Sweet and Wild - Carmen Jenner Page 0,20
I know I’m on thin ice.
Lemon releases her father and runs across the porch. She’s down the stairs and jumping into my arms quicker than I can blink. She wraps her legs around my hips, and I’m so caught off guard, the baseball cap shifts on my head. She grabs the bill and turns it around so she can kiss me uninterrupted.
“Lemon,” her father warns, and she slides down my body. I set her on her feet and lean in to kiss her cheek. She looks up at me like every word she said is true, like I own her heart, and I know that every punch from West and my father was worth it. I’d endure one hundred thousand beatings for this girl because she’s my everything. And always will be. There ain’t no getting over Lemon Winchester.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lemon
I roll over, snuggling closer to the warm body beside me. I slide my hands over hard muscle and groan, and then I sit bolt upright and stare at Colt’s sleeping form.
No! Oh God, oh God, oh God. I did not sleep with Colton Hayes last night.
I take stock of my body. I’m not sore like I should be after sex, but then why the hell am I in his bed while he’s buck naked? I carefully ease the cover up and take a peek, both disappointed and relieved when I discover he’s not naked at all, but wearing cotton boxers. Cotton boxers that his hard on is straining against.
Oh, boy.
“Something you need, Lemonade?” Colt’s sleep-rough voice scares me and I drop the blanket and scramble out of bed, thankful he didn’t undress me.
“Why am I here?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who was out lookin’ for me last night.”
I remember the whiskey and the longing for him, feeling like I needed Colt for the world to seem right again. In the twelve years that I’ve been gone, the ache to have him close burned so deep that some nights seemed to stretch on forever. In a city filled to bursting with people, in a bed draped in the finest silk sheets, I’d never felt so alone. I’d thought about him a lot. I was just too far from home and too stubborn to do anything about it. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t cause no harm. I kept you here because I didn’t want you waking Mama up.”
I quit my perusing the cabin for my boots and whip my head around to face him. Colt’s on his side, elbow propped on the pillows as he leans his head on his palm and tracks my every move. “Do you always call her Mama?”
“You know what she’s like. I wouldn’t dare go against Mama Winchester.” His brow creases and he throws off the covers, giving me another show of all of that glorious muscle and the sizable bulge in his boxers. He sits up and climbs out of bed. “It really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
For a moment, I think he’s talking about his giant erection. But the tone is all wrong and when I snap my gaze to his, there’s no humor in those gray eyes.
I shake my head, but we both know I’m lying.
“How ’bout I stick to ma’am from now on?”
“No. It’s fine.”
“That look on your face don’t say fine.”
“It just threw me, is all.”
“Why? You know I’ve called her that since my own mama died.”
A pang of regret hits my heart. Poor Colt. Here I am getting my panties in a twist about what he calls my mama, and I forgot he no longer has one to call his own. “I know. Please don’t stop on my account. It’s just … waking up here, in your arms, everything’s coming back to me and it’s a lot to deal with. Especially after Daddy’s funeral.”
He grimaces and pulls on his jeans. “I get it. This is a lot for me too.”
“Right. Well, I better get out of your hair and back to the house.”
“Yeah, we don’t want people talkin’, now do we?”
A nervous laugh slips free of my throat. “No. We can’t have that.” I finally spot my boots over by the door and walk the few feet before leaning against the wall to slip them on. “Well, thanks again for … you know, just being you.”
“Anytime.”
“And I’m real sorry I ruined your night.”
He scratches at the five o’clock shadow on his face. “I don’t know if I’d call it ruined. Laying my head down next to a pretty redhead, ain’t exactly my idea