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He finishes chewing, swallows, and wipes his mouth. “Good, actually. Finished draft one yesterday. Now on to thefunpart. Revisions.” He takes a sip of coffee. “Considering my head was a mess during the first twenty-five percent, I have no shame in admitting it’s partial garbage.” I jump as he lays a hand on my thigh under the table. “But I won’t publish a word unless I love the end result.”
Slow, measured strokes. One, then another. And another. His fingers dance lightly across my denim-clad thigh. Perspiration slicks my skin that has nothing to do with the late spring weather. Tingles ripple from the point of contact and spread like wildfire. Leaning over his plate to take another bite, his fingers shift up and to the inside of my thigh.
Breath caught in my lungs, I lick my lips. He gives me a devilish smile, squeezes my thigh, then leans back. The heat of him vanishes while the hum he elicits remains.
“You know,” I start on a laugh. “Only minutes ago, Mandi was giving me a hard time. Said she knew something was going on between us.”
Braydon shifts his gaze, stares inside the café for a beat, smiles, then meets my blues. “She isn’t wrong.”
Nervousness thickens in my throat and I swallow past it. “No, she’s not.”
God, why is that so scary to admit?
While Braydon eats his breakfast, I stare at the people walking along Main Street. Lose focus and mentally zone out for a moment. I don’t want to thinkwhyconfessing the truth flipped my stomach upside down. Why it made me a little dizzy. Instead, I look out toward the mountain and trees in the distance. Tell myself I only feel this way because Braydon and I have spent so much time together recently. That it is chemistry and nothing more.
What else could it be?
I mentally shake off the path my thoughts start to take. It doesn’t matter what I feel. He lives in the city and I live here. Feelings won’t change facts.
“I’m back in my apartment,” I blurt out.
Braydon pushes his plate away, leans back in his chair, and kicks his feet out. His eyes roam my face. “That’s good news.”
It is good news. No more unfamiliar beds or disrupting my friends. No more lack of privacy or accidentally waking Mags at dark-thirty in the morning as I leave. And no more wishing for Braydon to stay over… because now he can without anyone being uncomfortable.
“Come over when I finish up?”
He sits up and leans in my direction, his hand returning to my thigh. Sliding his phone across the table, he unlocks it and passes it to me. “Yes, but only if you give me your number again.” He winces. “I may have deleted it in a moment of anger.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I hold it as my hand reaches for his phone and nod in understanding. He’d had every right to be upset with me when he left. I’d cut him off. Essentially threw him away.
But he came back. Mainly for work, but he admitted I was more the reason for his return.
For five vicious heartbeats, I stare at the screen. Then my fingers dance across the screen. Create a new contact and enter my details. Type out a message and feel my back pocket buzz after I press send, so I have his number again as well.
“I’ll message you when I’m close to being done.” I slide the phone in his direction.
He stares down at the screen with the brightest smile on his lips. “I look forward to it, firecracker.”
CHAPTER26
BRAYDON
Idon’t want to leave but know in the next day or two, I have to.
Yesterday, I wrapped up the self-edits on my story. Soon as I send it to the editor at the magazine, Dad will reach out. Ask when I plan to return. Tell me the next town he wants me to visit and write anothermagicalstory about.
But I’m not ready. To leave Lake Lavender. To return to my cold and lonely apartment in the city. To be anywhere Alessandra is not.
Nausea rolls in my stomach at the idea of getting in my car and driving out of town. It is not a question ofifI will see Alessandra again, butwhen.
Without effort, she had me forgetting my own rules about love. We’ve spent less than a month in each other’s company and in that time, I got attached. Love is too strong a word to affix to what I feel for Alessandra. I’d say I am very much inlikewith her, though.
“Ahh,” Alessandra groans as she rolls onto her side, fingers trailing up my chest. “Too early.” She snuggles the length of my torso. “Quit thinking so much.”
My frame shakes as light laughter leaves my lips. “Sorry my thinking woke you.” I press my lips to her crown. “I’ll try not to think so loudly in the morning.”
Hooking her leg over my hip, she paints small circles over my skin with her fingers. Kisses a path from my pec to my collarbone. Licks her way up the side of my neck and sucks the lobe of my ear between her lips. With a shift of her weight, she straddles my hips. Grinds her drenched center over my thickening erection.
