have her. I shouldn’t have let myself do that.” Slowly, he drew a hand up and laid it over his heart. “She touched me here in the back of the church, and now she decides if it goes fast or slow.” Aaron could barely remain upright under the force of the look Belmont dropped on his head. “What if she decides to make it stop?”
This was important. Right there, in the almost dark of the mess hall, Aaron finally had some insight into the way Belmont’s mind worked, finally had the chance to aid him in some small way. That was what Aaron did. He was the solution guy. But when it really counted, he came up completely empty. Because he feared there was a ribbon
-haired girl out there who might just have the power to stop his most vital organ from beating. He might even force her into it. “I don’t know,” Aaron murmured.
And son of a bitch if that wasn’t—by some unseen twist—the right answer. Aaron watched in disbelief as Belmont smiled, a smile so fleeting it could have been his imagination, but it sent a rush of childhood noise blowing through Aaron’s consciousness. “Okay.” His brother gave a firm nod. “If you don’t know, there is no way of knowing.”
“You have that much confidence in me?” Aaron managed, positive he’d fallen asleep back in the tent and dreamed the whole conversation.
But he couldn’t have imagined it, because Belmont’s hand on his shoulder was too heavy, too solid. The slight increase of pressure too real as he passed on his way out of the mess hall. When he heard his brother’s boots scrape to a stop at the door, he didn’t lift his head. Wasn’t capable. “I was glad to see your face that day at the top of the well,” Belmont said, so quietly Aaron almost didn’t make out the words. “I was glad. But I knew I couldn’t be the person you looked up to anymore.”
Aaron pushed to his feet, intent on demanding a full explanation of that bullshit, but the sound of the Suburban pulling up, feminine voices filling the night, broke them both of the spell. Belmont, the tension draining from his shoulders, nodded at Aaron, who had no choice but to return it.
* * *
Seduction was a tricky business. Truthfully, it went against Grace’s nature. She didn’t believe in swaying people toward a choice they wouldn’t normally make. Distaste for that very practice had driven a wedge between her and Aaron. Which was how she’d drawn the conclusion that fighting fire with fire was her only option. She’d shined a light on their differences; now she would redirect it. Show him where they met in the middle, where they connected. And then she would build on it. Fight one war at a time. She refused to see tonight as a setting aside of her beliefs. Not when they might reach Aaron on the other side of the battlefield.
The light inside the mess hall beckoned, but Grace hung back, needing to garner every spare ounce of confidence in her arsenal. Seducing a man like Aaron—a born seducer himself—wouldn’t be easy. If she showed him a speck of doubt or gave him room to shut her out, he would do it. He would retreat so fast her head would spin. That certainty was just one example of how well she already knew him. Setting up camp in the mess hall had been his way of sending a message. You are there. And I am here.
Not for long, bucko.
Trying to banish the image of Aaron ushering her out of the hall and back to the cabin like an annoying ward, Grace started up the steps. The walls were coming down tonight and she needed to believe Aaron wanted that eventuality. God knew she wanted to feel nothing between them. Not clothing, not hurt, not the incessant ding-ding of the bad idea meter. In her experience, risks not taken meant rewards never received. And bone-deep intuition resonated within Grace, a knowing that she and Aaron didn’t have a short road, but a long, winding one. If she had to take a shortcut to get them pointed in the right direction, so be it.
With that mission roosting in the nest of her mind, Grace entered the mess hall and walked without hurry toward the tent. Heel, toe. Heel, toe. Taking deep breaths, Grace ran shaking hands up the insides of her thighs, beneath her suede skirt, encountering the uncovered flesh above her stockings, remembering Aaron’s mouth there. How his greedy tongue had flattened on her skin, tasting, his full lips sliding back and forth. He wanted her then. He would now.
The red wine still flowed through her veins, making it seem entirely natural to drag a thumb across crotch of her panties, feeling her nipples plump, her breathing grow short. But the blaring of her pulse was interrupted by the sound of typing. Clack, clack, clack. Aaron’s fingers. So capable in so many ways.
With a concerted effort, Grace dropped her hands from beneath her skirt, pushed her winter wind-tousled hair over her shoulder, and ducked into the small tent. She’d meant to move fluidly toward Aaron, to negate his chance to list all the reasons why she shouldn’t be there, but his appearance brought Grace up short. His lower half was inside a red sleeping bag, but his upper half…yowza. He wore a white, long-sleeved thermal shirt that had to be a couple sizes too small, judging from the way its material wrapped tightly around his swelled biceps, his toned chest. As if that wasn’t enough to render Grace mute, he wore a black beanie, pulled low over his eyes. Eyes that were sending a clear message toward where she knelt at the tent’s entrance.
What the fuck are you doing here?
Yeah. That’s what Aaron wanted to project. And he would have been doing a bang-up job if his Adam’s apple hadn’t gotten stuck beneath his chin, those long-fingered hands gripping the laptop like a shield. Grace could see right through him in that moment, as if he’d stepped in front of an x-ray machine that displayed intention, instead of injury. Right now, his intention was to turn her down.
