Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
REED
“ Y ou grew up here?”
We walk the long stretch of gravel driveway that leads toward a single-story log cabin. The property is nestled in a grove of pine trees overlooking Payette Lake. Minus the plateau mountains, it looks so much like Bear Lake my heart squeezes tightly in my chest.
I haven’t stopped replaying what Hailey said back at the restaurant, treating her words like a fortune cookie for my life.
Not everyone is looking on the other side of the fence. Some people notice the beauty in their own backyard .
I’ve spent a long time wondering why I wasn’t enough for Teddy. But Hailey freed me from that thought tonight. I know now… I was the other side of the fence. Nothing I could have done would have changed that fact.
Miles was safe, her first friend, the right choice. What she needed from him I couldn’t give her. And I don’t blame her anymore.
With my eyes locked on Hailey, my first thought is What if you’re my right choice?
It’s a dangerous thought. One that I nod away like the string of a balloon that’s been freed to the sky when she says, “You want to see inside?”
A dusty old mat with a birdhouse print touches the front door. She slips a small gold key from beneath the rubber bottom and fits it into the lock, turning it then pushing the door open.
The place is as rustic on the inside as it is on the outside. Every piece of furniture except for the couch looks handcrafted from knotty pine. Large woven rugs in rich browns and greens blanket the floors.
I set the pizza box on the kitchen counter before approaching the fireplace hearth. There’s a picture on top—Hailey in a green cap and gown, embracing an eccentric-looking woman’s waist. Aunt Karen, I’m guessing. Where are you, Jack?
If I didn’t think commenting on it would hurt her feelings, I would tell her right now what a prick move I think skipping her graduation was. At least my parents did that much.
“Any chance your dad is coming back here?” I ask, spinning around to face her.
“He’s married to his work, remember? He rarely leaves his office at the barracks. He even put a cot in there. Chooses to sleep on it over his king-sized bed here.” She points to the first room in the hallway, where there’s not a wrinkle in the bedspread.
“I mean, I wouldn’t pass up the king. But I can’t say I understand everything there is to know about Jack Hart.”
“Me neither.”
Our mutual chuckle fades into a semi awkward silence. Here we are, alone for the first time, no one to interrupt us, and I’m not sure what to do next. I know what I want to do. I haven’t stopped thinking about kissing her since it happened the first time. But now that it’s been eleven days, I don’t know what she’s thinking.
She drags her bottom lip between her teeth as she takes a breath. Her eyes flit to my mouth and linger there, studying the shape of my lips.
If I start kissing her now, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.
I break our trance and flick my eyes out toward the big bay window in the kitchen. “You should show me that rope swing.”
Her cheeks turn to my favorite color, and her braid flicks down her back. “Okay,” she says.
On an outstretched limb of a pine tree overlooking the lake, two woven ropes knot at the top and thread down through the sides of a wooden plank. She runs her hand down one of the frayed strands and sweeps the layer of pine needles covering the seat.
“I’m not sure this is all that safe anymore.” She tips her chin to the sky, inspecting the threadbare jute.
“I’ll catch you if you fall,” I say, holding the swing steady for her.
She wraps her slender fingers around the rope and scoots back onto the seat. It wobbles slightly and she turns her chin to peek at me.
“I promise,” I add, and press my hand to her lower back as her feet lift off the ground.
The higher she goes, the more she clings on for dear life, until her feet touch the clouds. Her braid oscillates with the wind as she grins over her shoulder. It’s the freest I’ve seen her since meeting her three weeks ago. And that look on her face? Well, it steals a piece of my heart I’m not sure I’ll ever get back. I’m not sure I even want it back.
“Do you ever wish you could fly without having to be afraid of the failing part?” she asks with her eyes closed.
The answer hangs on the tip of my tongue. A confession .
You make me feel like I can fly .
I let the wind drift her back and forth, slowing her down. She’s so at peace that she doesn’t seem to notice. Doesn’t flutter open her eyes until I’m gripping the sides of the ropes and pulling the swing to a stop in front of me.
“All the time,” I whisper.
For the briefest second, we hover there, inches apart. Her studying me. Me wanting her.
Kiss me, Hailey , I silently dare.
Watch me , her eyes seem to say as she fists the front of my shirt and hauls my lips to hers.
I’ve seen passionate kisses in romantic movies before. Moments when the characters forget where they are and how to keep their hands to themselves.
But I’ve never experienced anything quite like it until right now.
A kiss where the line between want and need is so blurry I forget we’re outside for anyone to see. I simply give in to my desire to be closer to her. To find out if she tastes the same as the first time we did this. I groan when I’m met with the velvet flick of her tongue and briefly pause at the woosh of oars on the water as a canoe drifts by. Scooping her thighs from the seat, I have the wherewithal to carry her up the front porch steps to a place more private than this one.
The cabin walls echo with a thud when I kick the door open and press her back to it. Her pelvis grinds against my waist, and I see stars. So many stars. They’re flickering behind my eyes. Exploding into brilliant beams of light. It’s so bright now that all I can do is feel . It’s too much and not enough all at once.
When I pull back, a war wages between our eyes.
