His Texas Haven (Holts of Briar Hill #2)

Chapter 1

ONE

Haven

It was my twenty-first birthday and I was going to get a kiss.

We'd been looking for the kisser—which I told Amber we could not call them because that made him sound like a butt—all night. Every single person we'd found, though, had possessed some fatal flaw. I knew them in high school…or they weren't my type. Or he was too old, or too tattooed, or not enough.

By the time we got to the Spur, we were desperate.

Amber started pointing at every single guy there with her brows raised in a question mark. Everly said we could even ask the bartender.

Amber said I was being too picky.

Everly said there was no such thing.

But the truth was…I was being picky. And the one guy I wanted just so happened to be sitting at the bar.

Wyatt Holt was old enough that he didn't celebrate his birthday anymore, but he was also gorgeous and perfect and stoic and mysterious.

I'd worked under him—not that way—for six years, and he's always been kind to me.

He was the whole reason I was shooting for vet school.

I loved watching him with the animals, watching him do anything…

Watching him drink alone. Which was weird, because I couldn't remember ever seeing Wyatt away from the ranch.

“Ooh…your brooding vet,” Amber said, wiggling her eyebrows. “You should go talk to him.”

"I work for him," I said.

"So?"

"So it would be weird."

Amber looked at me the way she looked at people when she thought they were being stupid. She had a very specific face for it. "Haven. It's your birthday. Go talk to him."

I looked back at Wyatt. He was nursing his beer and not talking to anyone and looking at the middle distance the way he did sometimes on the ranch when he thought nobody was watching.

"He's here alone," I said.

"I know."

"That's weird, right? That's weird."

"Very weird. Go find out why.”

“You'd better hurry though.”

We both looked at Everly, who had tilted her head toward the bar. “I think he's leaving.”

I turned just in time to see Wyatt set his beer down and head for the side door.

"Go!" Amber said.

I went.

The night air was cold and smelled like cedar and somebody's truck exhaust. I came around the corner of the building and stopped.

Wyatt was leaning against the wall with a cigarette between his fingers.

I had worked for this man for six years. I had never once seen him smoke.

He hadn't heard me yet. He was looking out past the parking lot at nothing, and his face was doing something I didn't recognize. Not sad. More like…keeping an appointment he'd made a long time ago.

The gravel shifted under my boots and he turned.

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to—" I gestured at the cigarette.

He looked down at it like he'd forgotten it was there. "It's fine."

I leaned against the wall a few feet away. He didn't tell me to go back inside. I didn't offer to. The jukebox bled through the wall and out on the road a truck downshifted and we just stood there, which felt surprisingly easy. It always felt easy, being near Wyatt. That was most of the problem.

He took a long drag. Exhaled slow. Watched the smoke go.

"You're missing your birthday," he said.

I felt my cheeks go hot. “You know it's my birthday?”

He shrugged. “Millie mentioned it. Said you were going out.”

Had he known he might see me tonight? Was he…no. No, he couldn't have—

“I didn't know you smoke,” I said quickly.

He shook his head. Took another drag.

“I don't,” he said.

I waited for further explanation. He didn't offer one. It tipped me off that something was going on…something bad. I didn’t think he wanted me to ask.

I couldn’t help it.

“You okay?” I asked.

He dropped the cigarette with most of it left, then stamped it out with his workboot.

“You get what you wanted?” he asked, ignoring my question completely. “For your birthday, I mean.”

I chewed on my lip, crossing my arms. “Well…no. No, not yet.”

He looked at me. Furrowed his brow. His eyes were so blue, even in the dark, that it made my heart ache.

He was sad…I was a little drunk. This was a bad combination, but it was my birthday, and I knew what I wanted.

“And what would that be?” he asked.

I licked my lips. His eyes flicked down to my tongue.

“A kiss,” I said quietly.

The parking lot was empty. The voices inside were loud. The only people who knew I was out here were Amber and Everly, and they’d known me for years…they would never judge.

Wyatt frowned. “Haven—”

“You don’t have to,” I said. “But—”

“I’ve known you since you were fifteen,” he said, but he wasn’t saying no. Not outright. He was just offering excuses, and his eyes kept going back to my lips. He wanted to kiss me. He wanted to kiss me, and my heart was pounding…

“I know how old you are,” I said. “And I’m not—I just—I know you’re a good person. I trust you.”

“A man who would kiss a girl half his age—his employee—isn’t a man you should trust.”

“But I’m asking.”

"Haven."

"It's just a kiss," I said. "I'm not asking you to marry me. I'm not asking you for anything you can't give. It's my birthday and I trust you and I just—" I stopped. Took a breath. "I've wanted to kiss you for a long time. That's all. That's the whole thing."

Something shifted in his face.

"You're a little drunk," he said.

"I'm a lot less drunk than I was an hour ago."

"You work for me."

"I know where I work."

"Haven—"

"Wyatt." I said it the same way he kept saying my name, flat and careful, and something flickered in his eyes.

"I'm twenty-one years old. I've known what I wanted for a long time.

You can say no. I'll go back inside and we'll never talk about this again, I promise.

But stop telling me what I want like you know better than I do. "

Quiet.

No more excuses.

He took two steps toward me—enough to reach me, turning so I was between the wall and his broad, tall body. My eyes darted up to his, and I sucked in a breath as I looked up at him. I could smell the faintest hint of cigarette smoke…of whiskey. We’d both been drinking, this was a bad, bad idea.

“You sure about this?” he asked.

“Yes,” I breathed.

Then he cupped my face with one big, calloused hand…and he pressed his lips to mine.

