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Alistair must’ve had a lot of money to be able to buy out an entire town. My head spun with the thought of how much money that would take… or maybe it was just the alcohol I’d taken in.
“I’ve lived there my whole life. Eastcreek is the kind of place where nothing ever changes, but when the Montgomerys came and bought up a whole bunch of land to build Montgomery Manor, I knew. Fast-forward five years, and they’d bought out a quarter of the town. Businesses, rental properties, all that stuff. Ten years later, Alistair’s getting parks dedicated to him. He funds everything, in one way or another, to the point where the entire town is dependent on him. Course, it wasn’t him who did it to start with. It was his sister.”
“His sister?” I asked. Alistair’s sister, AKA Gareth’s mom.
Rick nodded. “She came to town with Alistair. He was living with her, since he wasn’t quite eighteen yet. Technically, Montgomery Manor was hers. When she died, he inherited it all and took over the town. He also got Gareth.”
“What about Gareth’s dad?”
“He died a few years after the kid was born. If you ask me, he’s never had a good role model, but something’s been off about that kid from the get-go. Sometimes people are just born wrong.”
My voice came out quiet, “Wow.” And then it hit me, what Rick had said before. “You live in Eastcreek.”
It was only because of the strung fairy lights that I was able to see the slow smile creeping along Rick’s face. “Yeah, I do. I guess you and I might see each other more often.” When I only stared at him, he added, “It’s a small town. Probably ain’t what you’re used to here in the big city.”
“What do you do? Please tell me you’re not a teacher.” The last thing I needed to do was get up close and personal with one of my future teachers at Eastcreek High. Talk about awkward.
That got him to chuckle. “No, I’m not a teacher. You’re safe there.” He got quiet after that, his eyes staring hard at me. His body leaned in toward me, and when I breathed in, I could smell him: earthy, like pine needles, almost. It wasn’t a bad smell.
Quite the opposite, actually.
“Brianna,” he whispered out my name, taking his free hand and tucking some of my hair behind an ear, his fingers dancing down along my jaw in the same motion, lingering there. “I wish it wasn’t you.”
I had no idea what he meant by that, and I was seconds from opening my mouth to ask him, but before I could, the hand on my jaw swept back into my hair, pulling me in. His breath smelled faintly of booze, but I supposed mine did, too.
I was practically on his lap when he murmured, “Someone like you wasn’t meant for that house.” And then his lips found mine, kissing me long and hard.
It was my first kiss. And maybe it was due to the alcohol, but it wasn’t as complicated as I always thought kisses were. Or maybe Rick was just a good teacher. Either way, within seconds, I was responding, kissing him back.
I didn’t really know what I was doing or why I was kissing him. Hell, I didn’t know why he had kissed me to begin with. We were talking, sure, having a good time… but that didn’t mean things naturally progressed to kissing, did it?
Maybe it was the booze. Maybe we’d both had too much to drink. Whatever had been in the flask had been strong stuff.
I tentatively brought a hand to his neck, curling it around him and holding myself to him. His kisses weren’t what I would call sloppy or messy; more like strong and commanding. Firm and confident.
It wasn’t awful, kissing him. Quite the opposite, in fact. Even though he was basically a stranger, it was kind of nice to let go and not care. Freeing, in a way.
After a few heated moments, Rick pulled his mouth off mine, panting, his hot breath blooming on my face. He was slow in pulling his hand out of my hair and moving away from me. He scooted away, putting a solid foot between us as he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
If he thought he’d pressured me into the kiss or that I wasn’t in my right mind, he was wrong. I might feel a little buzzed, but I was thinking logically. I was still here mentally. He didn’t pressure me into anything. Was it the age gap between us?
And then another thought hit me.
“Oh, God,” I muttered. “You don’t have a girlfriend or a wife, do you?” The last thing I needed was to be the other woman, someone Rick hooked up with at his old friend’s wedding. Plus, my mom would kill me if she knew I’d kissed a married man.
The things she’d call me… she’d probably join the mob in Eastcreek, pitchfork ready. She was always waiting to pick at my mistakes while simultaneously acting like she’d never made a single mistake in her life because she was better than that.
“No,” he said quickly. “Nothing like that. You’re just… you’re young. Technically, you’re Alistair’s stepdaughter now. That means you’re off-limits to a lot of people.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and at first, I thought he was joking, so I laughed. But then I saw he wasn’t kidding, a look of seriousness on his face, and that laughter died off as quickly as it had come.
“Listen, you might be used to things being a certain way, but from now on, everything is different. You’re a Montgomery, even if you deny it. You’re Alistair’s stepdaughter and Gareth’s stepsister. Neither of them take kindly to anyone sniffing around what’s theirs, do you understand?”
Uh, no, but I didn’t say that. “I guess.” Before I could say anything else, Rick took my hands in his.
“Don’t tell either of them about this,” he whispered. “Please. Let’s just keep tonight between you and me, our little secret.”
Usually when someone said that, it was because they wanted to hide something wrong that they’d done. But if Rick wasn’t married and he didn’t have a girlfriend, I didn’t see why it mattered so much. Yes, he was a bit older than me, but I was eighteen, old enough to sleep with him if I wanted. Nothing illegal about it.
