I nod in appreciation. Guiding him to my opening, I pause before I sit down.
“I would like to say that I appreciate your use of ‘please.’ Good manners, Doc,” I say.
He moves himself, trying to shove into me again. I stay lifted ever so slightly so he can’t.
He fires me a faux glare before gripping my hips. “Please.”
I drop down in one swift, fluid movement until he’s sunk completely inside me. We move together, moaning in unison. It’s a dance that feels familiar, yet so foreign at the same time. Each movement is matched perfectly, a push for a pull. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but always right.
I had no idea. Not a damn clue that sex could be . . . like this. So good. So hot. So . . . everything I’ve never had before.
It’s not a completely fair apples-to-apples kind of comparison when considering the men I’ve been with before, but still. This sets the bar. High.
He takes care of my body, makes me laugh, treats me like both his friend and his lover. It’s the wildest experience I’ve ever had and one I’m sure I’ll never forget.
Even when he leaves. Especially when he leaves.
When I’m snuggled next to him hours after the sun has gone down—and after Holden has gone down . . . twice—and our dinner is cold and mostly untouched, that unfortunate little reminder rears its head. This is so very temporary. Magnificent and incredible, but still so impermanent.
And I fall asleep with my cheek against Holden’s chest and my heart safely inside mine.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SOPHIE
The morning sun shines brightly through my office window. Steam rises from the cup of coffee on the corner of my desk and lures me in with its heavenly scent. I pull the mug closer and take a deep breath of the aroma with the hope that it will ground me. Put my feet on the floor. Lure me back into reality.
Because after last night? My head is in the clouds.
I floated from my bed to the kitchen—where I found a freshly brewed pot of coffee waiting for me. Somehow I drifted toward my office—where I discovered that Holden had locked the front door on his way out this morning. Then I sort of danced to my desk with not a care in the world, and that’s concerning.
I have cares in the world. Lots of them. It would behoove me to remember that.
“It’s just because I got some sleep last night,” I say before taking a sip of coffee. But even I don’t believe that. The only part that sleep plays in how I feel this morning is because I slept on Holden, after sleeping with him.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say, letting the warmth of the mug soak into my palms. “I’m a big girl. I can separate sex from . . . emotions.”
I set my mug down and wish it were that easy to set aside feelings. Particularly the ones that I have an inkling are going to get me in trouble.
In the center of my desk lies a receipt from the elderly couple who stayed with me. Mr. Ingram’s signature is shaky. So are the words “Bless You” that he carefully printed along the bottom of the paper when he checked himself and his wife out early one morning.
I settle back in my seat and gaze out the window. The Ingrams have such a beautiful relationship. He’d hold her hand when they walked to their car, and I’m not sure she ever opened a door for herself. She laughed at his jokes, which, by the little wink she’d toss me, I’m sure she’s heard a hundred times over their years together. It’s as if the years they’ve spent together have drawn them even closer.
All I can figure is that they got married in a different day and age—when attention spans were longer. People valued things differently back then. The top of the totem pole wasn’t a shiny car or a fancy college degree. It was a life well curated with people who love you.
I pick up a picture frame from beside my computer. In the photo, Gramma is bursting at the seams with pride as my brother, my sister, and I stand beside her.
My thumb runs over the glass.
“I’m sorry I didn’t understand in time,” I whisper to her.
My chest tightens as I think about how I let her down. I shunned her advice. I was so determined to leave, to do something bigger and better than anything in Honey Creek.
The truth is that life outside my hometown was filled with shiny objects and dazzling promises. But what it lacked was something even better: the simple things.
S’mores on paper plates in the evenings with neighbors. Dottie’s chicken noodle soup when you’re sick. Your sister coming over in the middle of the night because she watched a crime documentary and is too scared to sleep alone. The ability to pick your brother up from the bar when he’s had too much to drink.
“Shake this crap off,” I mumble.
The crunch of gravel grabs my attention, and I look out the window. My brother’s car pulls next to the flagpole.
The front door of the Honey House squeaks open. By the time the door shuts, Jobe is standing in my office with a grin as wide as Tennessee.
“What?” I ask, raising a brow.
“What do you mean, ‘What’?”
“I mean, what are you looking at me like that for?”
“What am I looking at you like?”
“Like you want me to throw my stapler at you.”
He chuckles.
I jiggle the mouse on my computer. The screen comes to life with a beach scene, prompting me for my password. I type it in as my brother makes himself at home. He sits across from me and props a boot on the edge of my desk.
“Get your foot down,” I tell him.
“Sorry.” He sits up with both feet on the ground. “Better?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
He holds my gaze. The corner of his lip slides up as if it’s trying to slide something out of me.
“Wanna tell me what this is all about?” I ask.
He relaxes back in his chair. “How’s married life treating you?”
“Good.”
“Just ‘good’? I didn’t come over last night in case you were getting some—”
“Jobe!” I sit back in my chair so hard that it rolls a little from the force. “What are you doing?”
My face heats as I look into my brother’s brown eyes. There’s a twinkle of roguery, of the troublemaker I know him to be. But despite his antics, he’s the one man I’ve been able to count on my whole life. He might come to my aid with a hangover or with a girl I don’t know—or even two, sometimes—on his arm, but he comes. Every time. It makes it hard to be irritated with him for too long.
“What?” he asks. “Is it that crazy to assume you might be screwing your husband?”
“I’m not talking about my sex life with you. That’s just . . . no. Ew.”
“Sounds to me like you might not have a sex life to talk about. Because if you aren’t fucking like rabbits on day . . . whatever it is of your marriage, then something might be wrong.”
My face is in flames. I can tell by the heat radiating from it and from Jobe’s triumphant grin.
Jerk.
“Oh my gosh,” I groan. “Can you just please go to the kitchen and get breakfast and get out of here? Don’t you have someone in this county to sell a house to?”
Instead of getting up, he settles in. I consider how much damage my stapler would actually cause. Emergency-room kind of damage I can’t handle, but he could probably superglue a wound shut himself without too much of a problem.