Chapter 31
Jason
In less than an hour I’m driving carefully toward the clearing, through the snow-covered pines and up the lower forest until I reach the cabin.
My house comes into view and I note that the rental car has gone, but I keep my attention honed just in case as I manoeuvre around the back.
I kill the engine and exhale, my eyes focused on the garage door even though my mind is still elsewhere.
I texted Sunday before I set off from Mitch’s letting her know that I’d be home pretty soon, but in terms of the guy from this morning, for all I know he’ll still be here.
Doesn’t matter that the silver vehicle has vacated the premises. Maybe he took it back to town and then got a cab toward the mountain.
Maybe Sunday went with him, and she showed him around before bringing him back.
Just because I fell for Sunday when I was in high school doesn’t mean that she owes me any kind of loyalty. And just because my feelings for her have grown stronger these past few months, doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have another life back in Nashville that she might want to get back to.
And I’m just going to have to suck it up because, at the end of the day, I want what’s best for her.
Even if the thought of her with another guy makes my chest heave as I grip the steering wheel.
I give myself ten seconds to steady my breathing and then I push open the driver’s side door, stepping down into the snow.
And just as I close up the truck behind me and grab my keys to unlock the garage, I involuntarily glance over my shoulder and then pull up to an instant stop.
Because Sunday’s in those baby blue thermals, leaning against a wooden beam on the back porch as she watches me.
And she’s got two mugs of cocoa in her hands as she tilts her head toward the hot-tub.
I glance down at it as she bites back a smile, taking in the set-up that she’s been preparing.
And just like that, I know that everything’s good between us as I pocket my garage keys and stride toward her.
The only new tire tracks in the snow are the ones from my truck, and my chest swells with pleasure at the idea that she did this for us.
Forget about that guy from earlier.
It’s her and me, just the two of us.
When I’m only a foot away from her I hesitate and then stop, wanting nothing more than to wrap my arms around her but knowing that we need to talk about this morning.
I grip one palm around the back of my neck, exhaling at the tightness in my shoulders, and I roll them back a couple times as I plant my boots in front of her.
And I glance at the tall outdoor heater that Sunday has turned on, the warmth combined with the hot-tub steam making me want to rip off my uniform and submerge in the water.
I drop my eyes back to Sunday’s, towering over her as she peeks up at me.
“Hey,” I rumble, my voice hoarse as I look down at her.
“Hey,” she whispers back, stepping up to me with a little smile.
She touches her palm against my cheek and I exhale roughly, closing my eyes.
“Jason,” she whispers quietly, the softness in her voice making my eyes open.
I clear my throat and gently nod, unable to even blink as she holds my gaze.
“Yeah,” I murmur back to her. “It’s okay, just tell me. Is he…” I glance toward the glass doors behind her, checking again to see if the guy is still here. “Did he go?” I ask quietly. “Is he staying in the area?”
Sunday’s fingertips slide down the neck of my shirt and my eyes drop to hers, meeting her gaze.
“The reason why I came back to Phoenix Falls?” she says. “The reason why I fled Nashville was because of that guy.”
My shoulders tighten, eyes narrowing as I try to make sense of that, but Sunday immediately shakes her head, reading my expression.
“No, no – let me rephrase. Do you remember when I told you that someone leaked a story to the Observer about me? Linking me to this huge country and western singer? Well…” She shrugs gently. “Riley is that singer.”
I stare down at her for a long moment, trying to understand exactly what she’s telling me and, seeing my struggle, Sunday squeezes my nape and clarifies.
“I’d just sold the bar for millions of dollars, and it’s rare for bars to swap hands so it was already going to be big news. But then someone sold photos of us hanging out as friends to the press, and then they made this giant headline about us having a sordid affair. It was obviously nonsense and honestly it would have been kind of funny for us, but then the paparazzi were everywhere, the fans were everywhere… and I couldn’t stay in that environment so I decided that I should lay low for a while. And then I came here,” she finishes, pushing herself against me with a mischievous smile. “The end.”
