Chapter 9
NINE
Five days had passed since the night Gabi found a part of herself she’d thought was gone. She’d never known such pleasure in giving pleasure.
Never felt empowered. Confident. Sensual. Not like that—a tigress or something.
As she stacked muffins in the Grill’s pastry case, the encounter with Dallas came back to her in a series of flashes.
His sweat-slicked skin, her gasping breaths, her lips closing around him.
His fingers tangling in her hair, body arching off the couch as he came.
He’d been starved for her, then so unexpectedly sweet afterward.
Raindrops clinging to his eyelashes as he kissed her goodbye beneath the cottage’s portico, his cheeks flushed while he apologized for not seeing her home.
Driving with his ankle wasn’t safe. He’d even made her promise to call when she got home.
The combination of recklessness and tenderness was driving her wild.
Being cared about was something she’d have to get used to.
And—Gabi giggled into her fist—Dallas was, to put it mildly, not small in the package department.
After having him in her mouth, feeling the thick weight of him, she’d spent long hours imagining him thrusting inside her.
Imagining how much of him she could take.
Whether he’d be gentle or lose that calm precision if she teased him enough.
Two years was a long time to go without sex. She had ideas.
Cheeks flushing, she glanced to the back corner of the diner, but Dallas wasn’t in his booth.
“He was in earlier, hon,” Verna Mae said with a sniffle. “If it makes you feel any better, he looked up every time the bell on the door jingled.”
Gabi shrugged, her gaze glued to the muffins. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Verna Mae poured a cup of coffee and slid it across the counter.
“Sure you don’t.” Humming softly, she continued down the line, offering refills, asking about the weather, about the chances of winning Friday’s game.
Small-town life, gossip, pie orders and football scores and everybody knowing who you hoped would walk through the door.
Not enough excitement to keep a man with a job in Cairo interested.
No matter how much he seemed to want her.
The first note had arrived the morning following their date on a sheet ripped from one of Dallas’s notepads.
Then another every day after that. One on a Grill receipt, another on a napkin.
The latest, today, on a piece of newsprint still holding the smell of ink.
As if he’d stopped in the middle of whatever he was doing because she’d interrupted him.
A wilted purple wildflower was taped to it.
And, oh, the words.
I keep thinking about your lips. Not only on me. Though, Jesus, Wilder. That too. You were my first kiss, did I tell you that? And so far, only you have compared.
I keep thinking about the sounds you’d make if I had more time and fewer clothes between us. About your hands in my hair. About putting my mouth on you and learning exactly how stubborn you are when you’re trying not to beg. I want to make you beg. Hands-tied-to-a-headboard beg.
Do you go quiet when you’re close? Did you feel like you needed to be?
If so, Sparkle, I’d like to ruin that lesson.
Thoroughly.
With a soft sigh, Gabi gave up any semblance of work and climbed onto the stool, cradling the coffee cup in her hands.
Today’s note was in her pocket, his words pulsing like a heartbeat between her thighs.
Dallas had kept her in a constant state of inconvenient arousal all week, and it wasn’t only his messages that were stirring her.
He’d done it crossing Main Street, one hand lifted in a lazy gesture as a truck rattled past between them, his limp more pronounced by the end of the day, his glasses catching the sun.
Then the truck passed, and he was still staring.
Not smiling exactly, but his gaze saying he knew what she sounded like when pleasure overtook her.
Because he did.
And then at the mill yesterday, sweat darkening the back of his T-shirt (today’s saying: Objectivity is a Myth) while he helped Ransom haul a stack of old lumber out of the side entrance.
He’d caught her watching, hair damp at his temples, forearms roped and dirty, that compass rose curving around his skin.
For one hot second, his face changed, and his gaze dropped to her mouth, then lower, before he dragged it back up with visible effort.
The kicker, though, was Sam’s game. He’d shown up with Campbell, Kit, and Luca, a folding chair tucked under one arm, a paper cup from the concession stand in his hand, as though watching a nine-year-old miss grounders was a perfectly reasonable use of his afternoon.
Sam had waved at him from second base, and Dallas waved back, solemn as a judge before leaning toward his cousin and muttering, “I assume heckling is frowned upon.”
