Chapter 24 Willow
Dallas and I arrived at the house minutes after Ginger called letting us know Cole was getting ready to leave and had one request.
“No,” Dallas barks as soon as he walks in.
On instinct, I grasp his arm to tame him. It’s one thing to come in attacking an innocent, broken, elderly man. It’s another to do it in front of a little girl.
Cole stands up off the couch, giving me a polite nod then turning his eyes on Dallas.
Ellie jumps from the carpet, pulling on a piece of paper from the coffee table. “Look what I drew today.”
I scan it as she holds it up for us. The crayon is faint in the light, but it appears to be a yard with a house in the background and several stick figures in front of it.
Dallas dips his eyes. “That’s beautiful, baby. That’s a lot of people.”
“We have a big family.”
I notice another figure on the far right of the page. “Who’s this?”
“That’s Grandpa.”
Dallas and I exchange a look and I glance at Cole, knowing she means him, since Dallas’s dad is “Grandpa Connor.”
Ginger stretches out a hand. “Ellie, let’s go pack up some of those pumpkin cookies for Grandpa before he goes.”
Dallas glares at Cole. “Let’s talk about this outside.”
“That’s a good idea.” His eyes flick to mine briefly. “Alone.”
“She comes too. Willow’s going to be Ellie’s stepmother.”
“Dallas,” I warn softly.
Cole runs his eyes over me like he’s got no argument and my heart goes out to him.
“Dallas,” I whisper another warning. “Let’s step outside before we upset someone.”
The three of us step out on the porch, Cole shaking his head the entire time, eyes scanning the fields before turning to us.
“I don’t buy it. This whole thing is a lie.
And you’re doing it to keep me from my granddaughter.
I know it. Glenda knows it and she says all we need to do is give the courts a reason to doubt your integrity. ”
Dallas steps forward. “This is about Ellie. Not Willow and me. And I’m not keeping you from her, you’re trying to take her away from me. As if six years wasn’t goddamn long enough.”
Cole drops his gaze, jaw tight. My heart breaks for him, and as right as Dallas might be here, I wish he’d stop.
As if reading my mind, my fiancé exhales with a step back. Voice low. “This is bullshit, Cole. Call it off and we can work it out like grown-ups. Like the two people she’s got left in this world who only want the best for her.”
“Grown-ups.” Cole laughs and pulls his phone from the inside of his jacket.
“I’m not the one getting lap dances from an ex a week before my wedding.
” He holds the phone out to us with a picture of Dallas on a chair and Laurie on his lap.
He’s leaning so far back he looks like he’s about to fall backward.
Dallas doesn’t say a word. But the tension radiates off him.
I’d laugh if I weren’t so disgusted. Not at what’s happening in the photo. But at what a decent man like Cole Hartly is ready to do just to win. “You’re using your visit with your granddaughter to threaten us?”
“It’s not a threat. It’s proof you two are a sham.”
“It’s a bachelor party. That’s what happens at these things. And any judge looking at that will know that Dallas clearly wanted no part in it.”
Dallas’s head dips sideways to me. But I keep my eyes fixed on Cole. His tired, kind, green eyes. He clearly hates all of this.
His pain is almost a look into what Dallas went through not all that long ago. And if I screw this up—he’ll lose his daughter too.
Cole puts his phone away. “That’s just one. There’re others of you last night at The Blue Branch. Glenda’s got it all.”
“Then she should be sending them to my lawyer. Not sending you here to taunt us.”
Cole frowns at the word. It’s just as I thought. He’s not evil. But he is hurting and letting a ruthless attorney get in his head.
“What makes you think I’m going to honor your request to spend time with Ellie on your own tomorrow now?”
“The request was a courtesy. She’s still legally—”
“Until our first hearing she’s still staying here. With us.”
“I just want to take her out for ice cream after school. I’ll have her home by six.”
“She has her paint class tomorrow at the cottage with Rose.”
“Tuesday then. I’m just trying to not be the estranged man in the corner of the page.”
“You put yourself there. Now get off my property.”
“Dallas,” I warn again. Because despite his coolness and threats, I feel for this man.
He merely glances at me, then walks back into the house.
I give Cole a tentative smile. “Maybe leading with the photo wasn’t a good idea. But I’ll talk to him about taking her out for ice cream. I think she’d love that.”
