Willow Springs: A Destiny Novel

by Toni Blake

  When he was sheathed, she raised her gaze back to his in time to hear him say, “Ready for this, freckles?”

  She simply nodded.

  And he curled his hands back over her bottom and lifted her until the juncture of her thighs was poised just above him. And the rest, she realized, he was leaving to her.

  And so she lowered herself until the tip of him jutted upward into the exact spot where she wanted it. And then she pressed her palms to his chest, clenched her teeth lightly in anticipation, and sank her body onto his.

  The slow yet smooth descent was profound, leaving her to feel impossibly and deliciously full with him. She cried out softly when he was inside her completely. And the small groan he emitted at the same time pleased her deep inside.

  Somehow, she’d never felt so close to him, not even the first time they’d made love the other night. Maybe it was about the position, about their faces being so close right now, their eyes connecting. Or maybe it was because the first time had been . . . almost like an experiment, this whole new thing for them, but the second time was . . . getting used to it, and liking it enough to have come back for more.

  She never made the decision to begin moving on him, undulating—it just happened. Her body guided her and she knew a pleasure she’d never even dreamed of. Oh God, finally, finally. She bit her lip, drew in her breath. Everything inside her seemed to shift and move in precisely the right ways, driving her onward, her pelvis rotating in little circles that grew instinctively tighter and tighter as the pleasure intensified.

  She was going to come soon. And she thought it was possibly the most amazing feeling in the world—to know it was on the horizon but to still be moving toward it, and to be sharing it with Logan, a pleasure so thick and perfect and boundless.

  Her breath grew thready, came faster. Logan’s hands firmly caressed her hips, her bottom, her thighs. “So, so pretty,” he whispered then, and whether he meant her body or her face, she didn’t even care—she just relished Logan thinking she was pretty in any way whatsoever.

  Soon he was lifting her nightshirt, and she knew he wanted it off her. So she helped, holding her arms over her head as he pushed it upward, without ever halting or changing her rhythm on him. And as the fabric left her, her body being bared in the soft light as she gyrated on him, she felt more than pretty—she felt utterly beautiful.

  When she saw Logan’s eyes on her appearing almost mesmerized, she glanced down to see herself in the shadows as well. And she again knew that Tessa and her other friends were right—she’d been hiding herself, or not caring enough to show herself off a little. And maybe all that had seemed silly to her—or like it would mean she thought she was attractive, and how embarrassing it would have been if she’d been wrong and she wasn’t. But no matter the reasons why, now she wanted to show herself off—to Logan. She wanted to feel attractive, and pretty, and sexy. And it wasn’t silly—it wasn’t silly at all. It made her feel . . . alive.

  Logan’s gaze roamed her body, then rose back to her face, and all the while she rode him, relishing the profound way he filled her, and the still-growing pleasure where her flesh met his just above where they were joined. Oh yeah—when it came to sex, now she definitely got what all the fuss was about.

  And she got it maybe even a little more when his hands resumed roaming, too, when they found her breasts, kneading and caressing, his thumbs raking over her nipples, again . . . again. And ohhh . . . maybe she got it even still more when he licked one of the pink, beaded tips—because she felt that gentle flick of his tongue everywhere. She gasped softly, heard her own breath coming faster. And then he licked more, more, and the pleasure gathered deeper and fuller between her legs. And then he drew the same hardened nipple into his mouth and began to suck, deeply—and oh Lord, it pushed her over the edge.

  The orgasm came on fast and furious, roaring through her wildly. She heard the sobs of release leaving her without quite being conscious of making them. Her body was rocked, jolted, as jagged pleasure ripped through her. Oh wow. Oh wow, wow, wow. She became vaguely aware of the sound of a cat skittering somewhere in the bookshelves and knew she’d scared Austen, but she was too overcome with joy to care. She didn’t think she’d ever let her inhibitions go quite so completely, and mmm—it was high time she had!