My eyes drop to her beautiful mouth, overcome with all of the information that she’s just given me. She had already told me about the press story before but it seems worse now that I have all of the details.
It makes it more real.
And more fucking dangerous.
“Sunday,” I murmur, exhaling as I stroke my fists around her wrists.
“It’s okay now, I promise. The story’s totally died down. I talked to Riley’s manager and she was amazing at helping me divert the attention. I mean, Riley’s new album has just come out so I guess that it was easy enough…”
I shake my head. “You could sue those bastards for doing that to you.”
“It’s not worth it to me,” she says gently.
“And who the hell leaked the photos, anyway?”
“Genuinely? It could have been anyone. Like, anyone could have hacked his team’s cell. But Riley was on it right away, and bought us new phones so that we’d be protected.”
She sees the doubt in my expression and laughs gently, tugging me closer.
Yeah, this country music guy may be as innocent as Sunday in this situation, but I won’t be dishing him a medal of valour anytime soon.
“And in case I wasn’t clear,” she teases, smiling as she tugs me toward her, and my hands instantly envelop her hips as we walk under the porch roof, into the warmth. She brushes her lips against mine and whispers, “Riley Dutton was never my boyfriend.”
And in the next second we’re kissing, a deep growl in my chest as she rips open my construction jacket, and then she’s rolling it down my biceps and making me groan as she pushes her hips against mine.
I toss the jacket onto the porch, my hands squeezing her waist as she starts undoing the buttons at the top of my work shirt, and I flick a glance toward the hot-tub, wondering if this evening is about to go exactly where I’m hoping it will.
“What’s with the hot-tub?” I rasp, my abs flexing as she pulls up my shirt, and then I’m ripping it over my head, exposing my entire chest to her in one go.
She presses a kiss to one of my pecs and I inhale roughly, stroking my palms over her hair.
“You mentioned it this morning,” she says, her voice light and breathless. “And I thought that you might need a little TLC.”
I groan as she kisses lower, my fingers tangling in her pretty hair.
“The fuck does TLC mean?” I rumble.
She giggles quietly and peeks up at me. “It’s cute that you don’t know that. You should Google it.”
I stroke my hand back down her ponytail before wrapping it gently around my fist, my other hand caressing her throat as she kisses sweetly just above my belt.
“Do you” – I clear my throat, my mind blank as I watch her grip the leather, slipping the tongue of the belt beneath the buckle as she continues sucking softly at my abs – “do you have a bikini?”
Sunday tilts her head back and murmurs, “I don’t think I’ll be needing one.”
And my chest heaves as she tears open my pants.
Sounds good to me.
“You don’t have to do this,” I grunt, exhaling roughly as she pulls down my boxers, and the thick muscle there flexes heavily as she looks up at me from between my thighs.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” she confesses, her cheeks dimpling as she kisses my quad, and she’s so close to where I need her that my abdomen starts to burn.
“Take off your shirt,” I rumble, my eyes half-mast as I lean down to help her, kissing her gently because I can’t help myself and groaning when I drop her thermal to the porch.
She’s not wearing a bra.
I swallow hard. “Fucking beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, fighting back a smile as she shoves me off of her, and I steady my boots on the deck as she kneels in front of me, my hands in her hair.
I wrap one hand around her nape and fist my other around her blonde ponytail, my hips flexing with unabashed desire as she presses a gentle kiss to the head of my cock.
“Not too much of this,” I murmur, groaning quietly when she licks the tip, and then she’s sucking me slowly into her mouth, her cheeks bright pink as she peeks up at me.
“Sweetheart,” I say roughly, my hips slowly starting to roll back and forth, and her warm fingers squeeze the wide base as she swallows me deeper down her throat.
I thrust slowly into her mouth, keeping a steady pace as she looks up at me, and my fingers grip tighter at the back of her hair as she starts moving faster, taking more.
