“So happy.” I nudge her thighs apart with my knees, settling my hips between her spread legs, loving the way her lashes flutter as my erection presses against her through our clothes. “Forty-eight is way too many hours to be away from you.”
I kiss her and she hums her agreement against my lips, the vibration making her kiss taste even sweeter. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been away from her for two days straight, spending every second thinking about her, worrying about her, wishing I could be there for her as this ridiculous investigation pushes forward with Cassie as the prime suspect in the Sunshine Factory fire.
I’ve told Jessie and the sheriff and anyone who will listen that they’re not going to find anything—Cassie is innocent—but it’s clear from the look on their faces they think I’m blinded by lust.
But it’s not lust. It’s something more than that, something that makes my heart do a slow-motion dive into a vat of warm honey as I draw Cassie’s shirt over her head, baring her gorgeous breasts.
“I’ve missed you,” I murmur against her sinfully soft skin, kissing my way from one tight pink nipple to the other.
“Are you talking to me?” she asks, her breath already coming faster. “Or to them?”
“All three of you,” I answer, circling her tip with my tongue, making her squirm beneath me. “You’re all beautiful and sexy and fucking delicious.” I pull her nipple into my mouth and suck. She digs her fingernails into the skin at the back of my neck and arches closer, moaning beneath her breath.
“God, Ryan,” she whispers as I transfer my attention to her other nipple. “It feels better every time you touch me. How is that possible?”
Because I’m learning what she likes.
Because I’m memorizing every swiftly indrawn breath, sigh, and moan, enlisting them as my spies in my quest to make her come harder every time I take her to bed.
Because I’m falling in love with her, and love takes pleasure and makes it magic. Makes it sacred. Makes it something I don’t know how I’m going to give up when she heads for home.
The thought is enough to plunk a giant rock down on the center of my chest. My throat goes tight and bitterness creeps in to mingle with the sweet taste of her so fresh on my tongue.
I pull back, gazing down at her, heart skipping a beat as I take in her dark hair spread over my pillow, her pale skin glowing in the moonlight, and that hungry look in her eyes I know is all for me.
“What’s wrong?” She brushes tender fingers through my hair, guiding it away from my forehead.
I shake my head slightly, but then think better of it. I don’t want to lie to her, and pretending I’m not getting crazy attached to her is a lie, plain and simple. “I can’t stop thinking about that plane flight.”
“Which one? Where are you going?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, lips curving on one side. “You are. And I don’t like it, Sunderwell. Not one bit.”
Her lips part softly as she nods. “Yeah. I know. Me either.”
“I’m not ready to say goodbye, but I’m pretty sure long distance would kill me,” I confess, rocking gently against her, nudging my cock against her clit. “I need to be with you like this. Need to feel you, taste you, be there to rub your shoulders after a hard day slaving over a keyboard.”
“Yes,” she says, her thumbs catching in the waist of my boxer briefs. “And inside me. I need you inside me. All the time.”
“All the time,” I echo, shoving the fabric down my thighs as Cassie slips out of her sleep shorts, revealing nothing beneath.
I groan at the sight, balls dragging heavily between my legs at the sight of her so pink and slick for me. Because she wants me as desperately as I want her. Because it’s so right, so perfect, so—
I sink into her with a cry of relief and bliss tangled together as she calls my name. Just my name, but I hear so much more. As she wraps her legs around me and holds on tight, lifting into me as I glide in and out of her heat, I hear all the things we’ve both been too hesitant to say.
I hear that she wants me, needs me in her bed the way she needs air and water and late night video game bingeing when she’s stressed. I hear that she’s ready to do whatever it takes, to take a wild leap, to choose us because alone isn’t going to work now that we know how good it is to be Cassie and Ryan.
For her to be mine.
For me to be hers.
“God, yes, baby, come for me, Cassie,” I beg as I take her harder, faster, desperate to feel her tighten around me before I go. “I need to feel you. Oh, yes. Yes, baby.”
She cries out, her head falling back as she tumbles over. I’m with her a second later, spinning out into that world where there’s nothing but goodness and sweetness and the ineffable awesome that is being this close to my girl.
“I’ll get my resume together tomorrow,” I say as we’re lying heavy in each other’s arms, her cheek on my chest and my fingers skimming up and down the valley of her spine. “I’m not sure what the hiring situation is in San Francisco. But surely, with all the wildfires in California, they can use a few more good men.”