  She found herself slumping into his embrace to rest, her head dipping to his shoulder for a minute as she regained her strength. And she’d just raised her eyes to his, their faces no more than an inch apart, about to tell him how amazing that had been, when he said deeply, “I want you under me now.”

  “Huh?” The sound came from her breathlessly; she was barely able to think.

  “I liked you on top, honey,” he told her, “but now I want you underneath me.” And with that, he planted his hands on her butt, stood up with her still in his arms and still inside her, and then he lay her across the wide, oak coffee table, right on top of the few magazines and newspaper already there.

  She drew in her breath as the hard wood met her back, and as the warmth of his body met hers. And his eyes—Lord, how on earth had she stared into these same eyes for the last thirty-plus years without ever realizing how beautiful they were? Right now, they held her willingly captive as she tightened her hold around his broad shoulders.

  As he began to move in her, she got his point; she liked him being on top, too, like he’d been by the creek. She liked peering up into his eyes. And whereas before, in the chair, she’d done most of the work, now he thrust into her in deep, slow strokes, going still inside her at the end of each, making her feel him at her very core. Soft moans echoed from her throat in rhythm with his drives. And she lay there feeling pretty sure life didn’t get any better than this—until he began to pound into her harder, harder, making her cry out.

  Above her, he clenched his teeth and she loved the passion etched on his handsome face. All for me. It’s all for me. Just like after the wedding, she didn’t think she’d ever been happier. And he filled her with that passion over and over again, until she could process nothing but sensation—and then finally he murmured, “God, honey, I’m gonna come. I’m gonna come in you.”

  It was Amy who then clenched her teeth as Logan delivered those last ferocious drives—so ferocious they almost hurt a little, but she didn’t mind. She loved the powerful way he thrust into her; she loved knowing she had taken him to such heights.

  Afterward, it was him who collapsed gently on her. And she hugged him to her, soaking up every detail of the moment—the musky scent of him, the feel of his skin on hers, his breath on her ear. And then, without quite realizing, she let out a trill of laughter.

  Still appearing spent, Logan pulled back slightly to look at her. “What?”

  A little surprised at her own outburst, she gave her lower lip a sheepish nibble even as she smiled at him. “I’m just wondering if my butt is going to be tattooed with the ink from the front page of the Destiny Gazette.”

  Logan gave her a grin she felt all the way to her soul. “If the front page is on your butt, that might make reading it a lot more fun.”

  She giggled in reply—at the same time realizing that she probably hadn’t spent enough time in her life giggling—and then told Logan exactly what she was thinking. “Sex is great!”

  And now it was he who laughed. “Yep, it is.”

  “And now that I finally know what this is like, I want more of it.” She met his eyes for that part, hoping like crazy he would volunteer for the job of giving it to her.

  And he did. “I’m, uh, good with that,” he informed her.

  And she smiled. “Nice to know.”

  “But maybe next time we’ll . . . try a bed or something,” he said on another laugh, finally easing up off her—and she resisted telling him how much she missed him when he was gone.

  She sat up, surprised by how comfortable she felt with her nudity, even near the window—despite that Destiny was quiet as a ghost town at night, normally the very notion would have freaked her o
ut. “I guess a bed would be okay,” she said, “but I don’t mind . . . you know, experimenting with other places.”

  He cast her a grin as he pulled up his pants. “You’re a wild woman suddenly.”

  She smiled back, kinda liking that idea, even as foreign to her as it seemed. “Maybe. A little.”

  Logan couldn’t help feeling tired—it had been a long night in ways. But also a good night—in other ways. Like just now, with Amy. He hadn’t come here planning to seduce her—but now that he saw her in this new way . . . well, it had just happened. “If we were in a bed,” he pointed out to her, “we could be snuggling right now.” And in fact, he found himself wanting to do exactly that, just as they had by the creek.

  She sat up, reaching for her nightshirt, which had landed on the floor. “You can come upstairs if you want.”

