Chapter 18
AMY
“You’ll stay with me from now on, right?” Evan asks, shrugging off his jacket and turning to me the moment we walk through the threshold of his cabin.
Blue is sleeping on the couch and barely raises her head to look at us before settling back into her spot, comfortable and relaxed. It hits me that I’m common enough around here for her to not consider it a big deal when I walk in with Evan.
I’ve watched her bark at squirrels running along the banister, protecting her home. But I’m welcome here.
I turn to Evan after kicking off my boots, and he slides his hands along my shoulders, pushing my coat off and taking it to hang it up beside his. The sight of that does something to me.
After all the good food and the frankly intoxicating atmosphere of the bakery-turned-pizza-place, I already feel bubbly, jazzed up—without having a single drink of alcohol. We drank soda and played games, ate pizza and laughed together.
From the locals, I learned more about Evan. I knew that he’d been in the military, but his gramps talked about him joining the Marine Corps right out of high school as a surprise to all of them. He’d always loved reading, and they thought he’d go to college.
In response to that, Evan just shrugged, burying himself in a bite of pizza.
I want to ask him about it. I want to ask him about everything.
About his growing up here, about his time in the Marine Corps, about what turned him from the boy around town to the man who hardly ever comes to town.
It’s obvious that they’re missing him around here and want him around more. Especially Gramps.
But Evan looks pained every time it’s brought up, every time I insist we go somewhere for him to get in good with the council people—despite the fact that he ends up enjoying himself. Like he did at the renovation site, with the pizza oven, and today, talking to those high schoolers.
And I didn’t miss the way Kendra Prentice looked at him. Like she was seeing something shiny and new under the same old exterior.
More than that, I didn’t miss my own reaction—a sort of protective possessiveness. I wanted to step in front of him like a body shield and glare at her, tell her to stay away. That I’d found him, and he was mine.
Startlingly juvenile. Maybe it was being in the high school that brought it out of me.
Now, Evan frowns, and I realize I’ve left his question without an answer for a little too long, caught up in my thoughts.
“Sure.” I nod, because why not? Why pay for the lodge when I can stay here?
“Amy.” Evan stops for a moment, breathing hard and staring down at me, his fingers toying with the hem of my shirt. “I don’t want you to stay anywhere else when you come to town.”
“Okay.”
“Do you get what I’m saying?”
My heart starts to thump louder in my chest, and as much as I don’t want to label us, want to avoid a serious relationship, I can’t deny that this is happening right now. I should have known that Evan would eventually want to.
“You’re saying you want to be my full-time bed-and-breakfast.”
“I’m saying I don’t want you staying anywhere else. Not here, not in Denver. I want to be the only bed-and-breakfast.”
Why is this so hard for me? It’s not like he’s asking me to be his girlfriend. He just wants us to be exclusive, which is something I’m doing, anyway.
“Done,” I say, nodding and looking up at him, practically blown away by the smile that takes over his face, radiant, popping out his dimples.
His beard is a little scruffier today than normal, and I can’t stop myself from reaching up and cupping his cheek in my hand, feeling the soft scrape of it in my palm.
“Okay,” he says, then reaches down and, in one smooth movement, lifts me up so I can wrap my legs around him. I’ve never had a man do that to me before, and it’s instantly arousing, heat pooling in my stomach, my heart starting to race as he carries me toward his bedroom.
When I see his bed again, I’m reminded of him falling to his knees at the end of it, and a wave of want rolls through me. I reach down, pushing at the waistband of his pants, wanting to return the favor. To make sure we’re on even footing.
“No,” he says simply, setting me down and climbing over me, pushing my hands away from his waistband and burying his face in my neck. It’s so sensitive, ticklish and arousing at the same time, that I want to kick my feet out in pent-up sexual frustration. “I want to take it slow tonight.”
And he does, kissing me long and hard before the clothes ever fully come off. He slides his tongue along my own, laces his fingers through my hair and tips my head back so he can work at my neck, his hands slipping under the hem of my shirt and sliding up over my stomach.
When he unclasps my bra but leaves my shirt on, palming me through the material, I growl in frustration and push on his shoulder.
It’s not enough to move him, but he flips over obediently, and I climb on top of him, straddling his hips and sucking in a breath through my teeth when I feel him there, pushing against the layers of fabric between us.
I pull my shirt and bra up over my head, tossing them onto the floor, and before I lean down to kiss him, I catch the look on his face.
Reverence. Lust. Adoration.
To distract myself from how close that’s coming to another word I can’t even think right now, I lean down and kiss him, rolling my hips against him, getting the sense that he really likes this change of pace by how he grips me tight, drawing me down harder and harder against his cock.
When I lift up again, we waste no more time getting our clothes off. I settle back down over him, grinding on the length of his cock, and he lets his head drop back against the pillow, the tip of his pink tongue caught between his teeth as we move together, breathe together.
“And I thought there was nothing better than tasting you,” he mutters, the breathlessness of his voice only encouraging me.
Obviously, that was not my first time receiving oral. But it was the first time I really, truly felt like the person giving it to me wanted it more than anything in the world.
And the reminder of that makes me feel more desperate for him.
I reach down, lifting up from him and taking him in my hand, pumping him a few times before I guide him to my entrance, taking him slowly, easing down. Frantically, I look up and happen to catch his gaze, our eyes locking together as I slide onto him.
Every inch is more tension, more pleasure, and when I’m fully seated, Evan lets out a breath like he’s been holding back, and now he can finally relax.
“Is that okay?” I whisper, because it feels like the right thing to ask.
He laughs. “No. It’s fucking perfect, Amy. Now, please. Ride me.”
Normally, I don’t like following instructions. But for him, I can be obedient.