She’d nearly choked on her lemonade, which was embarrassing enough without the bright rush of delight blooming in her chest because he was there. (And, of course, Theo had skipped the game entirely.)
But this wasn’t good.
Because happiness was dangerous. A thoughtful man was dangerous.
Dirty notes and sexy tattoos and a lean, long body she visited in her dreams were one thing.
Her heart catching every time she saw him was another.
It was supposed to be about sex. A little madness.
A temporary lapse in judgment, emphasis on the word temporary.
Nonetheless, by Friday morning, Gabi was starting to think if Dallas didn’t make a move, she was going to climb through his bedroom window. She was trying very hard to play this cool, despite never having played anything cool in her life.
“I’ve got a delivery out back, hon, if you could get it,” Verna Mae murmured, pencil moving across her order pad, her smile tucked low.
“Sure.” Gabi hopped off the stool, throwing a quick glance at the clock above the pie case.
She had to pick up Sam in an hour. Today, she’d parked the café truck in the square, and it had done a brisk business.
The smell of butter and lemon clung to her sweater, and her hands were chapped from scrubbing counters, floor mats, and every gummy surface.
She’d be so happy when the space in the mill was ready.
Keeping a dilapidated former bread truck up and running was starting to suck big-time.
She’d been handing out coupons for the Wilder Grounds grand opening, date still to be determined, but looking like no later than February. It couldn’t come too soon.
She slipped through the swinging gate into the narrow back hall, where the restaurant noise dulled and the air smelled faintly of mop water and coffee grounds.
The alley door stuck the way it always did.
Gabi gave it a hip-check, pushed outside, and had just enough time to register the slice of indigo sky, the stacked milk crates, and the sharp, impossible scent of Dallas’s soap before a hand closed around her wrist.
He pulled her against him, backing her into the brick.
His hands came up, cradling her face like he’d meant to be gentle and lost the argument halfway there.
She only caught sight of his eyes, a stunning olive green, before he sank into the kiss.
Five days of longing and public restraint, part demand, part request, collided in a passionate embrace.
Gabi bounced up on her toes to meet him as she did the frantic math of what they could do, where they could go, in the fifty minutes of freedom she had.
His tongue played with hers, pulling her in deeper, until she was kissing him back with both hands fisted in his shirt and no respectable plan left.
Dallas was hard against her, and she was groaning, reaching, when he pulled back, pressing his brow to hers.
Their breaths came fast in the scant space between them.
“I’m sorry, Gab, but I couldn’t wait another second to touch you,” he said, rough, panting.
Hands braced on the brick on either side of her head, he leaned over her, into her, hip to hip.
“I’ve been thinking about you so much I’m starting to concern myself.
I went so far as sharing my desperation with Verna Mae. ”
Gabi shouldn’t have found that charming. She absolutely found it charming.
Dallas dragged his nose along her neck and into her hair with a sudden inhalation. “You smell good enough to put a man on his knees, and trust me, I’ve been thinking about exactly that. What was today’s sweet?”
“Lemon blueberry scones,” she whispered, his head between her legs now the only working image in her brain. “I’ve finally perfected the recipe.”
He tipped her chin, turning her face into a stray slash of sunlight, his eyes gone soft behind his glasses. “I—”
A horn blared from the street, abrupt enough to make them both flinch.
“I gotta go. I’m helping Justin hang a painting in the gallery, some big-shot buyer is coming,” Dallas said, glancing over his shoulder. “I told him I needed five minutes to get a notebook I left here this morning. I think he suspects there’s something going on with us.”
Gabi froze, the warmth knocked from her. Then temper rushed in to fill the space. “Are we hiding this? Are you hiding me, Dallas True?”
He rocked back, arms dropping. “No, Sparkle, no. I’m not making a decision that lands on Sam before you’re ready, that’s all.
” He sighed and yanked his hand through his hair, which had grown out enough to start showing endearing threads of gray and to cover the now-fading scar on his temple.
“This town knows what a person had for breakfast before he’s finished chewing.
If my brother suspects, everybody suspects.
Then somebody says something in front of Sam, or I don’t know, Theo, which I assume might make co-parenting tricky.
And you’ll be left to answer questions after I’m gone. ”