Chapter Nineteen – I Want to Be the One
Chapter Nineteen
Beckett
I WANT TO BE THE ONE
Performed by Lonestar
SIX YEARS AGO
HIM: Tell me why someone saying, “I’m not looking for anything serious,” seems like a challenge.
HER: Tell me why people say, “I really like you,” when they really mean, “I want to fuck your brains out and then slink away before the sun rises.”
HIM: Any guy who walks away from you is an idiot.
HER: And those words are what give the ladies hope you’ll actually come around to wanting something more.
HIM: But not you?
HER: Nope. I’ve known that dead muscle in your chest for far too long.
HIM: Ouch.
HER: Please. Dead muscles can’t be offended.
PRESENT DAY
The entire walk home from the bar, I’d had three competing thoughts circling in my mind on vicious repeat.
First was Tejas’s warning about how the town was taking bets that Maisey and I weren’t really a couple.
Second was how to keep my hands off her while she was in my house, tempting me every second of every day.
But the third was the most destructive thought of them all.
That one had been in my head since seeing the towel drop in her room, since seeing rosy tips and small, firm breasts. That thought had me wondering why we couldn’t do the entire friends-with-benefits thing. Why couldn’t we assuage this scorching need and still remain friends?
For all we knew, giving in might be exactly what we both needed. Maybe it would kick the desire in the ass so we could concentrate once again on being just friends.
Doubts whispered in behind it, because what if touching Maisey only made me hunger for more? What if having her made it even more impossible to see other men looking at her? What if our hearts and souls decided they needed forever? Worse, what if hers did and mine didn’t?
That was usually when my lungs seized. That was usually when the ash of my past stole my breath. But tonight, the grip didn’t seem quite so vicious. I was still able to inhale the cool, pine-scented air.
So, what did it mean?
Every single thought went sailing the moment I walked in the door, and Maisey ran into my arms and kissed me.
Was still kissing me. And not a simple peck.
The kiss she gave was fierce and claiming.
The kind of kiss that said we were truly a couple who’d missed each other in the few hours we’d been apart.
And the truth was, I had missed her. The entire time I’d sat listening to Tejas bemoaning the Swift Rivers’s dating pool, my mind had been on her. On what she was wearing, and what she was doing, and if she was reading a book that would have her aching with need that I could easily offer to sate.
I’d wanted to be home, kissing her just like this, drowning myself in her sweetness, getting lost in the heat that had burst into existence between us. I wanted to let the inferno loose until it consumed us, consequences be damned.
So I was ecstatic she’d taken the first step.
Until a laugh from the kitchen drew us apart.
Our gazes remained locked as Vader leaped and danced around us in a circle. I never took my eyes from Maisey as I reached down to pet the top of my dog’s head, trying to calm him. My attempt was as ineffective on him as my conscience was at calming the hunger crawling through me.
Until Fallon taunted, “I guess that ought to put an end to any doubts you had, Andie,” and Maisey blushed.
Then it wasn’t calm but disappointment that took over as realization hit. She’d kissed me to prove to others that we were real. That we weren’t just an agreement put together to satisfy the city officials.
It was the same problem I’d been grappling with on the way home. But maybe the actual problem was in not making this real—or real enough.
We could twine our bodies and our lives a bit more, couldn’t we? I was still breathing clear air tonight. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
I took a deep breath, as if to prove I could, and then wove my fingers with hers. Maisey stiffened ever so slightly before she gripped me back, and we made our way into the kitchen.
“I just spent three hours telling Tejas the same thing I’ll tell both of you.” I took turns fixing her friends with solemn looks. “Maisey and I are real. Get used to it because this isn’t a flight of fancy or some ridiculous romance book with a fake-engagement plot.”
Maisey made a weird noise I ignored. Instead, I tugged her into my side, kissed the top of her head, and then stared down her friends once more. “Any more questions?”
Andie laughed. “No. I think that pretty much takes care of it.”
She got up, steadied herself on the table, and it was then I noticed the margarita glasses and the ingredients spread out along the counter next to the blender. They’d been drinking. Maybe Maisey’s rush of affection at the door was as much alcohol-induced as it was to ward off the doubters.