Cassie’s head pops up so fast it sends her hair flying into her face. “What?”
I brush her hair back, my heart skipping a beat, hoping I didn’t take what she said in the heat of the moment the wrong way. “Being inside you all the time. That can’t happen if I’m here and you’re in San Francisco. So I figured I’d look into getting a job in your neck of the woods.”
“You’d do that?” she asks in a hushed voice. “For me? Leave your brothers and your parents and everything you’ve ever known?”
“That’s the thing,” I say, swallowing hard as I debate whether or not to speak the words on the tip of my tongue. But fuck it. Fear never got me anywhere I want to be. “I’ve known all of those things. I’ve never known anything like this. Like you. And the way I feel when I’m with you.”
Her bottom lip begins to tremble and a second later a tear slides down her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I say, hating myself for pushing too far, too fast. “I should have kept my mouth shut. It’s too soon, I’m sorry, we don’t have—”
“Hush.” She covers my lips with her fingers as she swipes her tears away with the other hand. “No, it’s not too soon. And no, you shouldn’t have. I’m so glad you said something. I was afraid I was the only one.”
“The only one who needs us to be in the same town?” I ask, relief taking the edge off my mini heart attack.
“The only one who’s falling in love with you,” she whispers.
My chest explodes. Or implodes. Or maybe that’s just my heart doing the happy dance in a way I’ve never experienced before. Whatever it is that’s happening to me, I don’t want it to stop.
“I’m already there,” I say, cupping her face in my hand.
Her eyes start to shine again, but she’s smiling so big I know she’s not sad. She’s along for this ride with me, wherever it’s going to take us.
“You don’t have to move to San Francisco,” she says. “I’m coming home. I already decided. Tonight. Three hours ago, in fact, when I was lying in bed feeling miserable because I couldn’t imagine going back to a world where you’re not right next door.”
I’m about to ask her—How about a world where your house is my house?
I’m going to do it, ask her to move in with me on the spur of the moment, because that’s what love makes you do, I guess, when the emergency alert on my phone goes off.
I curse softly and reach an arm for the bedside table. “Sorry. That’s work. It must be something serious or they wouldn’t be calling me back after less than two hours off.” But when I pick up the phone, it isn’t dispatch with instructions for where I need to show up and when.
It’s the chief.
“You still awake?” Jessie asks.
“Yeah, I’m awake.” I frown as I prop myself against the pillows. “What’s up? Did that fire out by the highway flare up again? You need me back in?”
“No, nothing like that I…” She sighs. “I just thought you might still be up, and I wanted you to hear the latest development in the Sunderwell case from me.”
I cut a quick glance Cassie’s way to find her watching me with calm, clear eyes, making me think she can’t hear Jessie’s side of the conversation. I force a tight smile. “Sure, just a second, let me run get a pen.”
“A pen?” Jessie’s surprise echoes in my ear as I pull on pajama pants and head for the door. “You’re not alone there, are you?”
“No, it’s fine. You didn’t wake me,” I reply—awkwardly—because I’m terrible at lying. As soon as I’m on the other side of the kitchen, far enough away to be sure Cassie won’t hear me, I add in a soft voice, “No, I’m not alone. Cassie’s here.”
Jessie sighs. “Then you should come talk to me. If it’s gone that far with you two, you’re going to need a friendly ear after you hear the latest.”
A frown claws at my forehead. “Hear what? Cassie didn’t start that fire, Jessie. I’m sure of it. I don’t care what the new evidence is. It’s wrong.”
“It’s inadmissible in court. It’s not wrong,” Jessie says, the compassion in her voice making my stomach clench with worry. “Just meet me at Dough on the Square in fifteen minutes, okay? I’ll buy you a coffee and a donut and we can talk.”
“I can’t, I have company.” I don’t want to leave Cassie alone in my bed, especially not to go hear some bullshit “inadmissible evidence” that came from God knows what source.
Probably the real arsonist, trying to throw small-town law enforcement off his scent.
“I’m serious, Ryan. This is big. I wouldn’t have called you right after your shift if it weren’t. If you don’t want to meet up, that’s fine. I get it. But you’re going to get an earful of this news sooner or later. If you’d like to have the chance to get out ahead of it, decide how you’re going to handle the fallout when it comes, then I’ll be at the donut shop in ten minutes.”