Did we really just do that? Had I just pulled up my dress, bent over, and spread my legs in the place where I work?
“Here.” Cletus suddenly appeared, looking devilishly handsome in the dim light and seemingly all put back together—like we’d been in here holding hands instead of. . . ANYWAY.
He held out my underwear. His eyes were bright even in shadow, and I could see they were half-lidded as they lazily trailed over me. He looked at me like he was hungry, and I was dinner. Despite all the encore orgasms I’d just had, the effect hit me right between my legs.
I wondered what he was thinking, watching as he licked his bottom lip and drew it into his mouth. Was he just as insatiable for me? And if so, was he okay with that?
Tearing my eyes away, I pulled on the lace and fixed my skirt, telling my body to settle down. We were getting married for hootenanny’s sake!
Cletus cocked his head to the side while I smoothed my hands down the red fabric, working to get a hold of all this raging want always coursing through my veins whenever he was near. Maybe it was because he was my first, and I guess, my only. Was that why I felt so crazed for him all the time?
“Miraculous,” he said.
I surmised he meant the dress. “Right? The wrinkles are hidden, if there are any. It’s ’cause they ruched the outer fabric at the seams, see?” I turned to the side to show him the seam, and he stepped forward as though he were going to investigate.
Instead, his hands cupped my face and tilted my chin back. He stared at me with a vibrant intensity I felt all the way to my fingertips. “No, Jenn. Not the dress. You.” Cletus gave me a soft kiss, ending it by gently nipping my bottom lip. “You are my miracle.”
I sighed. And I smiled. And I felt like I was walking on a cloud instead of in four-inch heels, which was also probably something of a miracle. “You say the sweetest things.”
“I think you mean, I say the truest things.”
I laughed, and he kissed my forehead. He held me there, in the dark with his lips pressed to my forehead. “I love you so completely, with every cell in my body. I wonder sometimes if I’d cease to exist—just evaporate or disappear—if anything ever happened to you.”
“No.” I anchored my hands to his wrists and squeezed. “Don’t think like that. We’ve got our whole lives in front of us. There’s nothing anyone can—”
Three bangs in quick succession pierced the quiet moment, and not a second later Cletus had me on the ground beneath him, covering my back with his body.
“Gunshots,” he whispered in my ear. “From the parking lot. Don’t move.”
Chapter Four
*Jenn*
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Isaac Asimov, Foundation
I didn’t move.
The spike of adrenaline fierce and sudden sent blood whooshing between my ears as they strained, listening, waiting. I could barely see a thing, and perhaps that only served to heighten my other senses, because I did hear shouts and screams coming from the direction of the barn.
Oh no!
God, please. Let everyone be okay.
I felt Cletus’s muscles beneath my hands start to relax and he leaned to my ear, whispering, “We shouldn’t leave yet. I’ll text Ashley, make sure everyone is—”
Another shot, two, three, four, and I bit my lip to keep from screaming because these came in through the back kitchen window, glass raining down around the kitchen island. More screams from the barn, still far away from where we were, trapped.
“Shit.” Cletus squeezed me tighter. As soon as the gunfire stopped, he grabbed my hand and let the rest of me go. “Stay low,” he ordered, pulling me after him to the big pantry.
We’d had a break-in over the summer, and they’d cleaned out our truffle oils, saffron, salts, freeze-dried strawberries, and anything else gourmet or hard to find. Therefore, the pantry now had a steel door which we kept locked during non-baking hours where all the nonperishable expensive food items were kept, along with the flours and sugars and such.
With steady hands, Cletus unlocked the door and pulled it open, pushing me inside. A second later, he followed. Instead of shutting the door like I assumed he would, he left it ajar just a few inches. I moved to stand, and he grabbed my wrist, pulling me back down.
“No, don’t stand. But take off your shoes, in case we have to run.”
Dumbly, I nodded and crouched again, then tried to do as he instructed but my hands were shaking too much. The only light coming in was from the crack in the door, and Cletus’s body blotted most of it out. I couldn’t see in the dark to untie the fastener. I was about to admit as much when the audible and recognizable sound of the bakery shop bell, jingling as someone entered, strangled the words in my throat.
Cletus held perfectly still and was so quiet, I couldn’t hear him breathe. But I did hear footsteps—multiple people’s footsteps—the squeak of soles against the floor. Forcing my breath to slow, I closed my eyes, listened, and prayed.
God, save us. God, protect us. And God, if one of those people out there is my father intending to do us harm, please strike him dead.
I wished Billy hadn’t held Cletus back from my father at the party. Assuming this person creeping out there now was my father and he’d been the one who’d shot into the bakery, if Cletus had been allowed to punch him in the face and send him to the hospital, we wouldn’t be hiding in the pantry right now.
I’ve learned my lesson, Lord. Even the Bible has smiting in the Old Testament. Violence might not be “the” answer. But clearly, it’s “an” answer from time to time.
The sound of cabinets opening and closing made me jump. Someone cursed, a distinctly male voice. One of the intruders turned on a faucet, at the main sink from the sound of how far away it was. The water ran and my heart—which had already been put through its paces for the night—sped as another set of footsteps came closer to the pantry.
Forcing my eyes open, I peered at the outline of Cletus crouched in front of the cracked door, sparse light coming in through the opening. I couldn’t really see anything else, but I wondered what or who Cletus could see. I swallowed the urge to ask, or to reach for him, or to do anything other than hold perfectly still and be frustrated.
Then someone banged on the back kitchen door, and I just about jumped out of my skin. Cletus reached for me and held one of my hands while I covered my mouth with the other.
“Who’s in there? Open up! It’s the police!” Jackson’s voice boomed from the outside and that sent the kitchen invaders running, heavy footfalls and then the jingle of the bell over the front door marking their exit.
“Who’s at the front?” we heard Jackson ask and another voice yelled something I didn’t understand. Then Jackson ordered, “Well go around then, go get him. I’ll go this way.”
In the next moment, Cletus turned and wrapped me in a hug, pulling my body flush against his and stroking my hair as he kissed my shoulder, neck, and face. “Are you okay?”
I nodded because I couldn’t speak.
“You did great. You did so great.”
He kept kissing me while I held him and gulped for air, not caring if my nails dug into or even tore his shirt. One of his arms held on as he shifted and pulled something from his back pocket. The phone screen woke, and I could see right away he had a ton of missed calls and unread messages, a fact confirmed when he navigated to his texts. Most were from within the last five minutes.