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That was all I needed. In one swift move, I lunged forward and hauled her against me, wrapping her in my arms as I claimed her mouth with a searing kiss. She trembled in my arms, but I was happy as a hog in a wallow when she kissed me back.
Her arms wrapped round my back, and she held on tight, her lips wild and hungry for me like she’d missed this as much as I had. I could tell she was needy for this. I recognized her desperate urge to reconnect with the one who got away because my heart mirrored it.
Blood pounded in my ears as I worked my lips over hers, and when her mouth parted and I got a taste of the sweetness of the deeper kiss, it almost brought me to my knees. Man, this woman and her kisses had always been like sunshine mixed with a hurricane, and after six long years, she could still make me hot all over and completely blown away.
“Hey, lovebirds, don’t you know you’re supposed to make out inside the truck, not standing in the middle of the road?” a voice shouted from behind me.
Regretfully, I opened my eyes and broke the kiss, biting my lower lip so hard I tasted blood. I turned to see that we were, in fact, standing in the middle of the parking lot and squarely in front of the car that the guy had hung his head out of so he could yell at us. I’d been so wrapped up in Laney that I hadn’t even noticed his headlights shining on us like a spotlight.
I lifted a hand in apology and guided my woman out of the road so he could pass by—instantly standing straighter at just the thought of that. My woman. She’d always been mine, no matter the nature of our relationship or the distance between us. And whatever happened from here, she always would be.
“Well, that was awkward,” she said with a laugh as she tucked her long blonde hair behind her ear. A bright blush stained her cheeks, and the redness around her well-kissed lips was visible even in the dim light, and it sent another shot of heat through me.
“Wouldn’t be the high school parkin’ lot if we weren’t caught kissin’ in it,” I replied with a wink.
A slow grin lit up her face at that, and she slid into my waiting arms, fitting against me like a lost puzzle piece that’d finally found its way home. I kissed the top of her head as she hummed against my chest, and suddenly it felt like all was right in the world.
There was still the matter of her relationship with Riley and what all this meant, but I smashed that down. We could circle back later. Right now, all I wanted was the feel of her and the glow that came from knowing she wanted me too.
“Well, well, well,” Paisley said as she came outside with Riley in tow, “here I thought we’d have to call an Uber to get back to the B&B.”
“Sorry, sugar, you won’t find any Uber drivers in these here parts,” I told her, smiling wider when I felt Laney chuckle in my arms. But then I belatedly realized I had my arms wrapped around another man’s girlfriend—fake or not—and released her.
A small smile tugged up one corner of Riley’s lips as he noticed, but he made no comment. He also made no move to stand possessively near her or stake his claim in that way guys do when they feel some type of way, so I relaxed a little, nodding at him.
“So, I guess the reunion was a success, then?” Paisley asked, pointing at us to show she wasn’t talking about the one happening within the walls of the gym.
“Yeah, I guess it was,” Laney said, looking up at me with a quirked brow as she wrapped her arms around my middle once again. “But we still have a lot to figure out.”
If she hadn’t been standing there holding me together, I might have burst apart with happiness. Beams of light would have shot out of every part of me like the Fourth of July. Well, something like that. In a very manly, non-cheesy way, of course.
Paisley grinned, and oddly enough, Riley looked almost pleased to hear it. Strange thing, imagining this country star being happy for his fake girlfriend as she reunited with her ex. But hey, I wasn’t one to fix things that weren’t broken.
“Great,” Paisley said, clapping her hands together. “Well, I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about, but if you could give us a lift back to the B&B before y’all ride off into the sunset, I’d appreciate it. Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yeah?” Laney asked.
“For the love of country music, stay out of sight. We don’t need this whole town talking about your reunion before we figure out how we’re going to break you and Riley up. Y’all don’t need a cheating scandal on your hands. Not that you’d ever do that,” Paisley added hastily, hands up. “But you know how it is. A picture’s worth a thousand words.”
Laney and I exchanged wary glances with Riley. Was I happy about getting my girl back after all this time? Sure was. But was I nervous about the consequences—for her sake, more than mine? Absolutely.
We piled into Judd’s truck and dropped Paisley and Riley at the Charlotte Oaks B&B. I’d opted to leave my own truck in the lot at the school since there was no way I’d let her out of my sight until we talked about our next steps.
I couldn’t risk her deciding we’d made some kind of mistake by kissing, even though it’d been her words, not mine, when she’d said the reunion was a success. In my experience, our timing always seemed to be off for one reason or another, and I wasn’t about to let it happen again.
“So, now where we goin’?” Laney asked after hopping back in the truck outside the B&B.
She’d walked her friend and phony boyfriend to the door, then after Riley went inside the women chatted for a minute before parting ways. I couldn’t help but hope it was the girly OMG-we-just-kissed-and-I-love-this-guy kinda talk and not the oh-shoot-what-have-I-done kinda talk. But they’d been too far away for me to tell by their expressions, so I’d have to wait and see.
“Come on, girl. You should know by now,” I replied, giving her a sidelong look from the driver’s seat. No matter whose truck we were in, it was our thing for me to be the one to take the wheel, and she didn’t seem to mind falling right back into that. “Buckle up.”
She obeyed with a coy smile. “You can’t take this truck off-roadin’, Everett. It cost more than my pretty pink convertible sittin’ in your shop right now.”
“No wonder your daddy likes his old one better,” I teased. “But no, I’m not talkin’ about goin’ off-roadin’. I’m talkin’ about the dock.”
Laney let out a hum that set fire to my blood and leaned back in the leather seat. “Okay, much better. Let’s do it.”
Reaching over, I laced our fingers together and kissed the back of her hand. She shot me a smile and I took off, our hands linked over the wide center console.