  To her bed, she clearly meant. And that idea definitely appealed. Except . . . “When Anita told me I had the night off, she also asked me to help her with some heavy lifting first thing in the morning. Early. So I should probably get some sleep—and if I lay down with you, not sure that’ll happen.”

  She tilted her head, peering up at him, the nightshirt still in her grip and not yet on her body. “It’s nice out tonight—maybe we could just sit outside together for a few minutes.”

  It was so strange to him to see Amy perched there naked on the coffee table in Under the Covers that for a moment, he could barely process it. And yet, at the same time, maybe he was starting to get just a little bit used to this—him and her. Maybe he was starting to get used to the fact that she was pretty, even sexy in her cute and quirky ways. And touching her, being intimate with her—hell, he couldn’t deny that being with Amy that way was just special. There was no getting around it.

  So now he said, “That sounds nice.” Because even if he did have to get up early, he really wasn’t quite ready to go yet. He really wanted to stay here with her a while, hold her, maybe kiss her some more. “But you better put something on or people will talk,” he finished with a wink.

  She just laughed, a sound he hadn’t ever realized was quite so pretty until now, and finally slid that silly nightshirt over her head. Bending down, he scooped up the panties he’d just noticed on the floor next to him, passing them to her. They were pink, with the word Meow written in a fancy red script across the front—and noticing that was perhaps the first time he’d thought Amy’s love of cats was downright sexy.

  She didn’t bother putting on shoes, even when he offered to go up to her apartment and get some for her—she said she liked the feel of cool green grass under her toes sometimes. “Reminds me of being a kid,” she said, taking him back to their youth yet one more time tonight. When you lived in the country, it was pretty easy to find yourself going outside barefoot in the summer, and though he’d never thought about it before, at the moment, as he walked with Amy across the street and onto the grassy square, he suddenly even thought that was kind of sexy, too.

  Maybe everything about her was suddenly a little sexy. Just because he could see that in her now. She was so natural. So real. Not a showy or pretentious bone in her pretty body. But after having had sex with her, having seen her take—and give—that kind of pleasure, even very simple things about her, like bare feet in cool grass, now held the power to turn him on.

  Without ever discussing it, they bypassed the square’s white gazebo and settled on a wooden park bench outside it. They sat close and Amy automatically angled her legs across his lap, which he liked. But at the same time, she didn’t focus solely on him—instead she leaned back and looked up into the darkness. “Pretty night,” she said, taking it all in. “Look how many.”

  She didn’t even have to say stars, because that was how often the two of them had peered up at the night sky together in their lives. It had always been something they both appreciated. Just as he had on the ferris wheel. Where he knew he should have been with Amy. “Wish I’d ridden the ferris wheel with you tonight, freckles.”

  The sentiment drew her gaze from the blanket of stars above down to meet his eyes. He hoped she could see in them how much he truly regretted hurting her tonight. And also how much he felt for her in this moment. And she must have, because that was when she slid her arms around his neck and leaned in to kiss him.

  There was something sweet and easy about kissing Amy on the quiet square in the middle of the night. He couldn’t have imagined this a week ago, but with each passing minute it made more and more sense to him. And though at first, she’d been nervous about kissing him, now it felt as if they’d been kissing each other for years.

  After a few minutes of kissing, they just enjoyed the night air in companionable silence, and Logan drank in the scent of the rosebushes near the gazebo. And the moment continued to feel easy—maybe easier than any he’d had in a long time—until he noticed Amy peering across the way to the firehouse. It sat next to the police station, just across the square from the bookstore.

  “Are you feeling any better about . . . you know, the fire? After talking about it?”

  Logan’s chest tightened. But not a lot. Which was an improvement. And he thought talking probably had helped. The last few days had begun to feel . . . less heavy, more normal. “A little. Maybe a little better each day. Thanks for that,” he said, then gave her another lingering kiss.

  “Well, I’m not sure I had much to do with it,” she informed him afterward.

