Southern Seducer (North Carolina Highlands 1)

Our eyes meet. Lock. A smile flickers across his lips but doesn’t stay in place very long. He’s looking at me again, seeing.

His gaze flickers darkly, and I imagine—I’m imagining this, right?—it’s desire. Raw and urgent.

My pulse skitters. I like it. I like feeling needed. Seen. Wanted.

I like it more than I should.

Standing abruptly, I break the spell. I tell Beau I’m going to get a drink refill and then take off before he can offer to do it for me.

My body feels light.

Light and hot.

I try my best to ignore the hot part. It’s not a friendly feeling, and it’s not something I’ve felt for Beau in a long time.

Back when we were in college, I definitely had a crush on him. But I kept my feelings in check—for a lot of reasons—and honestly, I’m glad I did. I didn’t want to risk losing him or damaging our friendship in some irreparable way.

But so much has changed since then.

The way he’s looking at me has changed.

When I come back—regular cider in my mug this time, no whiskey—Beau’s eyes follow my every movement in a way I don’t remember them ever doing before today. It’s almost as though he wants to tell me something. Confess something.

I get the feeling he’s memorizing me. Savoring me. Like this is the last time we’ll ever be together this way, warm with laughter and buzzed on friendship.

My pulse throbs now, loud and clear, and lands between my legs.

Chapter Five

Beau

Bel’s breath catches.

“You okay?” I ask.

Sitting beside me, she nods. “Yeah. Are you? You’ve just, um…you’ve been looking at me a little funny today.”

I clear my throat, tearing my gaze from her face. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m really tired. Long day, you know? Long year.”

Christ, what is wrong with me? I promised myself I wouldn’t get all weird with Annabel. But here I am, looking at her—hell, downright devouring her—like the biggest, perviest weirdo on Earth.

I just can’t seem to help myself. I have no idea how many more nights like this we’ll have together. What if this is the last one?

I want to remember her this way. The vacant look I saw in her eyes earlier all but gone, replaced by laughter and life and contentment.

I did that.

I made her feel those things.

She’s so damn beautiful with the light of the fire catching on her hair, gilding it in shades of bronze and silver. Long legs crossed, her full lips rest against the rim of her mug as she blows on the cider, trying to cool it.

My skin tightens. Blood hums with these little zaps of electricity. Maybe knowing my interactions with Bel have a new end date are making me hyper aware of my body’s response to hers. Maybe that’s why the tug I feel in my chest whenever I’m around her is especially poignant tonight, strangling my heart and making my own lips throb.

“I get it. I started my day well before the sun was up.” Her gaze flicks to meet mine, and my heart skips a beat. “This baby has turned me into you. An early riser. Someone who never sleeps.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it?”

“It’s like the worst kind of torture you can imagine. I’m just waiting to start hallucinating or something.”

“Totally awful. Aside from the sleep, how are you feeling?” I ask, desperate to change the subject. “Mentally, I mean. It’s cool if you don’t want to talk about it. But I’m here if you do.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I should. Talk about it. I’m feeling—eh, pretty terrible most days.”

I want to reach for her. We’ve always confided in each other, right from the beginning. I love that about us: how comfortable we are together. How honest.

Only our honesty has never been this raw or this heavy before.

By some miracle, I keep my hands to myself.

“Bel—”

“It’s all right.” She blinks a little too quickly. “Well, no it’s not. My mind is suspended in this, like, constant fog.” She’s talking with her hand now, curling it in the air beside her head. “I have a million things I feel like I should be doing. But I get overwhelmed so easily that I don’t end up doing much at all, other than keeping my baby alive.”

My heart pounds in time to my thoughts. I know. I know.

I know all of this. Intimately.

“I imagine that’s a full-time job in and of itself,” I say.

“It is. But laundry still needs to get done. Meals need to be made. Bills paid. Life goes on, you know? Anyway. The whole thing just kind of snowballs, making me feel worse and worse. And then there’s the loneliness. Not just the physical isolation of being at home with an infant, but also the emotional loneliness of it. I was just thinking how I feel like I’m an island. A weird, one-off island who isn’t feeling the right feelings or doing the right stuff.”