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“Will I see you later?” he asked.
She bit her lip to keep from smiling triumphantly. This man was sex on a cycle, and he couldn’t wait to see her again. The feeling was nice and so very mutual. “The dedication is tomorrow. Won’t it be a busy day for you?”
“Shit. I guess it might be.”
“I’m working until seven tonight. I’ll get in touch later and see what’s going on.”
“Deal.” He kissed her nose and retreated back into the bedroom. She touched the spot he’d kissed and tried not to feel warm inside. It was just sex, and it would be over within days. And if that made her stomach knot up, that was only the kind of affection you felt for a man who was that spectacular in bed.
He was everything she’d always wanted. Things she’d touched on with other men, but the connection had never quite been there. She’d had intense, kinky sex before, but she’d never felt hollowed out by it afterward. And she’d never wanted to beg the guy to crawl back into bed and spend the day there, just talking.
Okay, not just talking. But mostly.
God. This wasn’t good.
But it didn’t matter what she wanted. He needed to go before someone spotted his bike. Sophie was alarmed to realize she hadn’t even considered where he’d parked it. She was losing her discretion over this guy. That was probably worse than the prospect of losing her heart. At least that would still be private. No one would see it. Any heartache would belong to her.
She watched him stop to look around the dim bedroom in confusion. “Your shirt is out here,” she said.
He flashed a smile and picked up his boots. “Thanks. That part was a bit of a blur. I mean my clothes coming off. I remember every moment of taking yours off.”
“Not many of yours came off,” she said drily.
“Ah. Right. Not very gentlemanly of me.” His lazy smile let her know he wasn’t apologizing.
“You made up for it later.”
“Yeah.” His smile faltered a little as he sat down and pulled on his shirt. “That was really nice last night.”
It had been nice. Having his whole big, naked body pressed against her, taking over all of her bed. It had been damn nice.
She watched as he pulled on a boot and tugged the laces tight. The muscles of his back flexed and bunched beneath his T-shirt as he worked. She liked the way he moved. He was so self-assured. So easy with his body.
She was confident enough about her body, but she was also conscious of it. Aware. Alex just existed. His body was his, to do what he wanted with. To use and mark.
She smirked. Maybe that described her body, too.
“All right,” he said as he scratched the kitten under the chin. “I’ll see you girls later.”
She absolutely, unequivocally did not melt a little at those words. She melted a lot. But she somehow managed to stay where she was standing and say goodbye from there. She didn’t need a kiss. She didn’t need a scratch on the chin.
But once he’d gone, she collapsed onto the couch and pulled the kitten close. “Why does he have to be so cute?” she whispered into the warm fur. The kitten purred in response. “I know. It’s terrible. We should stop seeing him.”
His motorcycle roared to life from a comfortable distance. He must have rolled it down to the street before starting it. His caution reminded her that she had bigger problems than this little crush.
She set down the kitten—who promptly curled up in the space where Alex had sat—and went out to grab the paper. Her brother had made the front page. Tweny-Five-Year-Old Mystery Revived by Brand-New Lawsuit.
Well, they’d damn well summed it up perfectly, hadn’t they?
Not much more was revealed about the lawsuit. It seemed that it was pretty straightforward. David Heyer was suing for a million dollars in actual and punitive damages for the untimely death of his mother due to the negligent or reckless driving of Wyatt Bishop. The lawsuit also mentioned that the accident had occurred on a private road on land owned by the Bishop family.
But the worst part of the article was that the reporter had used the lawsuit as an excuse to rehash the entire scandal. Now even the youngest generations of Jackson could experience the deliciousness of the story.
How Dorothy Heyer and Wyatt Bishop had disappeared on the same summer day twenty-five years ago after purchasing a camping trailer. How their months-long affair had come to light. The writer even listed some of the discarded rumors that had circulated over the ensuing years, though she failed to mention that every one of them had been perpetuated by Rose Bishop.
Eventually Greg Heyer had petitioned for his wife to be declared dead. Thankfully the article didn’t mention that the petition had started the very worst rumor of all: that Greg Heyer had discovered the lovers together and killed them both. Sophie had been surprised by that one. It had been sprung on her during gym class. She could still remember standing in the locker room clutching her sweatshirt to her chest and pretending the awful words had meant nothing.
The article then detailed the evening last summer when Shane Harcourt had found his father’s truck and the skeletal remains inside. There was even a picture of the crash site.
