peaches and spring water. “Come. Come. I want you to come, too,” she begs.
“Turn around,” I say. She flips, her knees on one stair, her hands braced on another, her heart-shaped ass in front of me. I slide back into the hot, depths of her. I can’t believe she’s actually tighter from this angle. I press my hand into her hair, all those golden curls twined around my fingers and over my wrist.
The wrist that still has her name inked on it.
Man, I was lovesick. I thought it would all be so fucking easy. I was a moron.
I tug just hard enough to make her jerk hard against me. I lean down over her naked back, my mouth close to her ear. “You like this? Tell me you like it from behind. Say it.”
“I like it...I want it from behind,” she gasps. “Gunner, I think...Gunner?”
I planned to remind her that this was just a fuck. That when this night was over, so were we. For good. Walking away from each other.
But then she came on me, and my body couldn’t handle another second, and I was in no place to be giving anyone a lecture. I grabbed onto her shoulders and tilted my hips to fill her as deeply as I could. I came with her, so hard it winded me. It was never like that with any other girl, and I knew it never would be.
I pull out slowly, roll the condom off and she lay back awkwardly, her tits pressed high, her blonde curls all over the stairs. “I’ve waited three years for that,” she breathes. “That was incredible.” She reaches a hand up to touch my face, but I pull back.
Damn I want her to touch me like she used to. But I’m not an idiot. And I’m definitely not a masochist.
“You ready to go back? I got what I wanted.” I say the words coolly, make sure I look her in the eye.
I feel like a dick. And I expect a lot of things. Tears. Anger. A slap across my face, a boot in my sack. I’m ready to take accept a world of hurt as payback for hurting her, even if it’s for our own good.
Maybe I imagine the pain that flashes through her eyes so quickly, because her next words actually make me laugh.
“Go back? You’re giving that bartender all your tips tonight, aren’t you? Last call is two hours away, and I saw a nice big kitchen table that doesn’t look like it’s been fucked on recently.” She grins at me. “Or do you need a mattress now? I know you’re getting older.”
Shit. I steeled myself for her tears or her fury. But her humor? She cut me at the knees. I scoop her up and hold her tiny body tight in my arms, trying to tune out her laughter before she gets me more fucked up in the brain. I deposit her on the table, yank her skirt off her hips and down her legs, but put a hand on hers when she tries to take off her boots.
I’d know those damn boots anywhere; she wore them that entire summer three years ago, and I’d seen her in them a thousand times. But there was nothing sexier than a girl in nothing but her boots.
“Leave them on,” I say. “And back that gorgeous ass up. Seeing as you’re all spread out on the table, I’m feeling hungry. Spread your legs and let me suck on that sweet pussy.”
She drops her head back and lets her knees fall at her sides, but not before she whispered, “I fucking love you, Gunner.”
I decide to save my comments and use my tongue for better things.
She better cut that shit out. We had terms and she agreed. She wasn’t about to trick me into something that would just wind up screwing us both up again.
CHAPTER 3
HARLOW
“Time to go,” Gunner says. My eyelids flit open and reject the light pouring through the massive windows of the old farmhouse.
“Morning,” I say, my voice still thick with sleep. “I don’t even remember coming to bed.”
Gunner pulls a pair of pants out of a drawer and slides them on before I get a chance to admire that fine ass. “You didn’t. You fell asleep on the couch. I carried you up here.”
I glance over to the unruffled side of the bed. “You didn’t sleep in here with me?”
Gunner jerks his head to the chair in the corner of the room.