Chapter 10
10
CHAZ
S he was leaving soon.
My eyes popped open with that thought. I stared up at my ceiling and listened to Dakota, sleep-breathing next to me. I felt oddly comforted by it.
But the panic didn’t go away. I sat with it a second before getting up to go to the bathroom. It was only natural to worry that this amazing woman I’d just met would walk out of my life.
I hadn’t even asked where she lived. For all I knew, she could be a five-hour flight away, and I didn’t like to fly. Even if I did, getting to an airport from here was a pain in the ass. I’d do it in a heartbeat, though, if it was the only way to see her.
I crept out of bed, glancing over to make sure she was still asleep. Then I did my business and made my way to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee.
Maybe I’d make her breakfast in bed. The first of many.
Yes, I didn’t care where she lived. I’d make it work. And fuck my fear of long-distance relationships. It didn’t matter whether they worked ordinarily. This was no ordinary relationship. This was once-in-a-lifetime.
She felt it too. I could see it in her eyes last night. Whatever the odds were of making it work, we’d beat them.
I opened the fridge and stared inside, inventorying my food supply. I had eggs, and by some stroke of luck, they weren’t expired. But I didn’t have anything to go with them.
“You’re up.”
At the sound of Dakota’s voice, I turned, leaving the refrigerator open behind me. She stood just this side of the doorway to the bedroom, buck naked, with her arms folded over her chest again. The rest of her naked body was bared for me, and most of me wanted to shut this refrigerator door, get her back into that bed, and make love to her for the third time in twelve hours. She’d be sore, though, so maybe I’d just go down on her.
“I was just thinking about making you breakfast,” I said.
She looked around, her gaze landing on her clothes near the pool table. I held my breath, sure for a heart-stopping second that she was about to tell me she needed to get dressed and get back to the ski lodge. And that would be that. But when she spoke again, I realized I was letting my fears get the better of me.
“Do you mind if I throw on some clothes?” she asked. “I feel a little self-conscious.”
I looked down. I’d put on my underwear before exiting the bedroom, just so I wasn’t running around my house naked. I couldn’t blame her for at least wanting to put some underwear on.
“Sure,” I said, turning back to the fridge. “I can make eggs, but I don’t really have anything to go with them. How about I run out and get some donuts?”
“Coffee will be fine, for now,” she said.
I frowned as I shut the fridge door and headed back to the coffeemaker. There was something about Dakota that was different this morning. She was tense and anxious, like she couldn’t wait to get out of here. Like she couldn’t wait to get away from me.
My heart seemed to sink to my gut as I poured coffee into a mug. What had I gotten myself into this time? I was falling for a woman who didn’t feel the same. Last night, I would have sworn we were on the same page, but of course, that had been the heat of the moment. Now that she’d had time to literally sleep on it, regrets weren’t that out of the question. She’d given up her virginity, after all. It was something I didn’t take lightly, but it had been a big move for her.
Maybe she regretted it. Oh God, did she regret it?
“How do you like it?” I asked, trying my best to keep my tone neutral. “I don’t have creamer. Just milk.”
“Sugar?” she asked.
For a hopeful second or two, I thought she was calling me sugar. It was a term of endearment. But then I reminded myself of the conversation we were having and opened the cabinet to grab the bag of sugar I rarely used. I pulled a spoon out of the drawer, set it in the mug, and poured coffee.
“I’ll let you doctor it up,” I said, stepping away and picking up my own cup.
“I thought I’d go check out the baking competition today,” she said. “They have a little area for an audience, although nobody showed up yesterday. Maybe I’ll be the only one watching today, but I have a feeling some friends and family are going to show up for the contestants, and I feel like some of those contestants are my friends now.”
As she talked, she entered the kitchen and dropped a spoonful of sugar into her coffee, stirring it and adding milk. Then she turned, holding the mug, and leaned against the counter as she looked at me.
“If you don’t mind dropping me off at the lodge?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said.
I already felt my defenses going up. That was my way. If I thought someone was going to hurt me, I shut down. I pushed them away. I’d push her away and put on a brave face. The last thing I’d want was to let her know how much she was hurting me.
But this time, I stopped myself. I couldn’t just let my pride do the talking with Dakota. I had to at least know the real deal here, or I’d regret it for the rest of my life.
“Look, I know long-distance relationships suck,” I said. “And I don’t know where you live. But it’s worth it to me, whatever this is, to find out if it can go somewhere.”
It went against everything in me to lay my heart out on the line like this. I could easily get smacked down here and end up regretting it. But if she was heading out of town in a couple of days, I’d never see her again anyway, so what difference did it make?
