Every Time I Fall (Orchid Valley 3)

God bless Layla for making me buy this dress and whatever courage I found to wear it tonight. I love the feel of his warm, callused hands on my bare skin.

As all our friends discuss their lives, my attention is all right there. Under the tablecloth, under my skirt.

“Don’t you think so, Dean?” Kace asks, leaning forward to look down the table.

Dean’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “What’s that?”

“The Dennisons. Don’t you think they’ll sell rather than move in there themselves?”

The Dennisons are a local family. Their matriarch owned one of the biggest houses in town before she passed away. It isn’t as big as this one or as ostentatious as the one Brinley grew up in, but it’s still bigger than anything the rest of us can imagine living in.

“I can’t wait to get in there,” Kace says.

Dean hums in approval, his hand drifting higher.

My breath catches as his pinkie skims the edge of my underwear.

“Absolutely. Can’t take my eyes off her,” he says, flashing me a grin.

I give him a pointed look, though it takes everything in me to make it stern and not desperate. He said he likes messing around in public places. Maybe that’s why he’s touching me like this now. But it makes me burn for a room with a lock on the door and hours—days—with only the two of us inside.

Dean uses the conversation at the other end of the table as an excuse to turn in his seat and lean toward them. Toward me. As he does, he keeps his hand on my thigh—hot, stroking, forbidden.

I train my expression and try to appear interested in the conversation when all I want is to drag Dean to one of the guest rooms upstairs and beg him to make good on his skirt-related promises.

When Brinley comes around with dessert, Dean pulls back. He straightens in his chair and faces forward, hands in his own lap, and I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed.

She sets the plates of lemon tart in front of us and returns to the other side of the table to take her seat next to Marston.

Forks clatter on plates as the guests take their first bites of dessert.

Dean pulls his phone from his pocket and frowns at the dark screen. “Sorry, everyone. I need to take this. It’s my mom.”

Stella perks up at the mention of their mother. “Is she okay?”

Dean waves her off. “Everything’s fine, but I sent that HVAC guy over there today, and she was supposed to call if she needed me to talk to him.”

“Oh.” Stella nods. “Thanks for taking care of that, Dean.” She turns her attention back to Savvy, who’s in the middle of a story about one of her more colorful personal training clients.

The conversation continues around the table as Dean disappears down the hall. I take a small bite of my lemon tart. It’s delicious, but I’m too worked up to have an appetite.

I know Dean’s mom didn’t just call him. Was he trying to get me away from the table? Does he want me to meet him somewhere?

When my own phone buzzes in my purse, I somehow know without looking that it’s Dean. I grab my purse off the back of my chair and drape it over my shoulder, pushing back from the table. “Excuse me. I need to use the restroom. Where was it again, Brinley?”

Brinley points down the hall. “Second door on the right.”

“Thanks.”

Once I’m out of view of the dining room, I pull my phone from my purse, and sure enough, there’s a message waiting from Dean.

Powder room. Second door on the right. Don’t make me wait.

Those words light fire in my blood. My hand’s shaking as I pull open the partially ajar bathroom door to find Dean, lounging against the counter, arms crossed over his chest.

He looks me over slowly—from my face, stalling on my lips, down to my breasts and the flare of my hips, down to the legs he was just touching—and there’s so much heat in his eyes that I’m half convinced this is a dream. But no. Even in my dreams, Dean doesn’t give me looks that hot.

“Close the door,” he says, voice husky. “Lock it.”

Chapter Eighteen

Abbi

I do as I’m told but don’t have a chance to turn around before Dean takes me by the hips, spins me, and pushes me back against the counter, his mouth on my neck.

“Are you sure you don’t want our friends to know about us?” His teeth scrape the skin at the juncture of my shoulder and neck, and I can barely think straight. “Because you look so damn fuckable in that dress that I’m not sure how I’m supposed to hide what I have planned for you.”

“It’s . . . just a dress.” I lean my head to the side, because I love the lightly sucking kisses he’s placing against my neck. So good. So damn good.