That hint of disappointment I’d felt grew larger. I’d wanted the way Maisey had greeted me with a kiss to be real. I’d wanted her enthusiasm and her embrace and her devotion to be mine.
But could I give her enough in return to satisfy her? To keep her heart whole? To ensure she didn’t end up lying in a pool of blood?
“And, with that, I think it’s time for us to head home,” Fallon said.
“You been drinking too?” I asked, and she shook her head. She seemed sober enough to me, but her lips were quirked upward, as if she was trying not to laugh.
She and Andie gathered their phones and bags and headed for the door. Maisey dragged herself away from me to follow them. They all hugged goodbye, and Andie said, “I’ll send you the dates we have available first thing in the morning, and you can pick the one you like best.”
Then, they disappeared down the porch steps and into the night. Maisey shut the door, locked it, and turned to lean up against it while looking at me across the expanse of the great room.
“Sorry,” she breathed out.
Damn, did she look delightful. She was in nothing more than yoga pants and a tank that clung to the delightful curves I’d gotten a full view of earlier.
Before I could really think it through, I was crooking a finger and saying, “You’ll have to come closer for me to hear you, darlin’.”
The thready beat of my heart echoed through other parts of me, overpowering any other thoughts but the one that whispered I should finally relieve my desperate need for her.
Maisey wobbled as she slowly tottered her way across the room to me. When she got close enough, she made a detour, rounding the table to start picking up glasses and plates.
“Sorry,” she repeated. “I didn’t know they were coming. And Andie was insistent on talking about the wedding, and then she said everyone was talking about how we weren’t really—”
I stopped her rambling by stepping into her path and pressing a finger to her lips. The contact sparked like it had earlier, heat licking up my arm. With that soft mouth against my skin, I felt seared and yet somehow more alive than I’d ever felt before.
“You don’t have to apologize to me, Maise. Not for having your friends here or greeting me at the door with a kiss.” My pulse raced. “Truth is, coming home to you that way… I liked it. I wanted it. I wanted more.”
I trailed off, unable to finish as my breath disappeared as usual, but I was amazed when, after a few seconds, the tension in my lungs eased, and the air cleared.
“I think we should reconsider our position,” I told her.
“Are you drunk?” she asked, sweet lips moving against my fingertip.
I wanted to laugh as she’d expected, wanted to shift back to the taunts we were so accustomed to handing each other. But I couldn’t. Not when the longing I had for her, the absolute necessity to taste her before I lost the chance for good, was this large. It was too big to be denied any longer.
I withdrew my hand from her lips, and I wanted to believe it was disappointment that crossed her face. Instead of backing off, I grasped a single, silky strand of her hair that had escaped her ponytail and wrapped it slowly around my finger.
“I had one beer at Frank’s, so no, I’m not drunk. Are you?”
“Drunk is a really strong word. I would say, I have a good buzz going.”
My entire body yearned to give her a different kind of high. One that had her panting and chanting and calling my name.
Her stare bored into mine. “It would be a shame to waste this kind of buzz, don’t you think?”
The electricity notched up between us, zipping and zapping, scouring my soul.
When I didn’t respond, when I couldn’t because I was fighting with everything I had to hold back and not sweep her into my arms, stalk with her to my room, and toss her on the bed, she closed down.
“Or maybe I am really drunk. Just ignore me.”
She started to move away, and I couldn’t let her do that.
Couldn’t let her feel like I was rejecting her.
Couldn’t let her think she wasn’t enough when she was so much more than that.
So, I caught her around the waist and hauled her to me.
She let out a quiet shriek I ignored, turning to set her on the island before stepping between her legs so she couldn’t escape.
My entire body went hard at the position and the accompanying flare of desire in her eyes. When she licked her lips in nervous anticipation, a rumble escaped my chest.
“You want a real buzz, my Maisey-girl?” I asked.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t respond.
“I can give you the best buzz of your life. Right here, right now.”
She gulped, darting a look down the hall to where her father was tucked away in my guest room.
And I proved once again I was a bastard, because it didn’t matter to me that he was there.
All I could think about was putting my hands on Maisey and seeing her flush at my touch.
I wanted her soft and trembling, undone by my fingers, my mouth—by me.
I wanted to lose myself in her, even knowing that doing so was fraught with pitfalls I’d carefully avoided since I was a teenager.