Chapter 6
Brock
“You’re not obligated to stay with me, Sela.” She’d gone quiet after the admission I hadn’t meant to make. “I’m perfectly capable of wandering the booths on my own.”
For another few minutes, Sela said nothing, but she didn’t move, and she didn’t remove my arm from around her shoulders. She was just quiet. Unsettlingly quiet. Then she sighed. “I’m not here out of obligation. I’m just not sure how to handle you.”
“So you want to be here?”
She nodded. “I shouldn’t. I know that, but I do.”
I understood perfectly. I didn’t want to be so drawn to Sela, especially since I hadn’t even technically moved to Holiday Grove yet.
It was a done deal—I’d already given Lee my word—but it wasn’t done yet.
But this woman, as sweet as she was beautiful, had some internal magnet that pulled me to her whenever she was around. “I get it,” I finally said.
“Good. Let’s get some roasted corn.” She pointed to a little booth shaped like a corn cob. “Extra butter, unless those abs don’t do butter.”
I laughed and pulled her closer. “I’ll just work out a few extra minutes to burn it off.” I almost asked if she wanted to help me burn it off but thankfully held myself back. “Garlic pepper butter,” I requested, ignoring the way Sela’s gaze swung to me.
“Make that two,” she said. “Please.”
Next, we moved on, and she bought corn jelly and pumpkin syrup, chatting with each vendor and asking questions about their crafts, which she listened to carefully. “Corn jelly? Sounds weird.”
She laughed. “Wait until you taste it,” she said without thinking, and I didn’t correct her.
“I do love jelly on toast,” I added just to tease her.
Sela stumbled but recovered quickly, pointing to a booth filled with wreaths. “These are incredible, Rhona.” She picked up a wreath in fall colors that didn’t look ridiculous, not even with the knitted turkey sitting cross-legged over the cornucopia. “I have to have one.”
“I have the perfect one for you,” the woman said as she produced a wreath with what could only be described as a Thanksgiving crown on it. “For your birthday.”
Sela blinked, suddenly emotional. “Thank you, Rhona. This is perfect.” She pulled out her card and tapped it to the reader attached to the woman’s smartphone. “Thank you. Oh, wait!” She turned to me. “We have to get you one.”
I blinked in shock. The last time a woman offered to buy me anything was when my grandmother offered to buy me an apartment in her building in New York.
“Come on. They’re gorgeous, and it’s for a good cause.” She turned back to the selections, mistaking my silence for hesitation. “That one is masculine and subtle.”
“Aren’t you forgetting that I don’t have a door yet?”
She waved that off. “Krista will fix that soon, and in the meantime, you can hang it on your door at the B&B.” And then she paid for a Thanksgiving wreath. For me.
“You didn’t have to do that, but thank you.”
She flashed a wide smile. “Consider it a welcome-to-Holiday-Grove gift.”
“I thought you were the gift,” I said accidentally but honestly. She elicited a truth from me that I hadn’t given a woman since my ex-wife, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
“Charmer,” she said as we finished winding our way through the festival, drawing curious looks from plenty of people.
“You don’t like that I’m charming?”
She shrugged and then shook her head as we left the fair. “I like it too much,” she admitted. “But I also don’t trust it.” She sighed and then stopped to face me. “I trust that it’s genuine from you, but instinctively, I don’t trust it.”
“Let me walk you home, and you can explain that mud sandwich.”
She laughed. “Mud sandwich?”
“Something my grandma would say when something was unclear.” I relieved her of her bags and bumped her shoulder. “Explain.”
Sela nodded, giving herself a long minute before she spoke. “My ex, Adam.”
“The asshole from the bar?”
She nodded. “Yeah. He left for bigger and better things and shamed me for not wanting to go with him.”
I snorted. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
“You don’t know that,” she shot back easily.
“I do. You’re not just a stunner, Sela. You’re sweet and kind, and you do a lot here in town.” My gaze settled on her lips, full and pink and begging me to take a taste. “He’s back because he knows he fucked up.”
“I was sad when we broke up, but not because I missed him. I just realized that he left to find his path in life, and I don’t have that.”
I remembered her words from the fountain. “You have time.”
“I’m almost thirty,” she shot back. “Anyway, that’s the story, and thank you again for your help with him.”
