He touches his lips to mine before rolling me on top of him. I straddle his waist and watch him smile up at me.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I tease.
“You have no idea.” He raises his hips until his cock digs into my skin. “Now will you please sit on me so I can enjoy you again?”
I nod in appreciation. Guiding him to my opening, I pause before I sit down.
“I would like to say that I appreciate your use of ‘please.’ Good manners, Doc,” I say.
He moves himself, trying to shove into me again. I stay lifted ever so slightly so he can’t.
He fires me a faux glare before gripping my hips. “Please.”
I drop down in one swift, fluid movement until he’s sunk completely inside me. We move together, moaning in unison. It’s a dance that feels familiar, yet so foreign at the same time. Each movement is matched perfectly, a push for a pull. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but always right.
I had no idea. Not a damn clue that sex could be . . . like this. So good. So hot. So . . . everything I’ve never had before.
It’s not a completely fair apples-to-apples kind of comparison when considering the men I’ve been with before, but still. This sets the bar. High.
He takes care of my body, makes me laugh, treats me like both his friend and his lover. It’s the wildest experience I’ve ever had and one I’m sure I’ll never forget.
Even when he leaves. Especially when he leaves.
When I’m snuggled next to him hours after the sun has gone down—and after Holden has gone down . . . twice—and our dinner is cold and mostly untouched, that unfortunate little reminder rears its head. This is so very temporary. Magnificent and incredible, but still so impermanent.
And I fall asleep with my cheek against Holden’s chest and my heart safely inside mine.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SOPHIE
The morning sun shines brightly through my office window. Steam rises from the cup of coffee on the corner of my desk and lures me in with its heavenly scent. I pull the mug closer and take a deep breath of the aroma with the hope that it will ground me. Put my feet on the floor. Lure me back into reality.
Because after last night? My head is in the clouds.
I floated from my bed to the kitchen—where I found a freshly brewed pot of coffee waiting for me. Somehow I drifted toward my office—where I discovered that Holden had locked the front door on his way out this morning. Then I sort of danced to my desk with not a care in the world, and that’s concerning.
I have cares in the world. Lots of them. It would behoove me to remember that.
“It’s just because I got some sleep last night,” I say before taking a sip of coffee. But even I don’t believe that. The only part that sleep plays in how I feel this morning is because I slept on Holden, after sleeping with him.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say, letting the warmth of the mug soak into my palms. “I’m a big girl. I can separate sex from . . . emotions.”
I set my mug down and wish it were that easy to set aside feelings. Particularly the ones that I have an inkling are going to get me in trouble.
In the center of my desk lies a receipt from the elderly couple who stayed with me. Mr. Ingram’s signature is shaky. So are the words “Bless You” that he carefully printed along the bottom of the paper when he checked himself and his wife out early one morning.
I settle back in my seat and gaze out the window. The Ingrams have such a beautiful relationship. He’d hold her hand when they walked to their car, and I’m not sure she ever opened a door for herself. She laughed at his jokes, which, by the little wink she’d toss me, I’m sure she’s heard a hundred times over their years together. It’s as if the years they’ve spent together have drawn them even closer.
All I can figure is that they got married in a different day and age—when attention spans were longer. People valued things differently back then. The top of the totem pole wasn’t a shiny car or a fancy college degree. It was a life well curated with people who love you.
I pick up a picture frame from beside my computer. In the photo, Gramma is bursting at the seams with pride as my brother, my sister, and I stand beside her.
My thumb runs over the glass.
“I’m sorry I didn’t understand in time,” I whisper to her.
My chest tightens as I think about how I let her down. I shunned her advice. I was so determined to leave, to do something bigger and better than anything in Honey Creek.