Southern Playboy (North Carolina Highlands 4)

As I watch them, a fist grips my heart and squeezes.

Do I really get to just . . . have them? Be with them? Enjoy them?

I don’t have to earn their love or anyone else’s?

I don’t have to earn, period? I just let myself be happy?

“Why?” My voice is hoarse. “Why do I get to be happy?”

Beau claps my shoulder now. “Because you’re not the piece of shit you think you are. You were born the same way Liam was. Don’t you think he deserves happiness?”

“Of course.”

“Then so do you.” He looks me in the eye. “Turn down the new contract, Rhett.”

It’s that simple.

It’s that hard.

I close Liam’s bedroom door softly behind me. Amelia’s a step ahead of me in the hallway, her bare feet making a quiet sound on the carpet.

We were quiet too, as we put Liam down together. It’s become a well-practiced dance: I change his diaper, Amelia reads him a few books, I rock him until his little head lolls on my shoulder. I put him in the crib. Amelia turns out the lights. I close the door.

But tonight feels different.

I feel different. Raw. Needy. Heavy.

I should tell her to go home, but I can’t. Maybe that makes me the hero, maybe that makes me the bad guy. Whatever the case, I’m done denying the hunger inside me.

My dick gets hard as I devour the sight of her legs and ass. I grab her by the hand and spin her around, yanking her against me. Our hips meet, and she lets out this hot little pant. I duck my head and kiss her neck, opening my mouth to lick her. Nick her with my teeth. She tastes like sweat. Wine.

“Lemme have you, honey,” I murmur. “Stay.”

“I’m here. I’ll stay.”

Her hand finds the back of my head. She gently glides her fingers through my hair, like she knows it’s tenderness I need tonight.

My heart twists.

The words pound through me in time to my thundering pulse. How. Did this. Happen.

I kiss her mouth in a way I haven’t before. I suck. Plunder. I pour my fury and my confusion and my adoration into her body. Our lips catch, release, and my dick throbs. I thrust it into the cradle of her pelvis, blindly seeking release, and she reaches down and unbuttons my jeans.

I grab her wrist. “To bed. My bed.”

Resisting the urge to throw her over my shoulder, I lead her downstairs and into my bedroom. It’s still light outside, the kind of soft, white-blue light you get just after the sun slips below the horizon.

Amelia’s eyes are wet when I pull her around to face me. A line of buttons trails down the front of her dress, and I unbutton them one by one, pressing my forehead against hers as I work. My fingers falter on the last button, and I curse. Smiling, she reaches down to help me, our fingers tangling, then moving in perfect tandem as we guide the button through its hole.

And then—

Heaven.

I reach inside her dress. She’s wearing a bra, a simple but sweet nude-colored thing, so I reach inside that too, cupping her breast. My skin tightens at her softness. I press my palm to her nipple, growling when I feel it bud into a hard point, and I flick my thumb over it, making her arch against me.

“I like that.”

“I’ve noticed.”

I guide either side of her dress over her shoulders. It falls to the floor with a small whoosh. My dick surges against my zipper, and I wince.

“You okay?”

“You’re too damn gorgeous for your own good,” I murmur, and then I unhook her bra and use my thumbs to shove down her panties.

For a second, I just stare. Pale skin dotted with a handful of freckles—one beneath her right breast, another on her collarbone. The small, pink puckers of her nipples. The curving slopes of her hips, somehow both luscious and bony.

I put a hand on her hip. “When I touch you, how wet are you gonna be?”

“Very,” she pants. “Since this morning—I woke up and . . .”

“Tell me what you did. How you played with yourself when you thought about me.”

Her gaze darkens. “I used my fingers. Went slow because I wanted to make it last.”

I reach down and gently—slowly—glide my middle finger between her lips. She’s soaked, soaked and hot, and she lets out a breath when I circle my fingertip over her clit.

“Holy shit,” I grunt. “I love you like this. What did you do next?”

“I—I did exactly what you’re doing. I thought about your head between my thighs, and I—yes, just like that.”

I nudge her leg with my knee. “Wider, honey.”

She steps to the side, opening her to me. I slip my finger deeper, slip it inside her, pressing the heel of my hand to her clit.