I feel someone’s attention on me. Sure enough, when I glance over my shoulder, Junie’s staring.
I shove away from the truck bed and dust my gloved hands together.
I’ll thank him later.
Properly.
But in the meantime—“Back to work for me. Gotta pull my own weight at my own house.”
“No one doubts you’re pulling your own weight. And no one would care if you didn’t lift a finger.”
That hot prickle hits the backs of my eyeballs again.
I was on the road too much to feel like a part of my community in Cedar Rapids for the six years we filmed Dean’s show, and then the bombshell with my mom dropped, and there was no community after that.
Flint studies me.
I blink quickly. “I don’t take it for granted.”
He lifts his dark-copper brows.
“Feeling like I belong,” I explain. “And Junie too. I will never take that for granted. We needed somewhere to belong.”
He nods. “Good place to belong.”
It is.
It really, truly is.
Chapter 23
Flint
I’m working on lesson plans late Sunday night by the light of an old desk lamp over my small kitchen table when someone knocks at my door.
Sun set hours ago.
Opal would’ve called before coming over. Most friends in town too.
So who’s knocking softly, as if they’re half hoping I’m already asleep and won’t hear?
Definitely not Earl.
The bear would just crash through the door if he smelled something in here that he wanted.
Which means my suspicions about what’s waiting on the other side have my blood pumping and the hairs on my arms rising and my cock half-hard before I flip on the light and peer through the pane-glass door.
And there she is.
Maisey.
Standing on my small stoop, in a long-sleeved thermal covered with a puffy vest, her short hair just long enough to be tucked behind her ears, her eyes bright and alert, her arms crossed just under those gorgeous breasts.
Not an angry crossed.
More an uncertain I don’t know what else to do with my hands crossed.
She lifts one bare hand and gives me a small finger wave.
I turn the door handle and tug on it, only to have it stop short when the chain lock catches.
I’m so fucking excited that this woman is on my doorstep that I forgot to undo the chain.
I close the door, unhook the chain, and open it again.
Maisey grins at me. “That was adorable.”
“That was embarrassing.”
“Adorable.”
I stop arguing and step back, gesturing her inside when I’d love to grab her by the waist, haul her against the wall, and kiss the ever-loving hell out of her.
But I don’t know why she’s here. If she’s alone. Even if she thinks she’s alone but June followed her.
She stops barely inside enough for me to close the door. “I just wanted to say thank you. Again. For bringing help. I feel—oof. I can’t even tell you how much better I feel having the barn mess all cleaned up.”
I nod.
I’m starting to understand her why. So it was a no-brainer to gather a few helpers from town to clear away the debris.
Maisey arrived here every bit as lost as some of the kids I work with at the school.
Looking for where they fit in and belong in this world, with not enough support at home. Their parents are often in over their heads, doing the best they can but not nearly good enough for what their kids need.
“So I was going to bring more cherry crisp to say thanks, but the truth is, I bribed Regina to make her recipe in Uncle Tony’s old dishes so it would look like I made it, and I didn’t have time to do that again today,” she says in a rush.
Now I’m grinning. “Guess you’re useless, then. Get out.”
She gives me a playful shove in the biceps. “What I lack in cooking skills, I make up for with knowing how to use a hammer.”
Yep. Contemplating my cock as her hammer, and there’s no half about how hard I am anymore. “I have some hammering that needs to be done.”
Those baby blues meet mine, go wide, and then smoky. Also smoky? Her voice. “That was terrible.”
“You alone?”
“Junie’s talking to friends on her phone. I told her I had to run to Charlotte’s to pick up a cookie platter for next week’s PTA Halloween party.”
“And she thinks you’re walking?”
“I did go to Charlotte’s. I’m back now.”
“Didn’t hear you go past.”
“Stealth mode.”
I crack up, but with every word she’s saying, I’m angling her deeper into my house.
It’s not big. A cozy living-slash-dining area with a table for two pushed under the window and a couch on the opposite wall, with my woodburning stove between them. A bare-bones kitchen with a small oven, small refrigerator, and no dishwasher. And the single bedroom just big enough for a king-size bed.
We’re headed toward the bedroom.
She rests her hands on my chest as I walk her backward, heat radiating from her palms. “I can’t stay long,” she whispers, “but I had to say thank you. Thank you is important.”
Can’t stay long.
That’s what her words say.
The way she’s stroking her hands all over my pecs says, But I want to. “How long is not long?”
“It was a really fast trip to Charlotte’s.”
I’m grinning again as I dip my head to nuzzle her jawline. “So June thinks you’re gone for a little bit longer.”
“Just a—oh God—bit.”
That oh God? That was me, licking that sensitive spot on her neck right beneath her ear.
I do it again.
Her body shudders against me while she curls her fingers into my shirt.
“Maybe a bit longer?” I murmur against her skin, my breath on the wet spot I left beneath her ear.
She arches into me. “I won’t take long.”
Fuck me.
Images of Maisey with a hair-trigger orgasm are making me sweat.
We’re in the doorway to my bedroom, and I’m so hard, it hurts to take another step. So instead, I turn her against the frame and roam my hands over her curves while I nibble a path along her jawline, and she gasps and pants and grabs me by the hair and hooks one leg around my thigh.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know the feel of Maisey in my arms. The way she fits. The way she wraps around me.
“I’m going to touch you,” I murmur.
“Oh God, I think I’ll die,” she whispers.
“In the good way?”
“The best way.”
I reach for the button on her jeans, feeling her belly quivering beneath my hands as my lips connect with hers.
I’m in control today.
Mostly.
I can take this slow and steady and not be a damn neanderthal like I have the last times I’ve kissed her.
But she whimpers and grips my hair, pulling my head closer to her, and strokes her tongue into my mouth, asking for—demanding—more.
Jesus.
I’m about to have a hair-trigger reaction.
My hands shake as I inch down her zipper. She makes a mewling noise as she arches her hips into my hands, still kissing me like I’m the missing piece to her life, and fuck.