Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
A fterwards, Leni lay in the crook of Chevy’s arm, their legs tangled together, smiling as she traced her finger along the muscled bicep she’d been admiring earlier.
The storm had passed, and the sun shining through the bedroom window warmed her bare shoulder.
She still couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. Had she really gone skinny-dipping with Chevy Lassiter then let him take her to O-town on the edge of his kitchen island?
Then again in his bed?
Then still again?
This was not like her. She hadn’t skinny-dipped since she was eighteen years old. Although technically, she’d left her underwear on, so she wasn’t sure it even counted as the skinny part.
When she’d decided to go for a swim, she’d planned to leave both her undies and her bra on. But then Chevy had teased and flirted with her, and it felt like she was eighteen again, and suddenly she was unsnapping her bra and tossing it to the ground.
The warm water had felt delicious on her skin, and swimming around with Chevy knowing she was topless had been a crazy turn-on. Maybe that’s why she’d acted so out of character once they got inside the cabin.
Vanilla was her normal relationship lane. She didn’t do hot crazy sex. In fact, she hadn’t had any sex in months, let alone the insane kind. And especially not with men she barely knew.
Although Chevy wasn’t someone she barely knew. He’d been the love of her life. The one she still dreamed of in the quiet moments when she let herself remember his smile.
Still, even with the hardware engineer from Lockheed Martin that she’d dated for six months, she’d never acted in bed the way she had with Chevy—with such reckless abandon.
Something had come over her. She didn’t know if it was the rain or the storm or the fact that she was half-naked and in the arms of the only man she’d ever really given her heart to.
She was only planning to be here for a few weeks, so maybe it just felt like she had this one chance, this one opportunity to be with him. Or maybe it was because it all felt so good, kissing him again, the delicious way he teased her, that something in her just gave in and surrendered to his touch.
She’d never felt so brazen, so wanton, but it had been so freeing, and so much fun.
Although now that it was over, and the sun was shining and they weren’t in the dark cabin, dripping wet, with a storm flashing and crashing around them, she suddenly felt shy. And more than a little awkward.
Would he think she always acted like that?
“I should probably get back,” she told him. She’d been gone for hours.
“I’m surprised you were able to stay for so long. How’d you get away this afternoon?”
“Maisie stopped by and said she’d stay for the afternoon. She’s really sweet. She brought a plate of brownies and a stack of books for Max and one for her and Lorna. I think the three of them were planning to read all afternoon.”
He rolled onto his side to face her and ran his finger along the tiny dent next to her collarbone, sending a shiver down her spine. “Then it sounds like you have time to stay a little longer.”
Heat coiled in her belly as she smiled at him. “I should probably at least check in. I told her I was coming up here, so I’m sure she’s not worried, but my phone is still in my purse in the car, so I don’t know if she’s tried to text me.”
“How did you know I was up here?”
“Duke dropped off a pan of chicken enchiladas and happened to mention that you were spending the afternoon at the cabin.”
“Just happened to mention it, huh?”
“Yes, come to think of it, it did feel a little like he tried to stick that information into the conversation.”
“I’m glad he did.”
Murphy padded into the bedroom, jumped up on the bed, and laid down, his head resting on Leni’s ankle.
Chevy gestured to the dog. “You’re gonna have to convince Murphy to give you back your bra if you plan to go anywhere.”
“What good is my bra if I don’t have a shirt?”
“You’re right. There’s no point. We should just stay naked and in bed for the rest of the day.”
She laughed. Although that wasn’t a bad idea.
He gestured to the window. “With the kind of storm we just had, there’s a good chance the road is flooded, so you probably won’t be able to leave anyway.”
“Oh no.” Her Tesla was a great car, but it didn’t have a lot of clearance when it came to dirt roads. “Do you really think it’s washed out?”
He shrugged. “Probably. It usually is when it rains that hard. But it normally only takes a few hours for the water to recede then it’s passable again.” He slid his hand under the sheets and along her thigh. “I’ve got a few ideas of some things we could in that time.”
Just the slightest touch of his hand and heat and need were already building between her legs.
It would be so easy. Just lean in to kiss him. But would they be able to recapture the lust and passion they’d just created during the storm? She wasn’t sure.
They had just spent several hours together naked and doing lots of those ‘ideas’ he’d just mentioned. So, why was she suddenly feeling awkward and embarrassed?
Maybe because she hadn’t seen this man or talked to him in the better part of a decade. Then within days of being around him again, she’d fallen into bed with him.
