Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Shelby
The Losing Kind
“Those first two hundred pages were fantastic, Shelby, but where is the rest? How does the book end? Do you have the series mapped out?” Shelby’s editor asked again, over the phone.
She’d mistakenly answered before looking at who was calling because it had been the first time her phone rang since she left Sandy Point two days ago.
“Yes, I mean I have the ending in my mind I just need to get it on the page. And yes I’m thinking of a five-book series. Each girl in the group will have their own adventure.”
“Great, but we agreed to pitch the full manuscript in four weeks, and I’d really like to see the ending first.”
“I know, I know. Look I’ve just had a few wonky days, getting back to my normal routine after everything.”
“I understand, but do you think maybe you should have stayed in Sandy Point to finish the book? You were really in your flow state there. It was like Christmas every evening to get more pages from you.”
“I do my best writing in my office. I can finish it here. Sandy Point was just temporary.”
“Okay, lock yourself at home and get it done. Then send me pages when you have them,” her editor said, but she could hear the worry and doubt.
The truth was, she’d been staring at a blank page for days now.
Fiddling with things in the large loft condo she owned in downtown Atlanta.
She’d tried sitting at her favorite bookstore, coffee shop, and even the library.
Nothing. It wasn’t that she’d expected a big response from Wes, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t expect something.
But he hadn’t sent a text, called, or mailed her a letter in response.
She knew cuz she checked her mailbox multiple times a day.
Which meant she’d been right—they were a fling, nothing more.
But now this nagging feeling that she’d left something she was always going to miss, back in Sandy Point, was festering in her gut.
Maybe it was the ending of her book, or maybe it was something more.
A knock on the door surprised her from her deep concentration at the blank screen on her laptop.
There was a doorman in her building, deliveries were taken by the concierge and no one could just come up.
Maybe a neighbor but that was rare. Slipping on her fuzzy slippers she padded to the door and looked through the peephole and gasped. Wesley.
She whipped open the door.
“Hi,” was all she could think to say.
“Hi, I was in town and thought I’d pop in.”
“You just happened to be in Atlanta today, four hours away from your home? Why?”
“To see you.”
He looked gorgeous and determined, and held a simple bouquet of white daisies.
“You wanted to see me, so you drove to Atlanta?”
“Yes. I guess I should have called first,” he said looking over her shoulder as if he expected not to find her alone.
“Come in,” she said, stepping back. “Are those flowers for me?”
“I didn’t know which type is your favorite but I think that tattoo on your arm is a daisy?” He stepped inside and held them out to her.
His broad shoulders made the large open foyer feel crowded. But all she wanted to do was walk into his arms. Instead she accepted the flowers and closed the door behind him.
“Um, come on in.”
“I didn’t like how you left,” he said, still standing in her foyer.
“I’m not really good at goodbye, and I didn’t want to make things weird.”
“The only thing that was weird is you assuming we had to say goodbye at all.”
“What?”
“Why does it have to be over? So you live in Atlanta? It’s not the moon.”
“Okay, but I thought we were just, you know…”
“Hooking up?”
“Yeah, weren’t we?”
“I think it started out like that, but we were way more than just hooking up by day two, Shelby. I don’t want to stop seeing you. But I need to know what you want. I haven’t been sleeping well, and am still feeling confused about running for sheriff, but I think it all comes down to you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, because if you’re done with me, then I’ll leave here and go back to my life in Sandy Point. But if you aren’t done with me, and think you’d like to see where this thing could go between us, then I think I should consider a move to Atlanta.”
“Move here?”
“I lived here before. I liked it. And every city needs cops. Or maybe I do something in finance, like I’d started to do after college.”
“But your family is in Sandy Point and you’re as much a part of that town as the old lighthouse. They depend on you; you take care of everyone.”
“Maybe I don’t need to do that anymore.” He took a step closer, almost closing the space between them completely. His hands captured her face. “Maybe I need you more.”
And then he was kissing her, and she forgot about the argument she was making. Instead she fell right back into his arms and couldn’t think of a single reason they shouldn’t do this.
His hands were moving down her body, peeling off her clothes and he only moved his lips off hers long enough to get her T-shirt up over head.
His teeth skimmed each of her tight nipples before his hands pushed her pants down her hips and then he hiked her up to straddle his waist. Lifting her up to set her bottom on the sideboard against the wall in the foyer, the cold material hit her skin in complete contrast to the heat he projected.
“I’ve missed this mouth,” he said between kisses and then one hand slipped between them, his thumb teasing her clit.
She bucked over him. “I need you inside me,” she begged.
His lips smiled as he kissed her deeper. “Not nearly as much as I need to be inside you.”
He had her wet and throbbing with just his words. His hips pushed her legs open wide and he undid his zipper and took his rock-hard length out, stroking himself through her wet folds.
“Is this what you’ve been wanting?”
“Yes. Please, Wes.” She gripped his shoulders and looked down, watching his strength on full display. His forearm flexed while he tortured them both with each stroke and then, with the tip lined up, he thrust in once, giving her just a sample of what she craved.
“More,” she breathed, biting her lip.
He thrust in again, this time sucking in the air through his teeth, as if it took every bit of restraint not to plunge deep inside her. He was making them both crazy.
This time she leaned back against the wall, jutting her hips out to take what she wanted, and he smiled.
“My little wild one, I’ll always give you what you want.”
Then with one more stroke he was buried as deep as he could get and they both held their breath. His hands gripped her thighs and she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close. “I want you.”
“Good, then you have me.”
Neither of them spoke about what that meant. Was it the sex, was it more? They just spent the rest of night giving themselves up to their raw need to possess each other.
At some point in the night Shelby tiptoed out of her bed to her overstuffed chair by the big floor-to-ceiling windows and picked up her laptop.
She had dreamt a scene so vivid in her mind she had to get it on the page.
It wasn’t much but at least she was writing again.
Before dawn she crawled back in bed with Wes and tried not to worry about what his arrival meant.
She couldn’t ask him to leave his life in Sandy Point behind just for her.
That seemed like such a big step. But she couldn’t deny she wanted him too.