The truth was, it made a big difference. Because even if I never saw her again, she’d never completely leave my memory.
She closed her eyes, and I knew this was it. She was about to deliver a huge blow. She was dreading doing it, so at least there was that. But it was bad news, whatever it was.
She opened her eyes again and looked at me. “There’s something I should have told you.”
I’d swear she paled a little. I missed the blushing Dakota from last night.
“I don’t even know why I kept it to myself,” she continued. “I guess part of me liked the fantasy. I believed that if you thought I lived somewhere far away?—”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
My eyes immediately went to her left hand, even though I’d checked to make sure she was ringless yesterday. But she could be in a long-term committed relationship without wearing a wedding ring.
Maybe it was simpler than that. She just didn’t want a relationship…or she’d come here specifically to find a mountain man and have her first time.
No, that didn’t make sense either. She was here for a baking competition.
“What is it?” Those words came out a lot gruffer than I intended, my frustration showing. I rushed to add, “Sorry.”
She shook her head. “No, I should just spit it out, right?” She took a deep breath before speaking again. “I live here in Adairsville. Have all my life. My parents’ house is in the Covington Grove neighborhood, just a couple of miles up the road from where we had dinner last night.”
She lifted her mug to her lips and sipped, watching me, waiting for my response. I knew I needed to say something to let her know I wasn’t mad that she’d held this information from me. Mad was the opposite of how I felt right now.
My mind was busy processing the information. I had to adjust my thinking from having this huge obstacle in our way to not having anything at all standing between us. We could start dating and get to know each other. Nobody would have to move.
Slowly, a smile spread over my face, and I set my coffee cup down and walked toward her. “You’re telling me you live nearby?”
She nodded. “Same house all my life. I was born at the hospital here in town. I went to Adairsville Elementary, Middle, and High School. Well, the high school is called Hawkins High School, named for some former principal, but it’s all the same.”
She was babbling again—that habit she seemed to have when she got nervous or excited. Which was it this time? Maybe she’d been so nervous about breaking the news to me that the nervousness stuck around even when it was clear I was okay with it all.
“I swore you were about to break some bad news to me,” I said.
She lowered her coffee mug to stomach level and stared at me sheepishly. “I felt bad about not telling you sooner, like I was keeping something from you. It was ridiculous. You were even telling me about the town like I’d never been here before.”
“As far as I knew, you hadn’t.”
She shrugged. “But that conversation only lasted a minute or so, and then we were on to something else. That opportunity passed, and when I thought about it, for some reason it made me feel a little better having you believe this was only temporary. I didn’t want you to think I was planning a future with you or anything.”
Those words were like a punch to my gut. I stared at her, not sure how to say what was on my mind.
“I wanted you to be planning a future,” I said after a long silence. “I still do.”
Her eyes widened, and I swore I saw a hint of a smile. Maybe that was just wishful thinking.
“You do?” she asked.
“I do.” I nodded. “I thought I made that clear last night. But if you’re not ready…”
I hesitated on the rest of that. She stared at me for the longest time, and I didn’t even breathe, waiting to see how she’d respond to that. Everything hinged on what she said next.
“I’m thinking forever,” she finally said without breaking eye contact. “I just don’t want to scare you off. I know how guys can be when a woman brings up the “m” word.
The “m” word. That made me almost laugh.
“Look, I’ve been that guy many times,” I said. “When someone pumps the brakes because of talk like that, it has more to do with the fact that…well, he’s just not that into the woman. And it goes both ways. I’m sure you’ve been on dates with guys who would have had you running in the other direction if they’d mentioned something like that.”
Dakota laughed. “Yeah, more than once.”
“When you know, you know. But the good news is we live locally. You’re not rushing out of town. We don’t have to deal with the dilemma of one of us having to move to be with the other. We can take our time and get to know each other slowly.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t spend a lot of time together. In fact—” She took another long sip of her drink and then set it on the counter. “—I propose we get naked and spend a little more time getting to know each other before I head down to the lodge.”
Now she was speaking my language. I moved forward, putting a hand on either side of her on the counter. Then I leaned down, pausing with my face just inches from hers.
“I think I might have created a monster,” I joked. “Now that you know what an orgasm feels like, there’ll be no satisfying you.”
“Oh, you satisfy me just fine.” She put her hands on the back of my neck and pulled me toward her. “And I’m about to rock your world again.”
Forget breakfast. This was all I needed to wake me up. I lifted her and carried her to the bedroom, wondering just how many times I could make love to her before we left for the baking competition.