You’re the superintendent’s daughter . An intoxicating distraction .
And I’m the guy who wasn’t supposed to fall again .
But she’s brushing her thumb across my swollen bottom lip and telling me where to take her with a whisper in my ear. And so my feet carry us there, to the second door on the left, as if there was no other choice.
The instant we’re through the door frame, I discover what a different person I am on the other side. Not confident but nervous now. Her childhood bedroom blankets her in amber light, and I’m unraveling like her hair from the braid I just freed. I drop her back against the bed and watch the silky strands fan across her bedspread. She looks like a fallen angel waiting for me to make the next move.
I dip over the mattress, hands framing her shoulders. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” I say in a strangled whisper.
Simply being in her presence, it’s hard for me to concentrate on anything else. I study the way she swallows and shakes her head at my confession.
What a silly question. How would she know what she does to me? It’s not as if I’ve given her any indication. I’d have a hard time believing those words too if I was her. And even if she’s not saying them back, the want in her eyes conveys everything I need to know.
I fist the neckline of my shirt and pull it over my head. Her eyes roam my torso, wandering the trail of hair that disappears beneath my waistband. She grazes her fingertips there, and I shudder at her touch, fantasizing about the way it would feel to have her hands all over my skin. With a start, her gaze flicks to the window, and I have to lean away from her as she pushes onto her elbows.
“Is it too bright in here? Should I close the curtains?” she asks.
“Leave them,” I say, brushing her bangs from her eyes.
She sinks against the comforter. “Okay. Should I…” Her fi ngers fiddle with the hem of her top, and I smirk.
“Do I have to stare at the ceiling this time?” I ask.
“Do you want to stare at this ceiling this time?”
She drags her shirt over her head and tosses it on the floor. The sight of her beneath me in a nude bra matching the milky color of her skin is enough to make my mouth run dry. I already know what’s waiting underneath that small scrap of fabric, but it’s different this time. She’s funneling her arm beneath her back instead of fleeing a men’s bathroom, and I’m anticipating the straps giving way instead of feeling like an intruder.
“Is that a trick question?” I ask as she slides the silky cups away from her body in a slow, sensual movement.
She shakes her head.
“I want to see all of you,” I say. I can’t stop looking at her.
A nervous smile tugs at her lips. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, right?”
It’s that same question she asked me at the barracks. She thinks I’ve done this a lot. I swallow and lie on the bed next to her. The corners of her hazel eyes pinch as she draws figure-eight patterns over my face.
“Reed?”
It’s the first time she’s called me by my name, and all I want is to hear her say it again.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
Distracted, I nod. I’ve never wanted her to see me as a one-night-stand kind of guy, but if we’re going to take this any further, she deserves to know.
“I’ve only ever been with one person,” I admit.
Her eyes widen. I can’t blame her for being surprised when everyone in my life thinks the same way about me, and everyone in her life has given her reason to believe that’s just how guys are. I wasn’t able to convince her on that plane that some guys are different. That I’m different. I just hope being honest with her now will show how seriously I take this. That this moment with her matters a great deal to me.
“It was dark. I was drunk. It was fast. I was hurting. It was a rebound thing, and I barely remember it.”
She reaches for my hand and winds our fingers together. Something I wasn’t expecting… Sympathy.
“I want this to be different,” I tell her. “I want to take my time with you and remember what it feels like to hold you close to me.”
She shifts in my arms so that she’s cradled against my chest and draws my palm down to her lips, kissing the center.
“I want that too,” she says, and for this moment, I pretend we’re more than casual. I lean in and kiss her like she’s mine . Slow and steady like a canoe rocking in time with the ripples in the water. She gives, I take. I pull, she pushes. We kiss until I’ve memorized every dip of her mouth, every stroke of her tongue. Until we’re both left panting and wanting more.
She reaches for me first, gripping the button on my pants and tugging down the zipper. I help her work the denim down my thighs, chuckling when they meet the laces of my boots.
A faint blush pinkens her cheeks. “You could always leave them on.”
I raise one eyebrow. “Boots? Only boots? That does it for you?”
She lifts onto her elbows again and nibbles on her bottom lip like she’s imagining it. “I mean… it doesn’t not do it for me. You look good in those boots. But I think I might like them even better when they’re on the floor with the rest of your clothes.” Her eyes heat.
“Off it is.”
She giggles as I bounce around on one foot, tearing the laces free and jerking them off by the heel. I ditch my pants beside them before kneeling over her and dropping my mouth to her chest. In a slow dusting, my lips feather from her sternum to her breast. Her back arches as I work the button of her jeans open and shimmy them down her long, lean legs. Lying there in nothing but her underwear, I kneel at her feet.
“I am the luckiest guy alive.” I grin against her skin and hold her gaze while trailing my mouth from her ankle to her knee, her knee to her thigh. My fingers track over the same sensitive skin my lips touch, and she sinks her hands into my hair, groaning my name.
Bam .
“What was that?”
We jerk apart.
I shuffle, bent in half, to her bedroom window to get a good look outside. Jack Hart steps away from his pickup truck, headed straight for the porch steps.