Chapter 17
She was part of his life. I accept that.
She gave him his children, whom I love now as my own.
She made this man who he is, in his stubbornness, his grief, and his hard-won smile.
But it is difficult to accept her when I have never loved anyone but him, and I fear someone in the grave holds more of him than I ever will.
C arson didn’t sleep. And when he finally decided to get out of bed, it was early, the sky outside gray.
He looked at Perry, sleeping. They had slept together all night. She’d kept her hand on his shoulder, and he had lain there, looking at her. Trying to come to terms with what had happened. Trying to sort through it all.
It had been the most explosive sexual encounter of his entire life, and he knew that had nothing to do with the amount of time it had been since he’d been with somebody. It wasn’t about pent-up desire. It was about Perry.
The small miracle of seeing her beneath her clothes. Of tasting her. Touching her. He had walled off his longing for so many years. His own decision, in many ways.
Because he had decided no. He had decided that it couldn’t happen.
And now it was. She had told him not to overthink it.
Not to plan. But that was a difficult thing to do.
Because she was Perry. What he wanted desperately was to …
It wasn’t even about doing the right thing by her.
It was about not breaking her. All those old family traumas felt so close to the surface now.
He went into the kitchen and started hunting around for the coffee.
And then he saw the journal that she had taken out of the wall the other day.
Old family heirlooms. This town was full of them.
Austin had managed to make sense of his whole life by excavating the past. He had healed so many wounds because of something other people had felt two hundred years ago.
Carson wasn’t sure he understood that. But then he thought about the house in town.
It had been built to house a family. And the man who had built it had lost the woman he loved.
Then he had sent away for a mail-order bride.
What a strange experience it must’ve been for her.
To be something that had been ordered. Not the woman he had chosen to love.
That thought gripped him, and he had a hard time letting go of it.
He also thought about the Wilder house, down the street from Perry’s Victorian.
Austin Wilder had built that house for his wife.
Had built a facade of respectability, all while remaining a true Wilder.
An outlaw. He had died for his sins. Whatever work his brother Austin had done to try to shed a little bit more light on their ancestor, the man had still been a criminal.
He might not have been a murderer, but whether his life had ended shot dead in the street or in a jail cell, it probably didn’t make much difference.
He had built that house with his own hands, dreaming about making a perfect life for a woman he had fallen in love with, but because of who he was, that dream had never been realized. Because of his own sins, he hadn’t been able to make that home matter.
Yeah. He couldn’t find the kind of joy in the past that his brother did.
Not even close.
What he liked about history was the reminder that life went on. That people change, but also stayed the same. That time rolled like thunder, and you weren’t all that important in the grand scheme of things. That he liked. Whether it made any kind of sense or not.
He took his hand off the diary and started to make a pot of coffee.
A few minutes later, he heard the sound of footsteps on the wood floor.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice rough.
Perry stopped in the doorway, wearing nothing more than his T-shirt, and lust gripped him hard.
They’d used a condom the second time they’d had sex. But not the first. He wasn’t sure if he actually hoped they were safe. Part of him could easily imagine a whole new life. Perry with his baby.
It was enough to make him feel that the wind had been knocked out of him.
Are you just doing the same thing you did with Alyssa? Looking for a wife-shaped person to give you stability?
He immediately rejected that notion. Because Perry wasn’t just the shape of anything. She was significant.
She mattered.
She was Perry.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“Good. I haven’t had anybody make me coffee in the morning in a long time.”
“I’m a full-service experience.”
She laughed. This was a strange sort of intimacy that they hadn’t experienced before. Him wearing only jeans, her wearing the other half of his clothes. He could still taste her. He was getting hard again. That was new. Not being able to control himself when he looked at her.
He had locked his need down so tight.
But he didn’t have to keep it locked down now. So he crossed the room, bent his head and kissed her. He had only meant it to be a quick greeting. But it heated up quick. She wrapped her arms around his neck, arching against him.
“Perry,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck, kissing her there.
“I have to open my store,” she said.
“Don’t you have to take a shower first?” he asked.
She looked at him and blinked. “We could take a shower together.”
“Yes, we could.”
Lust gripped him hard.
There were no rules between them now. Or at least, there were new ones. He could get in the shower with her and watch the water sluice over her skin. He could lick it off her.
He was suddenly so turned on he couldn’t see straight. He picked her up off the floor, holding her like a sack over his shoulder as he marched toward the bathroom.
She screeched. “Put me down!”