Cole runs a hand down his face. “Don’t you think I know how this story ends? You two are going to like playing house a little too much and I’m going to lose my little girl.”
His words make my heart ache and break all at once.
“She’s also Dallas’s little girl. And no one is losing anyone. It’s not too late to call this off.”
He smirks. “I’m willing to bet that if I do, you’ll be straight back to where you came from.
And my granddaughter is going to be raised by that man and that man alone.
With all his lap dances, bar fights, and .
. .” his eyes dip down, “grief.” The last word trails off like he can hear the hypocrisy in it.
I stare at him for a moment, trying to will the anger, but it doesn’t seem to come. This man means no harm. He’s just scared to be alone. “We’ll see you next Sunday, Mr. Hartly,” I say softly, then turn toward the house.
“I’m not coming to the wedding.”
Confused, I flip my head back. “What?”
His brows shoot up. “Oh, you meant the visit. Well, that’s interesting. Never met a bride who forgot her own wedding day.” He tips his hat. “Have a good evening.”
I close the dishwasher, eyes scanning the marble counter for any speck of dust or crumbs. I hear Dallas’s footsteps above as he shuts Ellie’s door softly and heads down.
One look at me and his brows come together. “What’s wrong?”
“Am I pouting again?”
He smiles, dims the lights in the kitchen, and comes around the counter. “Yes, but this time I don’t have to resist wiping it off your face.”
When he closes the distance, I press a hand against his solid chest. Wishing I could focus on seeing it bare soon, but knowing I’ve got to get something off mine. I lift my eyes to his. “I slipped up.”
He freezes. “What do you mean?”
“I told Cole we’d see him next Sunday for his visit.”
“And?”
I cock my head. “He had to remind me we’re getting married next Sunday.”
He grins and snakes his fingers around my neck, his thumbs sweeping my jaw gently. “You need to relax.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, my stress levels heightening. “I’m going to ruin this for you.”
He lowers my hand. “Then stop talking, Sunset,” he murmurs against my lips in that gravelly tone. Then kisses them tenderly. “By the way, I’m sorry about the photo with Laurie.”
I laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“You were one breath away from falling off that chair and crackin’ your head open.”
He chuckles, but there’s little humor. Instead, he pokes my stomach. “Liked you stickin’ up for me tonight.”
I’m about to blow it off with a comment about blondes, but it catches in my throat when I see how serious he is. And nervous. “He’s got nothing on you, Dallas. And I’m prepared to tell anyone who questions it that I was being harassed on that stage and you jumped to my defense.”
He sucks in deep. “I hate this.” He runs a hand down his face. “The lies, the fights, putting Ellie in the middle of it all. I just want to give her a good life. I want a chance to be her daddy. To raise her. To make up for lost time. Last thing I want to do is take someone else away from her.”
I cup his face. “We won’t. If he doesn’t drop this, we’ll do everything we can to win and then reason with him. Show him that it doesn’t have to be this way.”
He watches me like he’s not sure about any of it anymore.
“Dallas, all you’re doing is getting the rights you and Ellie deserved, the ones he promised you from the very beginning.”
He nods, a slow resolve. “You’ll help me make things right when this is all over?”
I smile up at him. “Unless you’re kicking me out.”
He growls low, hand sliding back into my hair. “Good. Now where the hell were we before all this?” He dips his head, kissing my jaw.
I’m already melting from the heat of his body when Dallas hikes me up onto the island. The skirt of my dress bunches around my thighs as he spreads my legs apart and steps between them.
I gasp and he’s barely touched me—which means I’m in trouble. I’m even more aware of this fact when he brings his hands to my bare thighs and gently squeezes as he works his way up. Stopping when he reaches the warm inner part between my legs.
I toss my head back with a shudder. “Don’t be a tease, Dallas.”
He responds with a throaty chuckle as he brings his hands back to my face, brushing my lips with his. “It’s only a tease if I don’t follow through.” He presses a kiss against my neck and works his way down. “I’m not teasing anyone tonight.”
I tug on his shirt. “We’re done with rules, right?”
“Damn right,” he rasps, then reaches back and peels the shirt over his head and tosses it to me.
