No Gentle Giant (A Small Town Romance)

A storm lodges in my throat.

When I finally go off with this searing pleasure moving up my spine like it’s one long fuse, hitting my brain and triggering a charge that makes me see stars, I’m roaring.

Recklessly yelling my addiction for this woman into the night, straining to empty my balls into her, to brand her from the inside out.

Fuck yes, I’ve lost it, but I’ve got a good reason.

I won’t let this go.

I won’t let her fall.

And I make her cry my name again and again, holding this fallen angel for as long as she’ll let me drink our forever.

No matter how brief, how painful, or how miraculous that forever may be.

19

Tarnished Gold (Felicity)

For such a tiny dog, Shrub needs to be walked like a hyperactive little fiend.

I guess there’s not many places to store the energy when you’re a Pekingese, practically a four-legged mop, but still...

This is the sixth time I’ve been out with him today.

I watch him bounding ahead on his leash, only stopping to look back at me when he reaches the end of his tether, giving back impatient looks with huge eyes and his pink tongue flopping.

Thank God for harmless little monsters when I’ve got so many big, scary ones breathing down my neck.

I’m grateful for the pup today when his energy helps me get some fresh air, instead of feeling like I’m caged up and practically in witness protection at Alaska’s cabin and all. I think I’ve only left to go to work and then come straight home under his watchful eye ever since the big scrap with Paisley and her goons.

It’s not Alaska making me feel caged, of course.

It’s knowing she could be anywhere, watching me. Or maybe not her, but a hired gun sent to do her bidding. It feels like it’d be too easy to wind up a lifeless stiff, tossed into one of the many canyons around Heart’s Edge, where I won’t be found for a century.

And I wouldn’t see it coming until it was too late.

What I can see right now is Alaska and Eli.

I’ve wandered off along one of the winding side paths leading alongside the massive field where the cabins are situated, but from here I can just make out father and son on the long grassy stretch leading toward the half-heart cliff the town was named after.

They’re a portrait of happiness.

Alaska’s got Eli up on his shoulders, while the boy angles his camera—no doubt trying to get the perfect shot for a landscape photo.

It still makes me smile so much that Eli wants to do that for my café. He’s a budding perfectionist with an impressive eye for detail and lighting.

Let’s be real, so many things about them make me smile.

What I can’t understand is why they want me around.

All I do is get in the way and bring them new problems that could threaten the amazing bond between them, the life Alaska talks about when he’s holding me, the future that’s everything they’ve dreamed.

I can’t be the nightmare to that dream.

I can’t be the bad luck charm that breaks them.

I can’t ever forget that what seems like an idyllic life with them is an illusion.

It’s all pretend.

Puppet theater.

Paisley could come along with her murderous smirk and cut our strings at any second.

God.

Maybe it’s because I’m brooding about Paisley and all the ugly possibilities that when I hear a footstep scuff behind me, I nearly shriek.

My belly jumps into the back of my throat as I whirl.

Too fast. Shrub’s leash tangles around my legs.

I stumble, flailing my free hand out for balance.

Only to steady as Ms. Wilma grasps my forearm, her thin hand surprisingly strong no matter how her skin thins with age, the bones standing out stark against papery flesh.

She watches me with a kind, yet sharp gaze, holding me firmly while I get myself untangled from my dog leash. All thanks to Shrub bouncing around excitedly the second he sees her.

I’m more awkward than I need to be, but then Ms. Wilma just watches like she knows something, and when she’s got that look on her face...

Yeah. I’ve got good reason for squirming, don’t I?

“A little jumpy, dearie?” she asks mildly, the second I finally get myself sorted and let go. “You looked rather out of it.”

I offer her a thin smile.

She treats this entire town like we’re all her grandchildren—not just Warren and the mess of the great grandkids they’re giving her.

I can’t say I’m not grateful for it.

“Just a lot on my mind,” I say as I bend to pick up Shrub so he’ll stop straining at the leash to get to the little clear glass watering can in her hand. From the crystallization on the sides and the faint yellow hue, I’m guessing it’s sugar water for her beloved hummingbirds.

Especially since my pup’s got a sweet tooth and he can smell cane sugar from a mile away, but I don’t need him jumping the town matriarch for a glucose fix.