“Don’t thank me for being a decent human being. That’s what you deserve, Sela.” She smiled tightly and nodded. “Is he why you’re gun-shy about dating?”
She nodded. “But he’s not special in that regard, just one in a long line of bad romantic decisions. And none of them have had your appeal.”
I knew she hadn’t meant it as a compliment, but still, my chest puffed out. “Careful there. My ego can’t handle it.”
“I’m sure your ego is as solid as the rest of you.”
She had no idea, but she would. Soon.
“This is me,” she pointed to a small ranch home that sat between a cottage and a bungalow. “I love this neighborhood. It’s like everyone just did what they wanted, and so it’s a hodgepodge of styles.”
“It’s definitely eclectic.”
She laughed, and the sound was pretty and lyrical. “Exactly.”
“Want me to help you hang the wreath?” The truth was, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her just yet.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll make mulled wine to warm your bones.” Her skin was flushed, and her pupils dilated because she wanted me to stay too.
Hell yeah. “Mulled wine? Are you trying to get me to lower my inhibitions, Sela?”
She blinked in phony wide-eyed innocence. “Of course not.” She turned to the stove to start the wine while I went to hang the wreath.
It took less than five minutes, and I returned to the kitchen and enjoyed her fine ass. “So, what is this path you’re looking for going to look like?”
She gasped and glared at me over her shoulder. “Not cool, Brock. And I don’t know. If I knew that, at least I’d feel like I had a goal.”
“You’re good at helping people, not just at the pub but around town. People like you, and they respect you. Maybe get a job with the town?”
She scoffed. “I don’t have training for that.”
I frowned at her instant dismissal and closed the distance between us while she was distracted. “Sure you do. Trust me.”
She shivered against my chest, but it was that soft gasp that shot straight to my cock. “I can’t lie about my experience.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to understand your skill set.” I leaned down as I whispered the words, our lips just a breath away from one another.
“Brock,” she half-whispered and half-moaned.
It was enough to snap what little control I had left.
“Sela,” I whispered a moment before my mouth crashed down over hers.
Her lips were soft and sweet, pliable under my kisses.
My hands speared through her hair, holding her in place while I devoured her for long, eternal minutes.
Our tongues fit together perfectly and knew the steps of the perfect dance, tangling and rubbing together like we’d been doing this forever.
Sela moaned and her hands went to my chest, sliding up and down my torso, basically feeling me up. She moaned again as if she liked what she felt and what she tasted before she glued her body to mine.
The kiss was everything I knew it would be.
It was everything I should’ve been running from the moment our lips collided, but I couldn’t go anywhere.
I was rooted to the spot, incapable of separating my mouth from hers because I wasn’t sure if I knew how to breathe without her attached to me.
Hell, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know if life existed outside of this kiss.
Her fingertips hooked into the waistband of my jeans, her warm touch setting me on fire, and when she tugged, I growled and deepened the kiss.
This was the most fun I had kissing a woman since I was a teenager, but I couldn’t deny the ache behind my zipper served as a warning that I wasn’t a teenager anymore.
Sela pulled her lips from mine, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at me. Her fingers went to her lips as if she couldn’t quite believe that kiss. “Brock,” she gasped and turned away from me.
This time I wasn’t worried because I felt the shock that showed on her face. “Sela.”
She shook her head.
“Turn around, Sela.”
She shook her head again, stubborn woman.
I spun her back to me. “Tell me to stop. Send me home.”
She nodded and looped one arm around my neck and then the other.
“I should. I know I should.” She softly pressed her lips to my jaw.
“Stop this,” she whispered and kissed my chin on her way to the other side of my jaw.
“Go home. Now.” And then her lips were on mine again, and nothing else in the world mattered except the spot where our lips touched.
About a decade later, the kiss ended with both of us panting and staring at each other in shock. “Sela,” I began, but I had no clue what the fuck I was going to say.
She nodded. “Wow. That was some kiss,” she offered and licked her lips. “A really bad, amazing, hot kiss.”
“Bad?” I reached for her and pulled her close again. “Then I think I must’ve done it wrong.”
She laughed and swatted at my arm. “If you do it any more right, my clothes will burst into flames.”
“That’s not the deterrent you think it is,” I assured her and then, because I could and because I couldn’t get enough, I kissed her again.