Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
FORREST
M ae left us in the small guest room, closing the door behind herself. I turned at the sound of Sterling’s giggle and saw a men’s set of striped pajamas laid out on the bed beside a woman’s embroidered nightgown.
“That was sweet of Mae,” Sterling said, smiling down at the night clothes our hosts had left for us.
Sterling took her nightgown and disappeared into the bathroom with her purse. I heard the water turn on and looked back to the striped pj’s. It was a nice gesture, but I wasn’t sleeping in those pajamas. It would be like going to bed in a suit. And while the AC in the cottage was decent, it couldn’t quite fight off the summer humidity.
I was lying on top of the covers when Sterling came out of the bathroom, her hair wet, the white nightgown so long it hid her feet. Sometimes, I forgot how small she was. The force of her personality took up far more space than her slight frame.
I changed places with her, taking a quick shower to rinse off the leftover stickiness of the boathouse and sitting outside on a Southern summer night. Pulling my boxers back on, I crossed the dark room and slid beneath the covers.
Sterling eyed my bare shoulders. Drawing up the blanket, she slid her blue eyes my way. “Don’t get any ideas. It would have been weird if I asked to sleep on the couch since they think we’re engaged. Somehow, I don’t think they’d buy that we’re saving ourselves for marriage.”
“Probably not,” I agreed.
“Make sure you stay on your side of the bed.”
“I can’t promise that,” I said honestly. “I have plenty of ideas, but I won’t act on them.”
“Hmm. See that you don’t,” she said in a crisp voice, turning out the light.
She rolled over and appeared to fall asleep. That was fine. I could keep my hands to myself. I lay there in the dark, letting the day wash over me. Strawberry ice cream. My father’s message in the park. The Learys and Callum Leary’s card in the back pocket of Sterling’s jeans. I could slide out of bed while she was sleeping and steal the card, tear it up, and flush it down the toilet. I almost did it, my fingers itching to destroy the thing and cut off her connection to Callum.
But I stayed where I was. Destroying the card wouldn’t remove the threat; it would only undermine her and piss her off, no matter how much I wanted to do it. Instead, I let myself drift, absorbing all the memories that had surfaced since Bob caught us leaving the boathouse.
Helping my mom and Sugar Mae at the hospital fundraiser. Going fishing with my dad and Bob. So much I’d forgotten. In my grief and anger, I’d locked my childhood away, even from myself.
Sleep came, slowly pulling me under into dreams that smelled of the lake and sugar cookies. I woke hours later, the room silent but for the rattle of the AC down the hall. I opened my eyes to find Sterling’s face inches from mine, one leg draped over me, her hand on my bare shoulder.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she said as she shifted closer and touched her lips to mine. I took the invitation, drawing her lower lip between mine and sucking, nipping, tilting my head to drive my tongue into her mouth. God, the taste of her. It was home.
Sterling was where I wanted to be. She anchored me, gave me roots. This connection between us was everything. I kissed her again and again, my arms coming up to hold her. I found bare skin, the nightgown gone, and my mind short-circuited.
Sterling in my arms, her body against mine— This was all I wanted. She moved over me, straddling my waist, sitting up, and trapping my very hard cock beneath the heat of her. She leaned forward, her full breasts brushing my face. I turned my head to capture a nipple, sucking hard, loving her shocked gasp, the way her thighs tightened at the burst of pleasure. Sterling sat back up, a small dark square in her hand.
A condom. Had she been planning this? That was too much to hope for. But the idea that she was running around with condoms in her purse left me unsettled. Who was it meant for? Not me, that much I knew.
Let it go , I told myself. All I’ve wanted for the last year is this. Sterling, naked in my arms. Now she’s here. Stop fucking asking questions.
That was my dick talking. But my dick was wrong. I wanted so much more than Sterling naked in my arms. I wanted her trust. I wanted her love. I wanted her at my side. I couldn’t have any of that. But she was offering this. Her body, not her heart.
That would have to be good enough. For now.
I reached up to pluck the condom out of her hand. “Promise you won’t hate me later,” I said. “At least not more than you already do.”
Sterling let out a sigh and leaned forward, brushing the tips of her breasts against my chest. “This doesn’t mean anything,” she said again, “but I promise if you make me come, I won’t hate you for it later.”
“That, I can do,” I said, tucking the condom under the edge of my hip. Cradling her face in my palms, I pulled her down for a kiss, one hand on the back of her neck. Her mouth on mine, I let my hands roam, stroking down her spine, coming around to cover her breasts. Squeezing, tugging at her nipples, loving the way she squirmed against me. The heat of her branding me through my boxers.
I pushed at them with one hand, and she moved just enough to help me shove them down my legs and toss them on the floor.
“Where’s that condom?” she demanded.
I handed it to her, and she tore it open, rolling it down, her fingers fumbling just a little. Impatient, I slid my hand up her thigh, dipping a finger inside her. So slick and so fucking hot. She was going to kill me, and I’d die happy.
A second later, she rose up above me, bracing her hands on my shoulders. I closed my hands over her hips, pulling her forward. Lifting her, positioning myself, and pulling her down. Propping up on my elbow just enough to fasten my mouth to her nipple and suck, hard.
I heard her gasp as she rocked her hips, taking me deep, grinding her clit into me, breathing my name. “Forrest. Oh, God. Forrest.”