My biceps bunch as she moans softly, my chest pumping up and down as she picks up her rhythm.
“Baby,” I murmur, my voice deep and gruff. Then I steel my jaw as she licks the head, her fingers brushing softly over my balls.
Jesus Christ.
I grip her hair and thrust faster, groaning with each gentle whimper that she makes, and my quads ripple with a surge of testosterone, wanting to pump harder and deeper. I grit my teeth and swallow roughly as I tug gently at her soft ponytail.
“Let me get you off first, baby,” I rumble, my pecs tightening when she sucks me harder, and I growl quietly as I slowly pull out of her, her breathing almost as erratic as mine.
“You’re really big,” Sunday whispers, unable to tear her eyes away from my dick as I lift her to her feet, and I chuckle quietly as I kick off my boots so that I can shove my pants the rest of the way down my calves. Once they’re off, I grab my wallet and thumb through the cash until I find a condom, keeping it tucked between two fingers as I toss the rest of my stuff back to the floor.
“It’s too big for sucking,” I murmur back to her, feeling a little guilty about how much of me she couldn’t take in her mouth. “But you did it so good. Didn’t want to pull out, baby.”
“You didn’t have to,” she says breathlessly, and then she’s moaning as I suck her neck, trailing hungry kisses down her breasts and abrading my stubble over her soft peaks. “I can do it,” she whimpers. “I just need a little longer to get used to the size.”
I chuckle huskily at that, slipping my hands down the back of her pants. “I know you can do it, baby – that’s why we had to stop. Seven more seconds of what you were doing and I’d be spilling my load down your throat.”
Her long lashes flutter and I kiss her gently, walking her backward.
“Where are we going?” she whispers up to me, caressing her hands up over my pecs.
I tip my chin to the back of the porch, just beyond the hot-tub, and she glances at the hidden nook.
“The shower,” I tell her, as I hunch down to pull off her thermal pants, and then we’re falling hungrily into the wooden outdoor shower cubicle as I toss her clothes onto the deck behind us.
I hit the spray and the hot water jets instantly start streaming down my back, my eyes closing for a moment as I savour the first burn on my swollen muscles.
I envelop my large palms around Sunday’s hips, squeezing gently as she wraps her arms around my shoulders, and I groan quietly as she kisses my neck, the hot steam building in the stall around us.
“Does it ache?” she whispers softly, making my eyes flutter open so that I can look down at her.
I swipe my tongue over my lower lip, not sure what exactly she’s talking about.
Because there are a couple of parts of me that are aching for her right now.
“What, baby?” I ask, dropping the condom onto the wooden counter behind her, and then tangling my fingers up in the thin lace at the sides of her panties.
“Your back,” she whispers, “from all of the hard work that you did today. I saw you rolling your shoulders when you got out of your truck and I thought that maybe it was aching.”
“It’s nothing,” I tell her quietly, used to dealing with it after a lifetime of brutal exercise.
In the Army our conditions were pretty rough, so now I’m just grateful that I get to sleep in a bed every night.
Sunday reaches up to kiss me and then she turns me around so that I’m facing the mounted spray as her hands caress their way up my lower back.
And the second that her thumbs dig into the thick muscles of my shoulders I’m dropping my head forward on a groan and bracing my fists on the wood in front of me.
She digs them in harder, rotating them slowly, and my vision blacks out as she presses her soft body against mine.
“Sunday,” I rumble hoarsely, “what did I do to deserve you?”
She presses a tender kiss between my shoulder blades, and then her hands move higher, squeezing my muscles.
She works my shoulders for a solid minute before sliding her palms around to my chest, making me grunt as she grips my pecs, my lower body flexing with the need to feel her.
So I take her wrists in my hands and push them off of me as I turn to face her, my eyes trailing down her shower-soaked body until I reach her panties, drenched from the spray.
I tuck my thumbs beneath the sides and kiss her neck as I rumble, “Can we get rid of these?”
