Southern Seducer (North Carolina Highlands 1)

I give his dick a tug, then another. My heart hammers as his hand moves up the bare skin of my torso. My nipples harden in anticipation. Then—oh, shit—I feel an all-too-familiar burning tingle descend from the top of my breasts to the tips. My milk’s coming in.

But before I can say a word, Beau takes one of my boobs in his hand and gives it a firm squeeze.

I see stars again, this time for a different reason. My eyes fly open.

Crying out, I jerk away from him, immediately covering my breasts with my arm.

He goes still, heat in his eyes morphing to horror. “Oh my God, Bel, I’m so fucking sorry. I forgot…”

There’s something almost anguished about his response. My gut clenches.

“It’s okay. It’s just that my milk—”

“No. It’s not okay. I was careless.” He lets out a heavy sigh.

“Hey. It’s fine, I promise.”

“No, Bel, it’s not,” he says forcefully. “I hurt you.”

“Please don’t be so hard on yourself.” I roll my hips against him. My boobs hurt, but I can last a few more minutes before I really need to go pump. “And please, please don’t stop.”

But he’s already loosening his grip on my legs. “We have to. You know we have to, honey.”

Honey.

“No, we don’t.” I sound desperate. Feel it, too.

“Yes.” His tone is commanding. “We do.”

Carefully, he sets me back on my feet, but I wobble. He catches me, grabbing me by the arm. I love—love—the feel of his hands on me. Our eyes meet. His pupils look enormous in the moonlight.

The need between us pulses. For a second, we just stand there, stuck between before and after.

Before the time we almost fucked. And after, when the fallout comes.

I’m terrified of fucking up. I don’t want to get left again the way Ryan left me when our marriage ended.

I don’t want to lose Beau as a friend.

But I’m tired of holding back. And let’s be real, is friendship even on the table anymore? Something tells me that ship sailed the second I slipped my hand inside his pants.

When we were younger, I was terrified of ruining our friendship. Beau was my bedrock in many ways, and I wasn’t willing to fuck that up.

Now, though? We’re not young. We’re not stupid, either.

Maybe it’s time to finally take that risk.

Still. My mind continues to spin out, jumping twenty steps ahead. Is now really a good time to start a relationship? When I’m struggling to find myself again? It’d be all too easy to get lost in someone like Beau, which would probably make me feel better in the short term. In the long term, though, I’d just be setting myself back.

“Fuck,” Beau says. He must be reading my thoughts. “Fuck.”

He steps back, looking away, and lifts the hat off his head. He spears a hand through his hair, making it stand on end, and I can’t help but admire the way the motion causes his bicep to bulge against the sleeve of his jacket.

My stomach twists.

Why do I get the feeling I’m losing him?

He jams the hat back on his head, and his hands move to his fly, where he yanks at the zipper. There’s a violence in his movements, the way he refuses to look at me. In the rip of the zipper when he tugs it up. He adjusts himself with a wince, cursing yet again, then buttons the fly.

He’s angry, and for the first time ever with Beau, I’m scared. Not of him but of what comes next.

Finally, he looks up at me. “We can’t—” He looks back out over the lake. His Adam’s apple bobs, and my eyes catch on movement at his sides. His hands clench into fists, then unclench. His gaze meets mine, and when he speaks, his voice is raw with emotion. Same as it was at the bonfire. “I wanna touch you again, Bel. So bad it hurts. I’ve been waiting so long…but I can’t. I—” He takes a breath through his nose, then lets it back out. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? I don’t mean to be an asshole, but I don’t trust myself to say the right thing to you right now. I promise I’ll explain myself, I just—I’m sorry.” He’s not talking about squeezing my boob anymore. “I never should have—Christ. I swear my intentions were good when I offered to take you out tonight.”

“I know.” The auto-reply apology is on the tip of my tongue. I’m sorry I let this go so far. But I don’t say it because I don’t feel it. I feel terrible that he seems to be so torn up about what we just did. I don’t think I’m sorry, though, that it happened. It felt so good. I’m still ringing with it—the pleasure, the freedom…and the sense of self it gave me. I want more of it.