  “You made me talk about it, and . . . maybe the weight really feels lighter now.”

  When she reached up to cup his cheek in her palm, the touch vibrated through him stronger than he might have expected. “I’m glad, Logan.” Then she looked back to the fire station for a minute before saying, “Don’t get mad at me for asking this again, but don’t you miss it—just a little?”

  And the question made him feel for a second like he couldn’t quite breathe—yet then he exhaled, inhaled, felt normal again. Physically anyway. But he didn’t answer her.

  “Just be real with me, Logan. I mean, this is me, this is us. You know you can tell me anything.”

  And okay, yeah, he did know that. He’d found that out the other night. So he thought it through for a minute—and was real with her, as real as he could be. “Sure, I miss it. I miss the easy days of hanging out and laughing with the guys, I miss the sound of the dispatch radio, I miss the volunteer stuff we’ve always done. Hell, this will sound weird, but I even miss the smell of my equipment. And I didn’t even realize it had a smell until I was walking past the firehouse one day when the doors were open and caught a whiff of it.”

  “Do you . . . miss knowing you were doing something truly worthwhile?” she asked then.

  And damn it, it made his chest burn. Why wouldn’t she let this go? “Who’s to say what’s worthwhile, Amy?” he asked, his whole body tensing. “There’s nothing wrong with serving people drinks.”

  Still angled across his lap, she let out a sigh, looking like she’d been yelled at. And maybe he had snapped at her—but he was tired of her harping on this.

  “Of course there’s not,” she said. “It’s just that . . . you’ve always wanted more than that, Logan. Always. From the time we were kids. You always wanted to be a fireman.”

  “So what? Maybe that was just me looking up to my dad.”

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, either,” she pointed out. “Because it led you to a good place, the place you were meant to be.”

  He drew in his breath. And told her exactly what he was thinking. “I’m not sure I believe in things like that anymore, that anything is meant to be. Was that fire meant to be? Was it meant to be that the Knights died? Was it meant to be that their daughter was left without parents?” It all echoed their conversation by the creek, so clearly he hadn’t completely recovered yet. But he’d been doing better. And maybe he’d finally get there if Amy would stop pushing him on this.

  “I believe . . . everything is meant to be,” she told him. “Even if we don’t know why. An
d maybe we’re not always supposed to know why. But I know with all my heart that you’re meant to keep doing the job you’ve always done, because it’s where your heart is, and because you won’t be truly happy or fulfilled unless you’re doing it. And I’m only telling you this because I’m worried about you.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” he told her tightly.

  “And maybe I shouldn’t say this, but . . . well, you were afraid you’d have disappointed your dad at that fire, yet the truth is, if anything would have disappointed him, it’s this—you quitting.”

  Whoa. Logan’s heart sank to his stomach with a resounding thud he could hear in his head. Had she really just said that? Really just told him he was letting down his father, the best man he’d ever known? Really just said the thing she’d surely realized would hurt him most? And damn, it had hurt. The very idea, along with the fact that it had come from Amy, who he trusted in so deeply to always be there for him, to always lift him up and support him.

  He found himself pushing her legs off of his—he didn’t want to be cuddled up with her anymore. “I thought you cared about me,” he said.

  “I do care about you. More than . . .” She stopped, sighed, and sounded a little vulnerable as she said, “More than just about anyone, Logan, if you want to know the truth. That’s why I’m telling you this—because I have to.”

  But that didn’t help. Because everything inside him stung. His muscles felt heavy, and the area behind his eyes hurt. “If you cared about me, you’d let this go. It’s like . . . you care about who I was, not who I am. Like you just won’t accept me the way I am now, like you’re hell-bent on changing me, controlling me.”

  “That’s not fair,” she said.

  “What’s not fair is to keep going on and on about this when you know it upsets me!”

  He was so angry now that he just barely saw the sad, wounded look on her face. It was almost enough to make him feel bad, like he was the one being mean. But he wasn’t. She’d pushed him too far.