She locked the apartment door, and we started down the bakery steps, but I couldn’t hold back the laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“You, little flame, you.”
“What? It’s the truth. You have clothes here, Carragan, I’m never going to be able to rid myself of you, am I?” She rolled her eyes as she locked the door to the bakery, and we started walking towards my SUV.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You couldn’t make me leave, no matter how hard you tried.”
“Whatever you say,” she shot back, and I couldn’t help but smile.
Fuck, this woman made me giddy.
I was bringing a girl home—well,not home in the sense of ‘this is where I grew up and this was my childhood bedroom where my baseball glove still sits in the corner’. But home, in the sense of, this was where my mom lived and had baby pictures of us hung up everywhere.
As I pulled up in front of the house, parking next to my siblings’ vehicles, I walked around and opened up Ember’s door.
“I can’t believe this is where you grew up,” she muttered.
“Well, technically it isn’t. Oliver has the old family house. We built this for Mom when Oliver got married and had his son. She wanted him to have his own space and shit, so this was her design, and her boys made it happen. Payton helped decorate, that’s sort of her secret passion that isn’t really a secret once she starts yapping about the color wheel and matching couch pillows or whatever.”
“It’s stunning,” she replied as she looked over the house again.
It was a tall A-frame with massive windows on the front and the back end butted out into a long rectangle. A deck wrapped around the home, and wind chimes decorated the entirety of it. Mom had recently wrapped outdoor fairy lights around the banisters to make it look more ethereal. At least, that was what she’d said the last time I’d been over here.
To me, it just felt homey—ethereal lights or not. Especially now that it was framed by the changing autumn leaves.
“I’m glad you like it.” I hopped out of the car and opened her door for her. Watching her step out, the slight breeze blowing her hair off her shoulders, I was momentarily entranced. “I almost wish I were artistic like Aspen,” I muttered.
Her dark eyes looked back over her shoulder at me, a questioning look thrown my way.
“Just to be able to fully capture this moment, you here, framed by this backdrop, looking as stunning as you do.” I shrugged and pushed the little bit of her hair back behind her ear that had escaped.
Another blush graced her pale cheeks, and she took my hand in hers. “Let’s do this, Wyatt.”
I leaned down and kissed her cheek, just a brief brush of my lips, before I whispered, “Don’t worry, little flame. We’ll do this, have some fun, and then I’ll chase you through the woods this evening, until my cock is buried so deep into your tight little cunt you won’t even remember having to socialize with anyone besides your man.”
Her eyes widened, and she stared at me for a moment. “You fucking suck,” she replied. “How the fuck am I supposed to go in there and meet your mother now, Wyatt Carragan, when the only thing now on my mind is her son bending me over and fucking me against a tree again?”
I smiled before I took a step closer, forcing her to step back. Before she knew it, she was pressed up against my SUV, my body framing hers as I set a hand beside her head and leaned in.
“Is that what you want, little flame? Want me buried to the hilt in that sweet little pussy of yours? Take you far out in the woods where no one will hear me taking you against the autumn pines?” I whispered.
She stared up at me, her pupils huge as her breathing picked up.
“Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” she replied. “But I don’t want to fuck this up.”
“What’s the problem, Ember? Why do you think it’ll go wrong?” I asked, my voice low.
She let out a breath, never breaking eye contact.
“She’s going to hate me. Truly, and then what? You end this little thing we’re doing? All these tumultuous feelings I’m having, I do what with them? Ignore them? Blow them off? Bury the feelings of inadequacy? I’m not sure what we’re doing or where this is going, but if shehatesme? You’ll leave and I’ll be left wondering what I could’ve done differently.” She looked back towards the house, her chest heaving, before her eyes returned to me. “Or worse, what if she loves me? What if she expects me to give her small, little Wyatt’s to run around the Carragan Ranch, helping on the farm? I don’twantlittle Wyatt’s, do you understand what I’m saying?”
A tear slid down her cheek, and she went to wipe it away, but I grabbed her wrist, stopping her. Leaning down, I licked the salty droplet from her cheek, only to kiss her where it had landed. She froze beneath me, which had been my goal. A quick, little, shocking action to bring her back down here with me.
“So you don’t want children?” I asked calmly, and she shook her head no. “Okay, good,” I said with a shrug.
