“What did she do?”
The question is gruff, but he’s tightening the hug, and I don’t care if he’s judging me.
I just know this feels good.
So good.
“Bad things,” I whisper. “She stole from people. She stole from a lot of people. Her friends. My friends. Junie’s friends’ parents. A lot of people.”
“You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t even have time to keep up with my own daughter, much less my mother.” Yep. Truth still hurts. “I don’t have anyone left in Cedar Rapids. Junie doesn’t have any friends left in Cedar Rapids. I didn’t want anyone here to know because she deserves the same safe space I had when I was her age and I’d come out here. I don’t care if anyone knows for me. I care that they don’t know for her.”
“That’s why you don’t want kids on the ranch.”
“I cannot take any risks. I can’t put my daughter’s security and comfort and safety in jeopardy.” I shudder at all the doomsday scenarios that have played through my head over the past year or so. “I need to be dependable for her. I don’t ever want her to feel the way I did when I saw my mom put in handcuffs. She’s been through enough already.”
He strokes my back and presses a kiss to my head. “Okay. Okay. We’ll take care of June.”
We’ll take care of June.
That’s everything I need.
I need to know that my daughter will be okay.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“People here won’t judge you on what your mother did,” he says gruffly. “They know Tony thought the world of you. Up to you to make them think less.”
“By getting them thrown off a horse, being a pain in the ass about liability, and trying to convince them to let Junie on the soccer team with a cherry-crisp bribe?” I whisper.
His chuckle rumbles through his chest, passing into me, and there’s no more denying it.
I’m in trouble.
I like this man.
“So you admit it was a bribe.”
“But I took one to everyone. And I even gave Mr. Simmerton an apple crisp because I heard he liked those better.”
“We definitely judge parents who bring us treats. You’re our least favorite. Treats are awful.”
He’s gripping me tight with one solid arm and teasing his fingers over my back with his free hand. His lips are hot. His breath is hot. Every nerve ending in my body is igniting in ways I haven’t felt in years.
And his sarcasm is making me hornier.
I want to kiss him.
I want to remember what it feels like to be kissed by someone who wants to kiss me back.
Flint definitely wants to kiss me back.
There was no mistaking the hunger in his eyes when he rinsed me down after the Earl incident. The way he watches me every time I’m around the school or within sight of the gatehouse. The bulge I can feel right now against my belly.
“Tell me you’re this nice to everyone,” I say.
“Everyone but you.”
“You’re being nice to me now.”
“I’m a sucker for damaged goods.”
I should be offended, but I’m enjoying being this close to his body too much to put the energy into it. “Why?”
“I have issues.”
“What kind of issues?”
“We’re talking about you.”
“Thank God. I hate it when men are emotionally healthy and open to sharing their own struggles. That’s so much harder to resist.”
Suddenly, my back is against the wall, and Flint is staring directly into my eyes. How did I not notice before that his are brown? They’re a light brown. Flecked with gold. I thought they were hazel. Do they change in the light? I’ll have to watch and see.
“This isn’t happening,” he says, low and tight.
“I’m aware.”
“No matter how much I can’t get you out of my head.”
I haven’t had a man-induced orgasm in at least three years. At least. But I just felt a quake of something in my clit. “We shouldn’t see each other.”
“Stop coming to the school.”
“I’m making up for six years of not doing the things I should’ve done.”
He growls.
Growls.
And there’s that tiny earthquake in my clit again, prompting some action in my vagina too.
“I wish you’d been a crotchety old man who yelled at everyone to get off his lawn.”
“I wish you’d been a selfish opportunist wanting to subdivide the ranch and put crappy houses on it.”
“We can’t do this.”
At least, that’s what my mouth says.
What my mouth does, though, is a different story.
Because when Flint crashes his lips on mine, I am ready, willing, and 100 percent on board.
My eyes drift closed, and I hook a leg around the back of his thigh. He tilts his hips harder against my stomach, letting me feel every inch of his erection while he destroys me with a deep, hard, unrelenting kiss.
And I love it.
I love matching every stroke of his tongue.
I love the desperate grunts in the back of his throat.
I love the feel of his thick, rough beard against my skin.
I love the way his hair is long enough for me to grip it in my hands, and I love the way I feel wanted.
Needed.
Desired.
As a woman. As a human.
This is no simple kiss. It’s filling every wish I’ve had for someone to want me for longer than I care to admit.
And I didn’t earn this kiss by sacrificing who I am. What I want. By putting someone else’s dreams ahead of mine.
I earned it by being a pain in his ass. By being me. By refusing to back down from what I believe in and what matters to me.
I whimper as he grips my hair, too, lifting my leg higher around his and angling to feel him against my clit.
This.
God, I want this.
“Coach?” someone calls.
He jerks away as I gasp and jerk back myself, banging my head into the brick wall of the school building.
The school building.
Oh my God.
Anyone could’ve seen this.
A student. A teacher. A parent.
Anyone.
And any one of them could tell Junie.
I’m at my daughter’s school, kissing one of her teachers, and I cannot.
I can’t.
I pat my pockets like I’m looking for my phone, the sting in my eyes suddenly too much to bear. “Thank you,” I stutter. “For your discretion. For Junie’s sake. I—I need to go.”
“Maisey—”
“I need to go,” I repeat as I dash toward the back door, which is propped open for me so I can continue helping set up homecoming decorations for the kids for this weekend.
This can’t happen again.
It can’t.
No matter how much I want it to.
Chapter 17
Flint
The worst thing about having a best friend is that he can see right through your bullshit.
Second worst is that my particular best friend thinks everything’s hilarious.
“Ah, the look of Flint Jackson in the throes of obsession is a beautiful thing,” he says with a smirk as I take the seat next to him at my favorite table at Iron Moose after soccer practice.