Wild Kisses (Wildwood 2)

Caleb Finley and his wife had inherited the business in the last year, and the changes they’d made had increased business tenfold. The market had been bursting at the seams for months. Caleb also happened to be best friends with Delaney’s boyfriend, Ethan. A great string of connections for recommendations around town. A lousy string of connections to screw up by letting his attraction to Avery get out of control.

“Yeah, I will. Thanks for the heads-up.”

She squeezed his arm. “I’m always thinking about you. Have you gotten any new bites?”

“Just a roof for Gabe Snyder.” Not something he was thrilled about, but a job he’d take because he needed it.

“Hang in there, Trace. Good things are coming.”

“We’ll see. One step at a time.” Future success in Wildwood, or anywhere else for that matter, depended entirely on how well he followed through on Wild Harts. Which was a reminder to get his ass in gear. He kissed Pearl’s forehead and stepped onto the porch.

She moved into the doorway. “Any more trouble from Austin?”

An immediate squeeze tightened Trace’s chest.

“He’s not a problem,” he told his grandmother, hoping he sounded confident. Realistically, Trace knew Austin would be trouble until Trace left town. “Zane’s got him under control.”

His grandmother’s watery blue eyes narrowed. “No one truly has any of the Hayeses well controlled.”

Trace forced the raw fear associated with prison away and grinned for his grandmother. “Not true. Delaney’s got Ethan hog-tied and lovin’ every minute of it.”

“An exception to the rule.” Pearl’s smile put a fresh glint in her eyes. “Don’t ever underestimate the love of a good woman, son. It can move mountains.”

Trace wouldn’t know anything about that. “Go on. Get inside, and let me hear that door lock behind you.”

“Get some sleep, Trace.” Pearl closed the door and tripped the dead bolt. “Happy?”

Happy? No. Trace didn’t know how to be happy. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d been truly happy. Of course the question brought Avery to mind because, hell, why not, everything else did. And when he thought of Avery, Trace could almost imagine happiness—with his body buried deep inside hers, their limbs tangled, mouths fused, those clear blue eyes of hers heavy-lidded and sparkling with lust, and those perfectly plump, pink lips forming his name as she rose to orgasm.

Yeah, he was pretty damn sure that was the one thing that could make him happy.

But that would never happen.

So, no. He wasn’t happy.

“Yep,” he said, patting the door with a flat hand. “Love you, Gram.”

“Love you, too.”

The drive from Gram’s to Wild Harts took fifteen minutes but only because he meandered. He really didn’t want to work tonight, but he was behind again, thanks to his father’s bizarre tirade that afternoon, something that was becoming entirely too common. He wasn’t seeing the calm in George that Gram had described.

Trace’s mind drifted to the bathroom mirror he’d come home to earlier that evening. The one his father had broken but didn’t know how. Then to the time and money it would cost to fix it—neither of which Trace had.

With his elbow on the open window frame, he scraped a hand through his hair. He really didn’t know what he was going to do if his father didn’t adjust to this move soon. No one in the family could afford an in-home caretaker, to say nothing of the cost of putting him into a facility. Hopefully they’d hear from Medicare soon.

For now, all Trace could do was take things day by day. With his father. With this renovation. With Avery. And tonight his father was safely sedated into a tranquil sleep, and locked inside their small cottage, freeing Trace up to get some extra work done on the café. As far as Avery went . . .

He rubbed his forehead. “Fuck if I know.”

His wild attraction to her was so wrong on so many levels. He’d admit to preferring hookups with younger women, but Avery was way too young—and not just in chronological age. Not only was she eight years his junior, but even more troubling, she was decades younger in sexual experience. From the information he’d gathered between Avery herself, Avery’s family, and now Gram, Trace knew she’d run off with David at seventeen and stayed faithful even while David had been deployed for the majority of their marriage. A marriage that, by all accounts, had headed downhill after the first year, becoming far more of a long-term emotional jail and far less of an actual marriage.

If that was true, Trace estimated Avery was about as sexually experienced now as he’d been at fifteen. And he was beginning to believe there was something seriously twisted in his head, because the more he thought about it, the more her inexperience and abstinence turned him the fuck on.

All that beautiful skin to touch and tease in ways she’d never been touched and teased before. All the wild variations of sex to explore that she’d never explored, some she probably didn’t even know existed. Owning all that gorgeous, uncharted territory for his very own. Watching her experience pleasure she’d never known—at his hands, his mouth, his cock. Introducing her to the amazing world of sex awaiting her now that she was single and in her prime . . .

“Fuck that’s hot. Why is that so hot?” He shifted in his seat and adjusted the bulge of his cock against his jeans with a groan of frustration. “And why am I such a goddamned idiot?”

She’d probably had plenty of sex with her husband. They’d probably gone at each other like animals as soon as he returned from a tour and never left the bed until he deployed again. And why was Trace so ready to believe the stories of her faithfulness during their eight years of marriage? He’d been with enough women to know few remained faithful when they weren’t getting what they wanted at home—sexual or otherwise. He didn’t do married or committed women, but he’d discovered long ago that women lied like demons when they wanted what they wanted.