It had been a long year without her touch. I could have come ten seconds after she took me to the hilt, but I’d made a promise, and I wasn’t going to break it.
Lying back, my hands tight on her hips, I rocked up into her in a familiar rhythm I knew would drive her out of her mind.
“Pinch your nipples,” I ordered.
Sterling’s eyes flared, her eyebrows pulling together as if she planned to argue. I rolled my hips again, grinding her clit between our bodies until her head tipped back, her hands rising to tug at her nipples, her hair falling around her, sliding over her skin like silk.
She was a goddess. My goddess, and I could have watched her move above me forever. But I intended to make good on my promise and then some, so I let go of one hip, sliding my hand to the apex of her thighs, and gently rolled her clit under my thumb. Sterling’s body went stiff. She groaned low and long, not loud enough to be overheard by our hosts, but close.
Her pussy clamped on my cock in hard, hot pulses. I almost tipped over the edge with her. It felt so good, so right, so perfect—her coming around me, gasping my name. But not yet. Gritting my teeth, I held my breath, squeezing my eyes shut.
Not yet. I wasn’t ready for it to be over.
Not yet.
Sterling collapsed, her body draped over mine, the thud of her heart a quick beat against my chest. Before she could catch her breath, I rolled her to her back and settled between her legs. Her eyes flew wide.
“You didn’t—” she breathed against my ear.
My lips traced her jaw, answering the question she hadn’t asked with a slow, sweet kiss. I nudged my hips into hers, grinding into her clit, filling her all the way, pushing her higher and higher until all she could do was sink her nails into my shoulders and hang on.
Her knees rose, and she tightened around me, whimpering my name. “Forrest. Oh, God, please.”
This time, I came with her, spilling everything—my heart, my soul, my body—into her. I stayed where I was for a long moment, braced on my elbows, trying to catch my breath. When I rolled to my back, she didn’t come with me.
Sterling lay frozen for a heartbeat. Then she sat up and was on her feet. “I’ll be quick,” she said and disappeared into the bathroom. True to her word, after a flush of the toilet and a minute of running water, she was back. I got up to deal with the condom. When I made it back to the bed, she was on her side, facing the wall, eyes closed, blanket wrapped around her shoulders as if nothing had happened.
Her words echoed in my head. This doesn’t mean anything.
Maybe not to her. But deep down, my soul howled in fury. This doesn’t mean anything? How could it not? How could what happened between us in this bed mean nothing? It had been perfect. You didn’t get that passion, that sweetness, that connection without love.
It meant something, even if she was determined to pretend it didn’t. I turned my pillow over and pressed my cheek to the cold cotton, waiting for sleep to find me.
It must have, eventually. I woke hours later, the sun stabbing my eyes, to find myself alone. Voices filtered through the closed door. After a shower, I used the unopened spare toothbrush Mae must have left for guests, seeing that Sterling had done the same with her own guest toothbrush. As ready for the day as I could be, I joined Bob, Sugar Mae, and Sterling in the kitchen.
Sterling smiled at me like nothing had changed between us. Maybe for her, it hadn’t. That thought stabbed into my heart. I pushed it away. I hadn’t given up in the year we’d been apart. I sure as hell wasn’t giving up now.
We shared breakfast with Bob and Mae. On our way out the door, Bob handed me a small tin box, the same kind that once held the strong, chalky peppermints my father had loved. They’d made my eyes water, but when he’d held out the tin, I always took one.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to make sense of what’s inside,” Bob said. “Lord knows I couldn’t, but it wasn’t meant for me. You stay in touch, you hear?”
“I will,” I said, and I meant it.
Mae folded Sterling into a tight hug, a look of surprise flashing over Sterling’s face before she returned it. I shook Bob’s hand, thanked him, and hugged Mae. Minutes later, we were pulling out of the driveway, Sterling holding the mint tin in her lap. She hadn’t opened it yet.
I was about to ask her to look inside when we turned onto the state road. There, parked in a turnaround on the other side, was a dark sedan, Callum Leary at the wheel. Sterling rolled the window down and gave him a wide grin as we passed, giving him a thumbs-up. He acknowledged it with a brief nod.
“What was that for?” I asked. “Please tell me you’re not going to use that business card.”
Sterling rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an idiot. They obviously know where we were. They must be tracking us somehow. They won’t go bother Bob and Sugar Mae if they think we got what we came for. They’ll stay on us, right?”
That sharp brain was one of the many reasons I loved her. “Good point,” I said. “Are you going to open it?”
“In a minute.”
She waited until we had driven ten minutes without any sign of Callum Leary’s sedan behind us. Then she pried open the lid of the mint tin to find another index card inside. She squinted down at it, turned it over, and then turned it back.
“Another code, right? A clue?” I asked, glancing down into her lap to see a string of letters and numbers written in my father’s handwriting on an otherwise blank white business card.
“What the hell is that?” I asked. Sterling flipped over the card, but there was nothing on the other side. “Where’s the key?”
“I have no fucking clue,” Sterling said with a huff, clicking the lid back on the tin.
“What now?” I asked.
Sterling glanced behind us, looking again for Callum’s black sedan. She shook her head and faced forward, her eyes flicking to me, then back to the road.
“Now we go back to Heartstone Manor and tell Griffen and Hawk about the Learys,” she said. “I think we’re officially in over our heads.”