He slapped her ass. “No,” he said.
She yelped and wiggled against him. Oh, he liked that. So did she. They might have to play around a little bit.
Play .
Perry was the only person he had ever played with. Whether it was pirates or … he had a feeling they were going to find some other games they could play.
When he set her down and turned the water on, he was at the end of his rope. He pulled her against him and kissed her until their lips felt bruised while the water heated up.
“I am very excited to help you get ready,” he said.
They stripped naked and got into the small space. The warm water poured over their skin. He kissed her deep and long.
And then he got the soap, and slicked up his hands, moving them over her beautiful body.
He pushed her against the wall and rubbed himself against her.
He had forgotten a condom. He was an idiot.
And he knew he couldn’t take a chance with her again.
But he hooked her leg over his hip and rubbed against the place where she was most sensitive.
Until she cried out. Until he lost it completely.
Until they both came, the sounds of pleasure echoing off the shower walls.
She slid down his body. He rinsed her off. And then he took her to her room and helped her get dressed, which was actually kind of fun, though not as much fun as taking her clothes off.
“The coffee is probably done,” he said.
“I bet,” she laughed.
This was actually great. Because it was Perry. And he liked her so much. And the sex was absolutely fantastic. “I’m going to buy a bunch of condoms today,” he said.
She let out a short bark of a laugh. “Okay, Carson.”
“Well. I’m mad that we couldn’t finish that the way I wanted to.”
“I wouldn’t have minded,” she said, her cheeks turning pink.
“Don’t play dangerous games, Perry.” Because he wouldn’t really have minded either. He gritted his teeth. “I’m going to protect you.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
It was a strange, fragmented thank-you. But sincere. As if he really was the one protecting her, but he couldn’t quite parse that.
“Want me to drive you down, sweetheart?”
He had never called her that before. It had just fallen out of his mouth. And she looked a little bit uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t have to do that.”
She shook her head. “You can do whatever you want.”
“I’m going to hold you to that later.”
“Okay.”
“Let me drive you. I’ll pick you up when the store closes.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He got dressed, and the two of them left together. She had said that she wasn’t going to play house with him. And he was very aware that that was what this morning felt like. Except it didn’t feel like anything he’d ever experienced before.
He didn’t know how he was supposed to get anything done today, with the memory of her body beneath his hands. The memory of her flavor on his tongue.
“I can still taste you,” he said, when they were halfway down the driveway.
Perry squeaked. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I like the way you taste?”
“You’re dirty,” she said.
“Yeah. You don’t know that about me, do you?”
She blinked, and then turned her head to look at him. “No. I don’t.”
“It’s one of the few things you don’t know about me, actually. And I don’t know about you. Are you dirty, Perry?”
She straightened, her hands in her lap. “I would define myself as being not entirely prudish, but not … I wouldn’t want to advertise myself as a freak.”
“Interesting.”
“Which is not to put limits on you. Or this.”
“Noted.”
“What do you like?” she asked, her voice suddenly getting husky.
“You,” he said without hesitation. “Everything you’ve done. Everything we can do.”
“Yes, but I meant before, with other women.”
“Before doesn’t matter. Because you’re you. And I’ve never … I realized when I was carrying you to the shower, I’ve never had fun really with anyone but you. Even this is fun. In a way that it never has been. Yeah, it always feels good. But not like this.”
He always told her what he was thinking, so it seemed normal to tell her this too.
“Yeah.”
“What’s it like for you?”
She looked at him. “My favorite flavor of ice cream.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know what it meant. And he didn’t know if he really wanted to dig into it. Because it just sounded nice.
He wanted to be that for her. Her favorite something.
“That’s why I took my time licking you,” she said.
He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. “That really was cruel,” he said.
“Think about it today while you work on the house.” She said it cheerily, right as they pulled up to the florist shop.
“You’re mean,” he said.
She hopped out of the passenger side of the truck and waved at him. “Goodbye, Carson.”
Then she unlocked the front door of the florist shop and disappeared inside.
And he had nothing left to do but head on in to work on her house. Where he had no doubt that thoughts of her would crowd every moment.
When he got halfway through the day, he realized that he had something to look forward to. Something he was very much looking forward to. And that was a miracle all on its own. A miracle that he had thanks to Perry.
So maybe it was a good thing he had lost his mind last night at the bar.
It had gotten him something he hadn’t even known he wanted quite so badly.
Now he had to figure out just what to do with it, with her, to keep them from falling apart.