Although he had been there for her during the emergency situation with her sister, and he’d taken care of Isabel and Max. Cradling that tiny baby against his chest was one of the most swoon-worthy things she’d ever seen. If she hadn’t been in crisis-mode, she might have climbed him like a tree right then.
He’d also built Lorna a set of railings.
Wearing a tool belt . Don’t forget the tool belt.
That heat was getting more intense just thinking about it.
Plus, he was Chevy. The boy—man, gulp —who she had grown up with, that she had given her heart, and her virginity , too. He wasn’t a random stranger she’d picked up in a bar.
He was part of her history, part of her heart.
Still, things were moving pretty fast. They seemed to have skipped the ‘catching up’ phase of seeing each other again and went straight from the crazy night of a crisis into falling into bed together. Except they hadn’t really fallen, it was more like they’d hurtled headlong into a passion-fueled collision. Like all the systems in her brain had crashed, and her body had just taken over like some crazy sex-starved virus.
Except, if her computer or her systems at her job failed, or got infected with a virus, she knew what to do. She knew how to analyze a problem, figure out a solution or a formula that made sense.
But none of this made any sense.
She dealt with facts and figures, with numbers and science. This was all emotion and feelings. She couldn’t just turn those off and then turn them back on again.
Although the way Chevy’s hand was sliding along her thigh seemed to suggest that she could be turned back on again. And quite easily.
She let out a sigh, that rational part of her brain trying to take back control. “I really should get back. I’d hate to think Lorna might have needed me, and I haven’t been answering my phone or texts in hours.”
“Yeah, I get that. And my phone’s in the pickup, so even if she’d tried mine, I haven’t answered either,” he said, dropping his hand and throwing back the sheet. “Let me find some dry stuff to wear, and I’ll go outside and try to track down what Doofus did with your shoe and the rest of your clothes.”
“I’d appreciate that,” she said, giving the dog, who had crawled into the empty spot next to Leni that Chevy had vacated, a cuddle.
“We usually leave some extra stuff up here.” He crossed to the dresser, found a pair of gray sweatpants, and pulled them on. He was going commando, and she swallowed at the sight of him. The thin sweatpants left nothing to the imagination as he continued to dig through the drawer, coming up with a flannel shirt that he tossed on the bed. “You can wear this.” He offered her a wolfish grin. “Although I prefer you in your current state, but if you insist on getting dressed, at least this should hold you until your clothes are dry.”
She laughed. “I do, in fact, insist.” She pulled on the flannel, rolling up the sleeves, and buttoning a few of the buttons. Her legs were bare as she padded into the front room of the cabin to find her shorts and hunt down what the dog did with her bra.
Spotting her underwear on the floor in the kitchen, she bent over to retrieve them and heard a groan from behind her.
“Damn, woman. You’re killin’ me all over again. You look sexy as hell in my shirt, but then you bent over and gave me a peek at that gorgeous ass of yours and about sent me into cardiac arrest.”
She laughed as she strode over to where her shorts were and bent forward to grab them, offering Chevy another risqué glimpse, and earned another moan from him.
Where had this shameless woman come from?
She’d just been thinking about how awkward and shy she’d suddenly felt in the bedroom, then a little encouragement from Chevy, and she’s bending over and flashing him her cheeky bits.
She normally tried to hide her butt and certainly never flaunted any part of herself, especially in naked form. But he made her feel beautiful. And sexy. It was the way he looked at her. And he made it so fun to tease him.
“Found your bra,” he said, holding it up by one strap. “It may have gotten a little slobbered on though, so I’d suggest not bothering to even put it on.”
She laughed. “You are shameless.”
He shrugged, not troubled at all by her remark, as he pulled on his boots.
“Was the one you gave me the only shirt in that drawer?” she asked, glancing at this bare chest and trying not to drool.
“Probably not,” he said with a wink and another grin before he walked out the front door.
She took advantage of his absence to run to the bathroom and wash her face. She was a mess. Her hair was a crazy tangle of curls, and she tried to finger-comb out the worst of it. Finding some toothpaste in a drawer, she swished some around in her mouth, rubbing it onto her teeth with her tongue before rinsing it out.
She heard the door open and close, and she came out of the bathroom to see Chevy holding up her flip flop.
“Found your sandal, but no luck tracking down your top. I’ll keep looking.”
She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. It’s one of a few I bought from Walmart last night after realizing I was staying longer than I’d planned. And I’m sure it will eventually turn up.”