“Yes,” she whispers back to me, and I slide the wet lace slowly down her skin. Bunching the panties in my fist as I stand upright again, towering over her.
And then I slap them onto the counter, freeing my fists so that I can grab behind her knees, and I lift her easily onto the wood behind her, positioning my hips between her thighs.
I massage her waist as I lean down to kiss her, swallowing her whimpers beneath the water’s hot spray, and then I take the condom from the counter and rip it open, before rolling it on.
“Tell me that you’re not expecting any more visitors,” I say gruffly, as I tug her to the edge of the counter, the perfect height for me.
She breathes out a quiet laugh, shaking her head quickly, and I exhale contentedly at the knowledge that we’re totally alone.
“Good,” I murmur, rubbing her with my stubble as I kiss her cheek. “Don’t want anyone else walking back here and getting to see what we’re about to do.”
And then I’m slowly guiding my throbbing cock inside of her, grunting quietly when she whimpers, and gathering her against my chest as she arches her hips for more.
“You’re soaked,” I rumble, and feeling that she’s wet enough for me to bottom out, I thrust my cock to the hilt, my quads rippling as she starts to pant.
“Oh my God,” she whispers, digging her nails into the back of my neck, and when the thumping jets start spraying her breasts, I almost growl because it’s so erotic.
I grip one palm around her nape and the other one around her hip, withdrawing long and slow before driving forward in a savage thrust.
Her head falls back and I pump again, my eyes on her tits as I thrust inside of her.
“Jason,” she moans, and I lean down so that I can kiss her, taking her lips with mine as I roll my hips and she grips possessively at the swells of my shoulders. She whimpers and presses closer, tentatively licking her tongue against mine and making me groan.
And I quickly pull away, panting hard as I loom over her, knowing that more of that would make me come, so I caress her throat and keep thrusting.
My hips slap between her legs and she whimpers desperately, pulling me closer, looking up at me from under those long lashes as I work my dick between her thighs.
“I’m almost there,” she whispers breathlessly, stroking her fingers up my jaw as my pace quickens.
“I can tell,” I rumble, massaging my palms around both cheeks of her ass. And then I pull her flush against my groin as I piston myself inside of her.
Her neck arches on a whimper and I hunch down, sucking her soft skin, my pace relentless as she tightens beneath me, holding her firm as she cries out.
And then I’m pumping harder and faster, fisting her curls as she meets my eyes, and I drop my forehead down to hers and groan roughly as I reach my limit.
My balls tighten, so fucking heavy, and I grunt long and hard as I come, my skin slapping between her thighs until I collapse against her, expending my release.
“ Sunday ,” I growl, pumping hard as she whimpers against me, my large palms squeezing her breasts as I finish up, both of us breathing heavily.
And then I lift one hand to the back of her head, threading my fingers through her hair as I hunch down to kiss her.
It’s warm and gentle, but still hot enough to make me groan, and then I’m slowly pulling out of her, reluctant as hell.
I toss the condom and gather her close, shielding her body from the spray.
“Baby,” I rumble. “I’ve been thinking about this all day.” And I caress my palms around her neck, unable to stop kissing her as she strokes my stubble.
“Me too,” she whispers breathlessly, watching as I reach for the shower gel in the corner of the counter.
I click the top and shoot a spurt straight down the centre of my abdomen, my tan skin looking even darker as the suds turn white under the spray.
I quickly soap up my arms and the swollen muscles of my thighs and, just to make Sunday blush, I pay a little extra attention to my balls. And I chuckle as she starts to pant, her tits rising and falling fast when I cage her in.
I give my cock a long slow pump, and then shoot another load of gel onto my palm.
I lean down to kiss Sunday’s lips and then turn her around, massaging my palms over her shoulders.
“Your turn, baby,” I murmur quietly, and she leans back against my chest, wrapping her arms behind my neck as my large hands roam lower.