When I made my way into his dark bedroom, Brady peeled back the covers, and I slipped in next to him. I turned to face the open doorway so he could spoon me the way I liked. His face burrowed into my hair, the tip of his nose brushing the shell of my ear.
Like a big dumb idiot, I asked something I’d been thinking about for a long time now. “Why haven’t you dated anyone in a while, Brady?”
He didn’t freeze like he’d been caught in some lie. His breath remained even against my back, and his hand continued around my waist, tucking itself beneath my rib cage. “No reason. Just hadn’t met anyone I was interested in dating.”
“Tell me you weren’t waiting for me,” I said, voice as unsteady as I expected him to be.
But, once again, he surprised me. He drew his lips confidently along my neck, kissing the sensitive spot just below my ear, weaponizing my desire. I closed my eyes rather than moan the way I wanted to.
“Then I won’t tell you,” he finally whispered. “Don’t make this weird,” he murmured just before his tongue touched my nape.
“Me?” I practically wheezed as his fingers grazed along my stomach to grip my hip.
“You’re so dramatic,” he accused, and I could hear the amusement in his voice.
I rolled to face him, suddenly desperate to see the smile on his face and equally as determined to kiss it off. My lips started urgent and reckless, but he gentled the kiss by degrees, making long sweeping strokes with his hand up and down my bare back and pausing to kiss the corners of my lips and the tip of my nose.
Brady made love to me, and he made sure I knew it. Every reverent touch, every ragged breath, every ounce of pleasure he wrang from my willing body was imprinted with his adoration. For once, I didn’t try to rush things or even the score. I just let him love me. I didn’t question his motives or whether or not I deserved them. I allowed myself to be swept away and swept under.
Afterward, when I finally drifted off to sleep, it was with my head on Brady’s chest and his steady heartbeat calling me home.
I awoke the next morning when a pan clanged down the hall, followed by a hushed, “Damn it.”
I smiled into Brady’s pillow before blindly reaching for his tee shirt on the floor. I pulled it over my head and breathed in the fresh scent of sun and sand. This was better than going into Brady’s shower and huffing his bodywash like a lunatic. If he caught me, I’d never live it down.
The events from the previous night came rushing back. The giddy sort of joy at being out together in public followed by the revelation with the drunk girls in the bathroom. I thought about Brady calling me the love of his life, searching for anger or fear or righteous indignation, but, just like the night before, it never materialized.
Instead, I felt safe and warm, buoyed by his affections.
I was twenty-nine-years old, and I’d been dating since I was fifteen. And never once had I found myself in love. Nothing more than attraction or mild infatuation. Monogamous relationships that hadn’t lasted beyond a few months, but more accurately, a few weeks. I thought starkly,I should have fallen in love by now.
Except for a few teenage dirtbags, it wasn’t like there had been anything wrong with the men I’d dated. They just hadn’t been for me.Safe, Brady had called them all those months ago. And he’d been right. People who hadn’t known me as the outspoken Clark, the permanent fixture on her family’s land and in this town. Transplants who could draw their own conclusions and accept the version of myself I presented as the unflinching truth.
So much of my hometown was tied up in knots inside me, tangled with expectation and shame and disappointment. But that had more to do with me and my own convoluted feelings than my neighbors.
Another metallic scrape drew my attention and urged me from the bedroom. I crept quietly, peeking around the corner and jolting in surprise. I fought my laughter as I watched Brady in the sunny space for a long moment.
All the years blurred along with the faces of the men I’d dated. The whys and wonderings of how none of them ever stuck swirled around the fact that I’d never loved a single one of them.
Some part of me worried that the man moving around this kitchen, wearing an apron and boxer briefs and nothing else, might be the biggest, sweetest, most ridiculous reason why.
“Hey,” Brady said when he finally turned and found me lurking. His smile was bright and infectious, and I found myself grinning back. “You feeling okay? Want some pain reliever?”
Stepping more fully into the kitchen, I shook my head, noting his mussed hair and all the dirty dishes littering the countertops. “No, I’m good. What are you making me?”
“Well, I’ve got a breakfast casserole with baked eggs, some fresh strawberries, and lemon lavender scones in the oven.”
I swallowed. That sounded amazing. And he’d made it for me. Beenwaitingto make it for me. “Scones,” I teased. “Those are just high-maintenance biscuits.”
Brady laughed. His blue eyes, warm and pleased, stayed on me until a timer went off, and he went to retrieve the fancy scones from the oven.
I watched in amused awe as he expertly drizzled a pale glaze over the tops before delicately sprinkling bits of dried lavender.
The scones were good, all said and done. Everything was delicious. We sat next to one another on tall stools at the central island while I ate every crumb on my plate.
“How’d you get so good at cooking and baking?” I asked once I’d taken the final bite of my casserole, the eggs so fluffy and tender I wanted to die.
Brady finished chewing before replying. “I liked helping my momma when I was a kid. She’d walk me through making brownies or chocolate chip cookies, and it just sort of stuck. Following directions and working one step at a time appealed to me. I kept it up in college, cooking once a week for my teammates. Usually easy stuff like pasta—nothing fancy. But it was something I enjoyed.”
