“You tell me if there’s something you don’t like, okay?” I slide my palm over her elbow, wanting nothing more than to give her pleasure after the earlier altercation made her crumble. She went from vibrant and happy to locked down and wounded.
I never want to see that look on her face again. I want to patch her back up and send her out into the world with confidence, knowing she deserves respect and is strong enough to demand it.
“Okay,” her voice cracks, and her thumb swipes over the bone behind my ear as she settles her weight on my crotch.
I give her a stern nod, willing my cock to not go full mast. But that’s a losing battle.
When I drop my lips to the soft tops of her breasts, the twanging sound of that one flimsy thread of my control snapping echoes in my ears.
Impulsive.
The word repeats in my head as my hands roam her body. And I don’t give a fuck.
Being impulsive has never felt this good.
My tongue darts out, leaving a trail of glistening saliva over her cleavage. Her head tips back and she moans, all breathy and scandalized sounding.
That fucking moan.
All hope of not walking off this ride with a raging hard-on evaporates in an instant. Poof. Gone.
I move back up her chest, her thighs snug against mine as she squeezes herself closer. Tighter against me.
Her fingers dive into my hair as I work my way back up her sternum. I take my time and savor every inch of her. Every little huff of breath, every whimper.
But the closer we draw to the ground, to the line of people who will no doubt see us, the more she tenses up. She’s not a showy person. She’s perfected flying under the radar, and straddling me in public is definitely not that.
“Bailey.”
“Yeah?”
My lips brush over the expanse of skin where her neck meets her shoulder. I haven’t kissed her lips yet.
I’m still not sure I should. Not sure I’ll recover.
Not sure I’ll be able to walk away after that.
“Ignore them.” I rake my fingers through her hair on the side where people congregate, trying to break her line of sight.
We stay locked in a tense, quiet moment. My hand in her hair, my arm over her back, caging her in.
“Ignore them,” I say again as we trend back up again.
“It’s hard,” she whispers against my ear, sounding a little broken.
When we’ve passed the crowds and head back up into the evening sky, I ask, “Do you mean this?” I guide her hand between my legs to my cock.
She sucks in a breath but doesn’t pull away. Her hand grips me through my jeans almost instantly, like she just can’t help herself.
“Or do you mean how hard I’m going to bite you for the hickey you left on my neck last time?”
I don’t give her a chance to reply before I latch on to the tender flesh of her neck. One hand travels under her skirt, gripping her ass hard enough to leave marks there too.
The sharp gasp that rushes from her sifts through my close-cut hair and over my neck. I pull away and stare at the red spot blooming on her neck before meeting her sultry gaze. Bailey’s previously worried eyes are now full of fire.
“Impulsive looks good on you, Bailey,” I rasp before lifting her strap back onto her shoulder, then opting to hold her against my chest for the rest of the ride.
Holding her seems safe enough. Safer than kissing her again, than biting her again. Better to pull back now before we both lose our minds and go altogether too far.
23
Bailey
I can’t sleep. I’ve tried.
When I close my eyes, I see Beau.
I smell Beau.
I taste Beau.
I hear Beau.
I feel Beau’s hands touching me like I’m his for real. I feel his cock hard for me.
My brain is all Beau, all the time. I feel like I’ve got a song stuck on repeat. One I can’t get out of my head.
My brain keeps missing the memo that this thing between Beau and me is fake.
It’s cute how I thought getting out of bartender mode to fall asleep was hard.
But this is worse than the sensation of going around in circles all night long that usually follows me to bed.
So much worse. I’m spinning alright, and it’s a downward spiral that I’m too horny to stop.
I check my phone. It’s 1:54 a.m. and I have my alarm set for six minutes from now. So, there’s no point in trying to sleep. I’m mentally preparing myself to walk across that hallway and slap on a cheery facade. One where I pretend I didn’t grope his dick in public, at a family-friendly event.
I’m not even sure if Beau is here. After the fair, he walked me to the house, ushered me inside, and said he was going to Cade’s house. Then locked the door behind me.
So, I’ve been alone and left to my devices. To my vicious thoughts.
My head took me down the rabbit hole of how the town will spin what we did. They’ll chalk me up to being a cheap whore. And Beau will be the poor, sad soldier just trying to find his way. Rightfully blowing off some steam, they’ll say.
I can just hear the way the old biddies who meet for morning coffee at Le Pamplemousse will talk about it.
That filthy Jansen girl mauling poor Beau Eaton.
Bless Beau. Bless his good fucking heart. For a man who has seen so much, he’s sure got rose-colored glasses on when it comes to me and my reputation.
Maybe we both underestimated how deeply this town hates me, because I don’t think the promise of his last name is helping at all.
It might actually be making things worse.
Before this engagement, I moved around town like a shadow. Now I move with a big freaking target on my back, followed closely by a bunch of envious eyes that seem to track me everywhere I go.
I flop onto my back and press the heels of my hands against my eye sockets, preparing myself to get out of bed. My hands fall away when the sound of an alarm filters in from across the hall. The shrill, repeating beep shatters the silence for a few moments. It’s followed by a gruff, “Fuck,” then heavy footsteps.
I lie flat on my back, alert and listening.
The quiet click of a door. Softer footfalls. And then … silence.
I check my phone. It’s 1:59 a.m. on the nose. One minute before my alarm.
I swear I can feel Beau standing outside my door. We’re holding our breath in time. These 2:11 meetings take a toll on our sleep and our ability to think straight.
A light knock. Butterflies in my stomach.
“Bailey?”
My heart pounds. This isn’t the routine. I’m the one who sets the alarm. I flip my legs out of bed, oversized T-shirt falling mid-thigh as the cool floor seeps into the bottoms of my feet. With my hand on the doorknob, I pause. I don’t know why. Beau doesn’t scare me or make me uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Yet my throat is dry, and my body is coiled up tight like a spring. If I didn’t have my fingers wrapped around the metal lever, my hand would shake.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“You up?”
My lips curve. “That’s an awfully dumb question for a tier one operator.”
“Open the door,” he grumbles, clearly exasperated by my response. But who could blame me? That was a dumb question.
I open the door to face my big, dumb soldier. His body practically fills the corridor, consuming the space, the air. He’s a silhouette in a darkened hallway, lit by the soft glow of his room behind him. Beau’s enigmatic presence sucks all the shadows in from around him, straight into his darkness.
Me included.
“You set your alarm?” I inch toward him, fingers curled around the doorframe to keep myself tethered, as though holding onto the molding might keep me from reaching for him.
“Yeah, but I didn’t need to. I keep waking up at two every night now.”
“But not 2:11?”
“Well, I don’t know. Haven’t made it there.”
I worry my bottom lip. “Then why do you keep letting me set an alarm and come wake you up for a swim?”
He shrugs and drops her gaze. “I enjoy going swimming with you.”
“So you just lie there waiting for me to come knock?”
His lips twist in a mischievous smirk. “Yeah.”
A disbelieving laugh bubbles up out of me. “Beau. Eaton. Do you know how fucking tired I am?”
He looks so boyish right now, only mildly chastised. He doesn’t offer an apology.
Instead …