I drop it beside me on the counter, and he inches me forward. I yelp, then exhale a laugh as my hands dig into his hair, still damp from his shower, then stroke his sexy stubble. “This beard turns me on.”
His brows knit like he thought I might have said something else. “You like it?”
I nod, flustering.
A slow grin spreads over his face as he watches me. “Then lie back, Sunset. So you can feel it between your thighs.”
He lowers me flat on my back, my hair spread around me, and bends my knees. His hands stroke the side of my thighs, rough and sure. He taps my hips gently when he reaches the lace fabric. “Lift. I need to see how wet you are for me.”
My stomach squeezes and I do as he asks, my panties peeled off me in seconds. I can’t see where they go, all I hear is another husky command. “Wider.”
Lip pulled between my teeth, my knees can barely fall further apart. I want him. I want this so badly, but what if he has another moment of doubt? What if I’m not the good different he felt from our kiss?
What if I fall in love with this feeling? With his mouth.
Or worse.
His finger strokes me gently, slowly. And suddenly his face is in front of mine, our eyes locked. “Willow,” he starts in a husky whisper. “Stay with me,” he tells me for the second time today, voice low and rough against my skin. “Because I promise there’s no one else here.”
I lift my fingers to cup his jaw. “There isn’t?”
“Hasn’t been since the night I found you in my bedroom.”
My heart swells. My center throbs and I whimper, letting my knees fall.
His eyes stay locked with mine for a beat and he grins with unspoken praise. His arms flex as he wraps them around my legs.
My head falls back and I stifle a moan as his beard brushes my inner thigh. I suck in a breath when he does the same to the other side, closer to my pussy this time, rubbing that stubble along my skin.
I writhe with need for more, but enjoying every second of this foreplay, this torment.
“Need to taste you,” he growls, then presses his lips to my pussy in a feverish French kiss.
My mouth falls open in a silent cry, hand seeking out his shirt to muffle the sounds I know I won’t be able to control for much longer.
I’m breathing hard, writhing as pleasure builds and builds, intensifying by the second.
“You taste like heaven,” he says, his praise vibrating in just the right spot. He licks and sucks tirelessly. Impressing the shit out of me with not only his talented tongue but the tenderness of his hands that explore everything within reach.
I moan, rock, beg with my hips, catching my voice every time it slips. I nearly laugh when the shirt lands on my chest.
I inhale his scent, my head falling back like it’s the drug I’ve been waiting for.
He chuckles against my wetness in a brief pause before his mouth takes hold of me again.
Hard. Fast. Like he’s been holding out this whole time—catching my clit between his lips, flicking and sucking.
My legs shake as an orgasm slams into me, shattering me into pieces.
I cover my face with his shirt and muffle my scream.
Dallas kisses below my belly button softly as I come down. “You’re out of this world.” He brings my knees down and helps me up.
I release a breath. “Sure feels like it.”
He lifts me off the counter and brings me to my feet, the skirt of my dress falling back to my knees. His hands stay wrapped around me protectively—or reassuringly.
I smile up at him. “What now?” It’s barely a whisper.
“I think we move this to my bedroom,” he says, voice low, eyes steady.
“God, I want to,” I breathe. “But—”
“But you weren’t talking about tonight, specifically.”
Way to read me. “No, I guess I wasn’t.”
He nods once, giving me space, his hand dipping into his pockets. “Now we . . . plan a wedding.”
I nod firmly in agreement. “And focus on getting you Ellie.”
Dallas cocks his head with a wary glare. “Sunset, we can focus on more than just my daughter.”
I shake my head. “Dallas, I almost slipped up today. We just . . . need to be more careful.”
He releases a heavy breath. “You’re right,” he rasps, then looks back down at me like this whole thing is unfair. “For the sake of Ellie, maybe we . . . press pause.”
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until it’s my turn to speak. “Right. A . . . long pause.”
He steps close to me, presses his body against mine, sweeps my hair back, and snakes his fingers under my jaw.
Heat flares in my stomach and the words “this isn’t what I meant” and “take me up to your bedroom” jumble in my mind.
His fingers grip my chin, thumb stroking and coaxing my mouth open as he kisses me.
A deep, claiming kiss. So unrelenting, I forget how to breathe.
With a soft breath, he pulls back. “But I still get to do that.”