“How many times have you done that over the years?”
I opened my eyes and caught his gaze. “Too often.”
“Fucking right you did.” He claimed my mouth again, hard and unyielding. I was paying for all the times I’d come with his name on my lips. When we’d just broken up. When he’d been married. When I’d been alone and thinking of him while dating other men.
Gravel crunched and he pulled away so fast that my feet untangled from behind him.
I cartwheeled my arms. “Shit!”
He pulled me off the railing before I could tumble backward. As soon as my feet hit the floorboards, he careened to the end of the porch and stared into the trees.
I feathered a hand over my hair and looked behind me. Teller’s pickup came into view.
I glanced at Rhys’s back. His shoulders rose and fell with his breathing.
My cheeks were probably red and my lips kiss-swollen, but I’d have to put on a show. I smiled and waved like I hadn’t been kissed senseless, talked dirty to and then abandoned in the space of a chord.
“I can’t do that again.”
I paused at Rhys’s voice.
“It’s too hard to let you go, and I will let you go, June. Don’t doubt me on that.”
The glow from the kiss was effectively extinguished.
“How can I doubt you when I’ve lived through the proof?” I lifted my chin and smiled at Summer as Teller parked next to Rhys’s pickup.
I was back to being a bucket of conflicting emotions around Rhys, but irritation rose to the top. I was tired of getting burned by his heat.
“If that’s what you plan to do, you should probably stop kissing me,” I said to his back.
He whipped his head around, and I only cocked a brow. Then I danced down the steps. “Howdy.” I gave Summer a quick hug. “I’m ready to talk contracts and bourbon.”
Teller’s brown gaze swung from me to Rhys. “Did we come at a bad time?”
He knew damn well we’d arranged this meeting. He was digging for an explanation of why Rhys was here. If I didn’t give him something, he’d keep probing and he wouldn’t be the only one. Summer would be relentless.
“Not at all.” I waved for them to follow me up the porch. “Rhys came to tell me that my absence from Nashville has been noted.”
Annoyance crossed Summer’s face. “Why is it anyone’s business?”
“On a positive note,” I said, “that means there’sinterest. Honestly, if no one talked about me, I’d be worried.”
Summer continued to frown. “That’s not how it should work.”
But it did.
“I’ll leave you be.” Rhys nodded at Teller, then at Summer. He avoided my gaze as he took the stairs down and started for his truck.
“See you Sunday? Or are the girls taking the summer off?” My breathing ceased until he answered. He had his out. Would he take it? I would miss the girls. They were quick and enthusiastic learners and just plain fun to be around.
He stopped before rounding the front of his pickup. “No, they’ll want to keep lessons up except for the weeks they’re with Wren.” This time, he lifted his shuttered gaze to mine. “Until you leave.”
His words hit me dead center of my chest. They came out with such certainty but also with a hint of wistfulness like he was just counting down the days until I left him again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
June
