Southern Sinner (North Carolina Highlands 3)

“Damn.” Samuel holds out his knuckles to Stevie. “I like you.”

Emma smiles, eyes dancing. “Just when I thought our engagement party was feeling a little too stiff.”

Samuel chuckles. “Speaking of stiff—”

“Don’t,” Emma and I say together.

I duck down and put my mouth on Stevie’s body. Her perfume fills my head; the sugar-spice taste of the bourbon hits my tongue. Stevie’s torso expands on a breathy laugh.

I watch her nipples harden to points, deliciously blurred by the material of her dress.

I laugh too, my dick twitching in my pants.

“What the hell is this?” I hear Beau murmur.

“It’s lust,” Rhett replies.

“It’s love,” Mama says.

Chapter Seventeen

Hank

We stumble into my house at half past twelve.

Rhett was determined to keep the party going, and he invited a handful of late night revelers back to his place for, and I quote, “bongs, bourbon, and ball.”

Stevie and I declined, but used it as an excuse to slip away from the party ourselves.

Wheels are really coming off for my brother. I’ll have a chat with him on Monday about getting his shit together—even for him, this kind of partying is extreme.

I’ll find out what’s going on later. Right now, I got plans for my girl and me.

I help Stevie out of her coat, and she bends down to unbuckle her shoes, letting out a hiss of pleasure when she flattens her bare feet on the floor.

“Honey.” I frown at the red indents that crisscross her skin. “Why didn’t you say your shoes hurt? We coulda left earlier. I would’ve happily run back here to get—”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously what?”

Stevie glances around the foyer. “We’re not at the party anymore. You don’t need to pretend to be my boyfriend.”

An ice pick of hurt lodges itself in my center. Why this? Why now? I’ve been acting the same way all damn weekend.

“I’m not pretending. I’m just being a decent human being. That so rare in your world you think it’s fake?”

Her expression falls. She shakes her head. “No. I’m sorry. Tonight was great. Too great. I’m confused.”

“So am I. There such a thing as too great?”

She shoots me an incredulous look, hair falling over her shoulders in thick, sexy waves. “I think so, yeah. I really did have the best time. Well, aside from the whole Milly interrogating me thing.”

“Sorry about that.” I shake my head. “Although if someone was going to pull a Jack Byrnes, I’m not surprised it was her.”

“I definitely had a Gaylord Focker moment there.”

“Don’t tell me nipples were involved.”

Stevie laughs, and the realization of just how easy and enjoyable it is to just be around her hits me.

Our connection really is worlds different from any I’ve had before.

We’re making messes left and right, and we’ll probably leave a trail of destruction behind us in the end. But again, one hundred percent fucking worth it.

“No nipples. I saved those for you and your spilled bourbon. She did threaten to kill me, though.”

My eyes bulge. “She didn’t.”

Stevie’s laugh morphs into a cackle. “No, of course your sister didn’t threaten to kill me. Jesus, Pamela Martha Focker, please don’t stop being so easy to fuck with, because I’m having fun doing it.”

This this this.

Whatever this is, I want more of it. I want it every Saturday night. Weeknights too.

“Let’s make a real mess,” I blurt. “Right here. Right now.”

Stevie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Mess up your house? For real?”

“Why so surprised?”

“Hank, your place is immaculate. It’s so perfect it belongs in a magazine.”

“Exactly. Feels like it too—like it’s a movie set or something. Like no one actually lives here.” I hold out my hand. “Let’s put our mark on it, shall we?”

Stevie turns her head and looks at me from the corner of her eye. “So you’re saying you don’t want an insanely beautiful, perfectly put together home?”

“It’s a beautiful house, Stevie, don’t get me wrong. And it’s not like I want to destroy it or turn it into a frat house or anything. I just want . . .” I think on it a minute. “Real. And real people don’t live this way, in a house with zero character and zero memories.”

Her gaze moves to the far wall, where a dark smudge mars the paint above the console table.

The one Stevie held on to while I fucked her from behind two seconds after she arrived.

How hot did she look in her jeans and boots? I remember with perfect clarity the feel of her pussy clenching around me. Us looking at our reflection in the window and laughing our asses off at how ridiculous we were.

Was that really only last night? Feels like a year ago. An hour ago. How is time simultaneously slipping through my fingers and standing still? Stevie fits in here so well it feels like she’s been at Blue Mountain forever.

Yet that mark right there is a testament to how new she is.