It was soft at first. Chaste. A gift given by someone who didn’t really want to give it, a kiss planted on a charity case who’d begged for it.

Then my breath hitched and my lips parted.

And the kiss changed.

His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck and the angle of the kiss changed. Deeper. I grabbed his flannel with both hands, pulling him closer with a needy whine, and he made a low sound and walked me back until my shoulders hit the wall.

His other hand found my waist. Slid to my hip. Pulled me in and I went, easy, no hesitation, and kissed him back as hard as I could, because I might just get the one chance and I wasn’t going to squander it.

He broke away and put his mouth on my neck and I sucked in a breath, fingers twisting tighter in his shirt. His stubble scratched. His hand pushed up under my jacket and his thumb dragged across the skin just above my jeans and I made a sound I'd be embarrassed about later.

"Haven,” he rasped. “We shouldn’t—”

"Don't stop."

He didn't.

One hand dropped low, pulling my leg around his waist, and I felt him then—hard, wanting me, and it made me want him even more. I hauled myself closer by his shirt, then I wrapped my arms around his neck.

He was still kissing me as he tried to protest again—like he couldn’t stop, even if he wanted to. “You’re too good for me,” he was saying. “Can’t…shouldn’t…”

“I want this,” I breathed. “Please, Wyatt.”

His hand slid under my shirt, wandered up to cup my breast through my bra. I arched, gasping. This was…it was turning into more than a kiss fast. His thumb dragged across the fabric and I bit down on my lip to keep quiet.

"Wyatt—"

"I know." He didn't stop. His mouth was on my neck and his hand was still under my shirt and I had my fingers in his hair and I was not thinking about anything except the next second and the next.

His other hand found the button of my jeans.

I exhaled hard. "Yes."

He popped it open. His hand left my breast so his fingers could slip past the waistband, under my…oh god, under my underwear, and I grabbed his shoulder and held on.

"Okay?" he said against my neck.

"Yes," I said. "God, yes."

His fingers moved and my head went back against the wall and I stopped caring entirely that we were outside, that anyone could come around that corner, that this was my boss and I was twenty-one and this had started as a kiss. Two big, skilled fingers were on my clit, moving.

“Fuck, you’re so fuckin’ wet,” he groaned. It was the first time I’d ever heard him curse. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard. “You really want this. You want me inside you, Haven?”

“Please,” I begged. I’d never had a man inside me, but I’d played with toys…I would do this. I would take it, anything for him. Anything just to have this man I’d been in love with for half a decade, ever since I’d known what love was.

His fingers kept moving and I was barely breathing.

"Wyatt—"

"I've got you." Low, rough, right against my ear. "I've got you."

I was shaking. My hands were twisted in his flannel and I couldn't get enough air and he was—god, he was good at this, patient and deliberate, like he had all night, like he wasn't standing in a parking lot behind a bar doing something he'd told himself a hundred times he wasn't going to do.

"Please," I said. "I want—"

"I know what you want."

His fingers shifted and I gasped. He pressed his mouth to my temple, my cheek, and then he pushed two fingers inside me and I made a sound I'd never made before in my life.

"Just like that," he said, low and rough against my ear. "That's it."

My knees buckled. He caught me with his other arm, pinned me against the wall, and I grabbed his shoulder and held on while he worked me open slow and I tried to remember how to breathe.

"You're so tight," he groaned. "God, Haven—"

"Don't stop." I turned my face and caught his mouth and he kissed me back hard, his fingers still moving, curling, and I whimpered into it. "Please don't stop."

"Not gonna stop." His thumb found my clit, still thrusting his fingers in and out of me. "Let go for me, Haven. Come for me."

I turned my face and caught his mouth and kissed him hard and he kissed me back like he meant it, like he'd been wanting to for longer than tonight, his fingers moving in a rhythm that was taking me apart from the inside out. Then—

“Wyatt,” I gasped, rocking against his hand. “I’m coming—”

“Good girl,” he soothed. “Come on…that’s it.”

I came apart against his hand with my face pressed into his neck, shaking, trying to stay quiet.

He held me through it. His fingers slowed.

"Wyatt," I breathed.

"Yeah."

We stayed like that for a second. His hand still warm against me. My forehead on his shoulder. Both of us breathing hard.

Then I lifted my head and looked at him.

"Take me home," I said. "Your home. Tonight."

Something changed in his face.

Not disgust. Not even hesitation, exactly. More like a man who'd just walked into a room and realized he shouldn't be there, looking back at the door he'd left open behind him.

He pulled his hand back slowly. Stepped back. Put space between us.

"Haven."

"I mean it."

"I know you do." His voice was even again. The careful thing was back, sliding into place. "That's the problem."

"Wyatt—"

"Button your jeans."

He may as well have called me a slut, the way it made me feel.

I buttoned my jeans.

Bit my lip.

Told myself not to cry, because that would make him feel worse and make me feel like a child.

"This was a mistake," he said quietly. "I shouldn't have—that was my fault. Not yours."

"I asked for it."

"Haven."

"I asked for every single part of it."

"You're twenty-one years old." He finally looked at me. "And I'm—" He stopped. Shook his head. "This should never have happened.”

"Okay," I said.

Not because I agreed. Not because he'd convinced me of anything. Just because there was nothing left to say that he was ready to hear, and I still had enough pride left to walk away first.

I pushed through the door without looking back.

Amber saw my face immediately. She opened her mouth.

"Don't," I said.

She closed it. Slid a drink across the table.

I sat down. Picked it up. Stared at the middle distance the way he always did, and wondered if this was how he felt all the time—like he was standing just outside of something warm, choosing not to go in.

Probably.

I drank.