Page 199 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

I kissed him.

There was nothing careful about it.

My hands went into his hair as his mouth met mine, and weeks of fear seemed to collide with weeks of wanting him. Beau caught my waist, pulling me toward the edge of the bench, and I felt the low sound that left him against my mouth.

That sound nearly destroyed me, because there was no mistaking it.

He wanted me.

Even now.

Especially now.

The kiss deepened as his hand moved along my waist and across my back, holding me close without trying to control where my body went. I could feel the strength in him, the restraint too, and for once I wasn’t wondering when the moment would come where his attention shifted to what was missing.

His mouth moved from mine to my jaw, then lower toward the sensitive place beneath my ear that he’d discovered weeks ago and apparently remembered perfectly.

My head tipped back. “Beau.”

“You okay?” His mouth paused against my neck.

“Yes.”

He kissed me again.

I closed my eyes as his hand moved over the bare skin of my thigh, and something inside me cracked open when his fingers passed over the edge of a scar without hesitation. He didn’t worship it. He didn’t avoid it. He simply learned me the same way he had been learning everything else.

The way I took my coffee.

The way I worried my nails when I was nervous.

The way I hated asking for help.

All of it belonged to the same woman.

His mouth returned to mine, and I shifted closer until there was almost no space left between us. The heat of him made it impossible to question whether the desire I’d been terrified of losing was still there.

For the first time since the accident, I wasn’t waiting for a man to prove that I had been foolish for trusting him with my body.

I was simply being kissed.

And I wanted more.

That realization frightened me enough to slow down, but not because I wanted Beau to stop.

I pulled back reluctantly.

He followed me for half a second before catching himself, his forehead settling against mine as we both tried to breathe normally.

His eyes held mine and I touched his cheek, not ready for this moment to end.

Later that night, I sat on the porch with my prosthetic off and my leg resting comfortably across the cushioned bench. Beau sat beside me eating a slice of Meme’s apple pie.

Meme sat across from us, deeply offended because Beau had apparently committed the unforgivable crime of declining vanilla ice cream.

“Pie is supposed to have ice cream,” she informed him.

“I like it without.”