“Sawyer,” he cried, splitting the silence with the broken sound of his release. His hand gripped my arm tightly as his body contracted underneath me. Feeling him orgasm was all I needed. The buzzing sound in my ears and the tingling in my spine heralded my own release, and I came with a moan muffled into the back of his hair.
“Fuck. Oh god. Fuck.” I sounded like a wrung-out broken record, but my body continued to spasm long after it normally would have stopped. He felt so fucking good, I wanted to hold him and fuck him for the rest of the day and night.
After my breath finally began to slow and I slipped from his body, I realized our hands were still clenched tightly together. I hated leaving his naked body to clean up, but I had to. As quickly as I could, I wiped us both down and then moved him under the covers to lie with him a little longer.
James was being suspiciously quiet, but I thought that maybe that was a good thing. I was still confused over the connection I’d felt between us, over the raging need I’d felt for him that had seemed so all consuming and insatiable.
I wanted to roll to my side and wrap my arms around him and pull him tight against me and hold him there forever. And that thought terrified me because that wasn’t what this was. This was sex. This wasn’t a relationship. There was no room for feelings between us.
The best thing, I knew, would be for me to throw off the covers and get the hell out of bed. To tug on my clothes and go back to the front desk and my schematics and my plans for saving the Sea Sprite. But I couldn’t. Because James was warm beside me, and a familiar crease was beginning to deepen between his eyebrows which meant he had something on his mind that was bothering him, and I wanted to know what it was so I could help fix it.
Finally he threw an arm over his face, burying his eyes in the crook of his elbow. “Please don’t think I’m trying to manipulate you because of the deal.” James’s voice was so light and muffled by his arm, I had to strain to make out what he’d said. I wasn’t even sure he’d meant for me to hear it.
I rolled to my side, facing him. “I don’t.”
He let out a breath. “I got out of a long-term relationship, and I just need… I just…” He let his arm fall away and glanced toward me. I could see the emotions churning in his eyes, the turmoil. But it wasn’t for me, it was for his ex. He didn’t have to say it for me to realize I’d probably been his rebound fuck.
I felt my back teeth tighten. Even though I’d gone into this expecting only sex, something else had crept in as well. I’d thought that maybe he’d sensed the same thing, but clearly he hadn’t. Knowing that I’d just been a fuck to him hurt more than it should have. I fell onto my back, yanking the covers over my nakedness. “Yeah, fine. It’s cool.”
He must have missed the tinge of bitterness in my voice, because he smiled sleepily. “Good,” he murmured, shifting on to his side and scooting closer until he could throw an arm across my chest and rest his head on my shoulder.
I couldn’t resist the feel of him, and I slid my own arm around him, pulling him tight. He sighed and relaxed against me. After a few more minutes, I felt the steady, rhythmic breathing of sleep.
As exhausted as I was, my brain refused to let me go. It whirred with a litany of lectures. I chastised myself for having feelings for a stranger I’d only just met. I reminded myself I had too much work to do to justify napping in the middle of the morning. My uncles’ voices took turns lecturing me about family finances and how much we needed Dunning Capital’s money. My grandparents’ memories echoed from the boxes in the lobby, a reminder that the history of my family was intertwined with this inn, and letting it go would mean letting them down.
And my parents’ voices remained silent as they had been since the night they died.
Despite my brain’s seeming hyperactivity, my exhaustion thankfully caught up to me, and I dozed off to the sounds of James’s sleep. I slept hard. When I woke up, I felt like I’d been down for hours. I didn’t realize James was already awake until his groggy voice spoke and his warm breath blew across my chest.
I lay there like that a moment, the skittering of his fingers across my chest raising goose bumps. There was something so pleasant and relaxing and right about being here like this with him. But then he had to ruin it by opening his mouth.
“If you didn’t have the inn, what would you want to do with your life?”
I immediately bristled. If this was some kind of attempt to get me to give up the Sea Sprite, he had another thing coming. I started to reach for the covers to throw them off and get the hell out of there, but James shifted until he was straddling my waist and resting his hands on either side of my head.
He leaned in until we were nose to nose. “Stop. This isn’t me trying to talk you away from your plans. I’m trying to get to know you.”
I clenched my teeth, trying to decide whether to believe him.
He lifted an eyebrow, as if knowing what I was thinking. “Don’t be stubborn.”
It was such a reversal of where we’d been before, with me on top calling the shots. I liked that part of James, but I liked this part of him too. I liked the contradiction between his confidence and awkwardness, between the man who took charge and the one who craved to be taken charge of. I couldn’t help but run my palm over the stubbled side of his face. He was sexy as fuck. I wondered why the person he’d been with in his previous relationship had ever let him go.
I thought about his question before answering. “I love this life,” I admitted. “I always envisioned staying here and running this place. I like working with my hands and fixing things. My grandfather used to let me follow him around when he did off-season repairs until I started doing more of the work than he did. By the time I graduated from high school, I knew basic carpentry, electrical work, and plumbing.” I smiled, letting out a laugh. “Hell, the only reason we call in Uncle Mark is because his ego is too big to accept the fact another Gilley knows his way around these old pipes.”
James moved off me and sat cross-legged next to me, pulling the sheet over to cover his junk. That was a shame.
He tilted his head, studying me as he considered his next question. “Didn’t you ever want to live in the city and… I don’t know… party or live a big life of some kind?”
I’d always hated the implication that city life was somehow better. “Not really,” I told him truthfully. “Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy weekends in Boston with friends from time to time. I like going out drinking and having a nice meal, especially when it’s something I can’t get around here.” I shrugged. “But I also love knowing my neighbors. I get a kick out of reconnecting with returning guests and meeting new ones.”
I sat up, crossing my own legs and facing him on the bed. “Do you know that almost sixty percent of our reservations are by returning guests? We have families and couples who’ve been coming here for decades. I get to see how their kids have grown and how their lives have changed from summer to summer. And during the winter, I get to focus more on me. Reading books, playing in a hockey league. I even earn extra money doing simple construction jobs on the side.”
James’s eyes lit up. “You play hockey?”
I let out a chuckle. “Yeah. Right wing. Do you play?”