“I’ll buy you a new one.” He glared at the dog who had followed Leni into and out of the bathroom and was now lying at her feet. “And I’ll take it out of Murphy’s dog treat budget.”
The dog let out a groan as if he’d understood Chevy’s threat.
Leni’s underwear had been dry, so she’d pulled those back on, but the denim shorts were still damp and the thought of putting on a slobbery bra made her grimace, so she just slipped her sandals on with the flannel shirt and hoped she could sneak into the house that way without her sister catching her coming home braless and in someone else’s shirt.
“I’ll call you later,” Chevy said, pulling her to him to kiss her goodbye. “Or call me if you need anything. I can always run into town. I mean it. For anything.”
“Thanks,” she told him, and wasn’t sure what else to say.
This whole afternoon had felt surreal, and now that she was getting ready to go back into the real world, her old insecurities were rearing their ugly heads.
Her brow furrowed as she peered up at him. “You’re not seeing anyone else right now, are you? I mean, not that we’re seeing each other, or that I’m expecting anything, but I guess, I’m asking…” She was royally screwing this up. It was hard to believe she led whole teams of people and explained complicated formulas to other engineers. Just spit it out. “Do you currently have a girlfriend or someone that you’re dating?”
His eyes widened. “What? No. Geez. Do you think I would have done that…” He tilted his head toward the bedroom. “Or that …” Heat warmed the back of her neck as he gestured toward the kitchen island. “…if I was seeing someone else?” His eyes narrowed. “Why? Do you have a boyfriend.”
She huffed out a laugh. “Um. No. Not in a very long time. I’m mostly married to my job.”
He nodded. “Good. Well, I don’t have a girlfriend either. And I’m not with anyone else. Although I am hoping to say that I’m seeing someone now .” He lowered his head and offered her a sidelong glance, as if afraid of the answer to the question he was covertly asking.
Did this all mean they were seeing each other now? Did she want them to be seeing each other?
She certainly didn’t want to see anyone else.
But that didn’t mean she was ready to go ‘all in’ and commit to getting back together with Chevy Lassiter.
Apparently, her mouth hadn’t been paying attention to what her mind was thinking, because it blurted out, “Yes. You are seeing someone now. And I’ll see you later.” She gave him another quick kiss then slipped out the door.
She got to her car and slid into the driver’s seat, the flannel shirt barely covering her tush, and the leather seat was warm on the back of her legs. Digging through her purse, she found her phone and checked the display. No messages from her sister.
She sent Lorna a quick text. “Everything okay?”
“Yep. All good,” came her sister’s reply. “You okay?”
“Yep. All good too.”
Better than good .
“And how is Chevy? Did you find him? You’ve been gone for hours. Did anything pop up for you to talk about?”
Her sister followed her message with an eggplant emoji, and Leni laughed out loud. Her phone dinged again, this time with just the emoji of a taco. Then another text with just a peach.
Leni cracked up as she typed back, “We’re working through some things.” She added a winky face. Although she could have created the story of the whole afternoon with images of a lake, a dog, a bra, a lightning bolt, a peach, a bed, and several eggplants.
“Maisey is here, and Elizabeth just stopped by with chips and salsa to go with the enchiladas, so no need to rush home. Unless you’re hungry. Otherwise, stay as long as you want.”
She looked down the road then back at the cabin. Chevy had said the gravel road was probably washed out. She weighed the risk of it against the benefit of what was back in the cabin.
It couldn’t hurt to give it a little longer for the water to dry. It certainly wasn’t worth getting stuck. Not when there was a six-foot-something, broad-shouldered alternative waiting for her inside.
“The storm flooded the road to the cabin, so I might stay a little longer to let it dry out,” she typed. “Go ahead and eat without me. I’m not hungry.”
Not for chips and salsa anyway.
Dropping her phone into her purse, she brought it with her as she walked back to the cabin, her stomach full of butterflies at the thought of being with Chevy again.
She felt like a skydiver standing at the open door of the plane, anxious and terrified, but also excited, her whole body tingling and wired at the anticipation of experiencing that thrilling free fall into the sky.
“Hey,” he said, a slow grin crossing his face as she walked through the door. “You’re back.”
“I started to leave, but you’re right, it’s better to wait for the road to dry out.” She was already unbuttoning the flannel shirt and stepping out of her sandals. “And I was thinking about some of those ideas you had about how we could fill the time,” she said as she let the shirt drop to the floor.