The Imperfections

She still has one arm draped over my shoulder, and as I start to move my kisses along her finger, across her hand, down toward the sensitive flesh along her wrist, that arm tightens and she pulls herself closer to me.

“You said something about a bedroom?” she murmurs, peering up at me.

I crack a smile. “Two bedrooms,” I verify. “Unfortunately, I hauled the furniture out of them when I bought the place and I never replaced it. If you wanna move in, we’ll buy you a new bed.”

“I was thinking of something for more immediate use,” she says, dropping the hand I was kissing and rubbing it against the growing bulge in my pants. “As long as it has a floor, I bet we can make it work.”

“I’m sorry to tell you, sweetheart, I am too old to have sex on a hardwood floor.”

Laughing, she tells me, “You are not old—stop that.” Letting her arm skate along my shoulder and down my arm, her gaze follows appreciatively. “Besides, you’re in great shape.”

“I promise to fuck you later, when we’re in bed or you’re bent over my couch, or even on a blanket spread out on the grass, but not on hardwood floor.”

Her hand slides down until it’s entwined with mine. “Mm, picnic sex. I like it.”

“Or we could fuck on the couch while we watch Pretty Woman—then I don’t have to pay attention to the movie. I can fuck you and go right to sleep with you snuggled up on top of me. It’ll work out great.”

“Hey,” she says, wrinkling her nose up at me. “If you don’t want to watch my movie, you could just say so. We can watch something else.”

“Nah. You want to watch that, so that’s what we’ll watch.”

“I want you to enjoy my last night here,” she insists.

“I will definitely enjoy your last night here. What’s on the television won’t impact that.”

I don’t like thinking about it being her last night here, and I especially don’t like that I care one way or the other. This weekend sure has not gone the way I thought it would. On one hand, I can’t complain, because it has been nice having her here. On the other hand, now the weekend’s almost over and I’m not sure what happens next.

Not only is she still alive and breathing, and still carrying Theo’s baby, I just invited her to move onto my property so she has somewhere to raise the little rugrat. It’s bound to make my life harder if she says yes, but to hell with it.

I reach down and grab her hand. She naturally falls into step beside me as I walk her back toward the door. “We better go catch up to Scout or he’ll go down to the lake without us.”

8

Alyssa

After a long, wonderful day exploring Brant’s property, we head back to the house and he fires up the grill to cook our steaks. I go inside to make sides and feed Scout, then we come together at the table to eat what might be our last dinner together.

I hope it’s not our last dinner together, but I have no idea if it will be or not. All day I’ve been hoping he’d ease my confusion about what it is we’re actually doing here, but he hasn’t.

It feels a lot like dating to me, but he still hasn’t kissed me. Not at the lake when we were sitting on the ground, playing with Scout. Not when he hauled me off his ATV, his hands lingering on my body longer than they needed to as he helped me get down. Not even when he spread me out on that picnic blanket he’d had me fantasizing about, pushed up my skirt, pulled down my panties, and licked my pussy until I cried out with abandon, all alone with him in the woods.

Well, I guess he kissed me then, just not on my mouth.

It’s so weird how he’s okay with kissing literally everywhere else, but not there.

He hasn’t said what’ll happen once I leave, so I’m hoping he addresses it at dinner—at least, I’m hoping for it until it happens.

“I need to know you’re gonna stay away from Theo once I take you home,” he says, not looking up from his plate.

His words send a ball of discomfort tumbling around inside my belly. Maybe it shouldn’t, given it’s only been a couple days we’ve been together, but it feels like longer to me, and I feel like he knows me better than that now.

“Alyssa,” he says more firmly, looking at me across the table.

Stiffening, I bring my gaze to his. “I can’t believe you even have to ask me that.”

Sighing heavily, he says, “I know we’ve had a nice few days, regardless of all the reasons we shouldn’t have, but tomorrow you go back to your life and maybe the spell breaks. People have a tendency to fall back into old habits when they’re back in the same old environment. I’m gonna be pissed as hell if you fall right back—”