“I’ve never seen you in pajamas,” Grace whispered. “I thought you’d have your initials over the pocket or something.”
“Peggy went shopping for winter clothes. She thinks she’s funny.” He sat up straighter, going back to staring at the screen. “I feel like some wannabe Instagram fitness model.”
“Wannabe?” Grace crawled toward Aaron, noticing his fingers go still on the laptop keyboard. “No, you’d be the real deal.”
Without looking at her, Aaron shook his head. “Grace.” He’d meant to speak her name like a warning, but all she heard was the gruff desperation. “You need to go sleep in the cabin. I might just be able to explain you spending the night here with two other women present, but this—”
Imagining her courage flowing out behind her like a cape, Grace gently set aside Aaron’s laptop and straddled him, taking hold of the hands he lifted to keep her back, stroking his wrists with her thumbs. “Who says you’ll have to explain anything?”
“I think we’ve established I’m a capable liar. You, on the other hand, are not.” His tongue stroked the corner of his lips and Grace’s nipples puckered to painful points in response. “If you spend the night underneath me, you’ll wear your satisfaction like a billboard, baby. Someone asks you about it, you’ll blush like a schoolgirl, remembering all the bad things you gave me permission to do in the dark. They’ll know I had you. They’ll know you got on your back for me and gave me that pussy like a birthday present.”
It was all Grace could do not to slump sideways, canaries circling over her head. He was muttering a reproof under his breath, directed at himself. Filthy bastard. You filthy bastard, talking to her like that. “You’re not making a very good case for me to leave. M-maybe you’re having an off night at convincing people to see things your way.” She slid her knees wide on either side of Aaron’s thighs, watched his attention snag on the flesh he’d licked earlier that night. “I’m not having an off night, though. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“You don’t,” he rasped, closing his eyes. “I’m not in a nice mood, hippie. Right or wrong, I’ve been…jealous. For the last four hours and seventeen minutes. Jealous like some sorry-ass boyfriend. You think I’m going to make love to you like some art school chump? You’re wrong.” He yanked down the hem of her skirt, covering up the exposed tops of her thighs, but in a mind-blowing contradiction, his thumbs slipped up to the edge of her panties, tucking underneath for a single arousing second. “It’s not safe for you here. Go sleep in the cabin.”
“No.” Embracing the shot of bravery, Grace fisted the front of his thermal shirt, drawing him forward, until their faces were an inch apart. “I’m sleeping here. You can try to scare me off as much as you want, but I’m not budging. I know where I’m safe. I know where I’ll sleep the best. And I know you’ll sleep best with me here, too.”
His breath pelted her mouth. “We wouldn’t be sleeping, Grace.”
“After, then,” she whispered, releasing the front of his shirt in favor of sliding her hands over his sturdy shoulders. “After you fuck me.”<
br />
A groan filled the scant distance between them. “You’ve got a mouth on you tonight, Grace.” His teeth dragged over his lower lip. “It makes me think you’re looking to be chastised. And if you weren’t my boss’s daughter, you’d be in the right goddamn place for that.”
Almost. Almost. There was a visible crack in his façade, allowing her to peer through his brash attitude and glimpse the vulnerability beneath. The approaching sense of victory was short-lived, though, because lust filled every crack of her framework like hot sand as Aaron’s erection made itself known between her legs, swelling, pushing up. Grace retrieved her hands and leaned back enough to peel the sweater over her head, baring her naked upper half, the freezing air twisting around her already peaked nipples. “Left off my bra, just like you asked me.”
Color bled into Aaron’s cheekbones, his nostrils flaring. “Put it back on,” he croaked. “You’re going to freeze.”
Grace ignored his statement, reaching the small of her back to unzip the skirt all the way down, so she could lift the black garment over her head and toss it aside. “Wore panties, just like you asked me.”
Was she shaking out of arousal or from the cold? Grace couldn’t formulate an answer. The frigid air seemed like the obvious culprit. Obvious—unless a gorgeous, commanding man like Aaron was consuming the sight of your body like a man who ached to give it pleasure, but had both hands tied behind his back. “For God’s sake, Grace, you’re fucking shaking.” He spoke through his teeth, his gaze pleading. “I can’t watch it. Please.”
Good man. He’s a good man. I’ve known it all along. “If you want me warm, better let me inside that sleeping bag.”
“Grace.” Without looking, he snatched up the sweater, attempting to drape it over her shoulders, his movements pushing his erection up against the thin barrier of her panties. Even through the sleeping bag, it was a powerful ride, and Grace allowed her head to loll back, a whimper slipping past her lips. Trembling, she was trembling violently, but an inferno erupted from all sides of her being, the contrast slamming together in Grace’s stomach, like the Red Sea closing its passage to safety.