Best of 2017

“Why do you stay here? Why not move somewhere else and start over?”

“After Lillian, I couldn’t seem to leave. It’s in my head.” He stroked his temple. “I know it is. I realize I can drive out of the gate and never come back, but I think I’m…”

I knew the feeling. “Broken? You think you’re broken.”

“I would have said fucked up, but yes.”

“I don’t think you are.” I ran my hand down his scruffy cheek. “I think you’ve been through some traumatizing events. And I think you’re afraid. But you’re not fucked up.”

He looked at me with heartbreaking surprise, as if he’d never seen himself as anything other than a monster.

“That’s why you pushed me away, why you’ve been pushing me away this whole time?” I cupped his face in my hands, and he closed his eyes and leaned into my touch. “You’re afraid you’ll hurt me or that I’ll be … what?”

“Disgusted.”

“I’m not.” I stroked my thumbs through his rough beard. “Not even close.”

He drew his brows together. “You heard the part about how I’d like to chase you through the woods? How I want to tie you up and leave my marks on your skin? How I want to fuck you so hard it hurts?”

My stomach clenched at his words. “I heard, though this is the first time you’ve said you wanted to do all those things to me.”

He grabbed my wrists and gave me a hard stare. “Are you kidding? You are the worst temptation. When I’m near you, something short circuits in my brain. Fuck.” He pressed his lips together, as if forcing himself to stop talking. “Let’s just say that every depraved fantasy I’ve had since you came knocking on my door involves a red coat.”

The tips of my ears began to burn, and I stared at his mouth. It took every ounce of willpower I owned to keep from kissing him.

Instead of giving in, I asked something that I’d been wondering for days. “Did you love her—Joan?” I cringed at my question as soon as it rolled off my tongue. It was none of my business, and I should have been asking more questions about my father. Instead, I was waiting for Garrett to tell me if he loved someone else.

He didn’t answer for a long time, the silence building up like bricks in a foundation. After a while, he took a deep breath and blew it out. “I thought I did. Now, though…”

Why did everything in me vibrate to whatever frequency he was putting out? I wanted to run my fingers down the back of his hand, hug him, do anything that would connect us as more than two people in an old house, each haunted by our own ghosts.

“Now, I’m not so sure.” He pulled away from me and stood. “You need to rest.”

“Don’t go.” The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. Maybe I’d lost more blood than I realized, or maybe I was foolishly letting my guard down. Either way, I didn’t want him to lock himself away in his room, to withdraw from me despite what we’d shared. “Will you stay with me?”

He backed up a step. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I won’t hurt you.” I gave him a wry smile and pushed away the sting of his refusal.

“I think you know that’s not what I’m worried about.” He scanned the shape of my body beneath the blanket.

“You said you’d never force a woman, remember?”

“I won’t. I’d never take something that wasn’t freely given.” He backed up another step.

“You’re afraid.” I smirked as amusement flitted through me. “You’re afraid of me. Or what’s the word—intimacy. You’re afraid of intimacy.”

“I could pin you and rope you before you had a chance to scream.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“You’re not afraid to do those things to me, no, but you’re afraid to sleep here with me.” I grinned. “I want to cuddle.”

He flinched. “Cuddle?”

“Yeah.” I flipped the blanket and the sheet off the other side of the bed. “Come on. Get in. Unless you’re scared?”

“I’m not scared, but cuddling may be a hard limit for me. Aftercare, yes. Cuddling, no.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Aftercare?”

“After a session in the woods, I would hold Melinda as she came down from the high.”

“And a hard limit, that’s—”

“Something I won’t do.”

“Right.” I grinned. “Because you’re scared.”

“Not scared.” He shook his head.

“I have an idea. Let’s have a safe word. I’ve seen enough movies to know that’s a thing, right?”

“Yes, that’s a thing.” He shrugged. “But I’m still not getting into bed with you without fucking you.”

Jesus. He had no qualms expressing what he wanted.

I wasn’t going to let his directness rattle me. “So you’re afraid of spending the night with me without fucking me?”

“Stop saying I’m afraid.” His voice lowered an octave, and heat pooled in my stomach.

I put on my best poker face. “If you get scared, just call out your safe word. What is it?”

He laughed, chagrin giving him an unexpected youth. “I’ve never had to come up with a safe word. That’s only for my subs.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything. So, let’s make up one. Like, I don’t know, excelsior. That’s a good word.” I nodded at him, as if the added movement would make it more convincing.

“No, it needs to be simple, something you, or I guess I can remember with ease. Red is out. So we’ll have to go with black. Simple.”

“So if you say black, then that means I stop whatever I’m doing?”

He sighed. “I can’t believe this conversation is happening. But yes, if I say black, that means you’ve reached my hard limit.” He raked my body with a predatory gaze. “Same for you. You

can call black, and I’ll know to stop.”

“So the word stop won’t work?”

He smirked and started unbuttoning his shirt. “No.”

Oh, shit. He really did intend to take me up on my offer.

“What about the word no?”

“Definitely won’t work. The only thing a no will get you is choked.”

I pressed my thighs together. Why was the threat so fucking hot?

He peeled his shirt off, and I finally got a good look at the black ink curling up his arms and across his chest. A tangle of swirls and skulls danced along his skin and under the dark hair of his chest. His nipples were a dusky rose color and the right one was pierced with a silver barbell.

He unbuckled his jeans. I leaned over and flicked off the lamp to keep from staring. Settling into the mattress, I heard his boots drop onto the floor, followed by the clatter of his belt. He stalked around the bed, his wiry muscles thrown into sharp relief against the faint light from my bathroom.

Focus. “So the deal is that we’re sleeping together, but no sex. Unless you’re scared, and we can call the whole thing off.”

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.” He sighed. “I’ve never gotten in bed with a woman without fucking her. This is dumb.”

I smiled at the gruffness in his voice and continued my examination. “What if I said stop?”

The bed shifted as he eased down next to me. “I wouldn’t, but the fact that you said it would guarantee a brutal fuck. Just black. That’s the only word that will save you.”

I turned toward him as best I could. He’d thrown my quilt over his legs and hips and laced his fingers under his head as he stared at the ceiling.

“But what if I said please?”

He turned his head toward me, his eyes deep pools of desire. “If you said ‘please’, I’d fuck you so hard that you wouldn’t be able to sit down, walk, or breathe for days without thinking of my cock inside you.”

Fuck.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“THESE GRITS ARE THE best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. Ever.” I spooned a hefty helping of the buttery, cheesy deliciousness into my mouth.