Buns (Hudson Valley #3)

His lips were on mine in an instant, all traces of the calm and collected Mr. Bryant gone as he ravaged my mouth with his own. He kissed like he’d never get enough, like I was going to disappear.

“Oh God,” I murmured as he tugged my hips into his, ferocious and hungry.

“You taste incredible,” he whispered back, sweeping kisses along my cheekbone, nuzzling against my neck. “How can you taste this sweet?”

I pulled his face back to mine, staring deep into his eyes, wrapping one leg around his hip, pulling him into my heat.

Stars. I saw stars. In his eyes, in my eyes, in the actual night sky, I don’t know. I just know that when he thrust up against me, wild and crazy, the world changed somehow, and suddenly everything was all bright colors and his face was stunning.

“Oh my God,” I moaned, my voice muffled against his neck. “Oh my God, I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“We’re officially not doing this,” he groaned, his hand traveling up my leg, palming my thigh.

“It’s bad, this is so bad,” I gasped.

“It’s the worst,” he agreed, then silenced us both with a searing kiss.

I heard footsteps. Footsteps close by, on the street. The footsteps slowed down.

“Dude, someone is going to town in the alley over there.”

“No they’re not, where? Oh. Ohhhh.”

“Should we stop watching?”

“I want to say . . . yes?”

The footsteps never started up again. Jesus, we had an audience.

I lowered my leg, peeking over Archie’s shoulder and saw two men unabashedly staring, unabashedly delighted. And then somewhat embarrassed when they realized they’d been caught peeping, they hurried on down the street.

My heart pounded in my ears, that was too close. They’d seen my face, but no one knew me, not in this town. And Archie’s back was to them, they couldn’t have seen his face.

“Jesus, who gets caught making out in an alley.” I sighed as he leaned his forehead to mine, both of us out of breath.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his cheeks flooding red. “I’d normally never . . . I mean, what kind of guy . . .”

I kissed him quickly, firmly. “I feel it too, whatever this is. We just need to stop doing this.”

He looked into my eyes, the right corner of his mouth lifting. But also realizing what was at stake. He backed away, both of us straightening ourselves up a bit.

We took the few steps back to the street and headed inside the diner. Where we were instantly greeted by familiar faces sitting around a large table in the middle of the restaurant.

Roxie.

Leo.

Natalie.

A hulk who I assumed was Oscar.

And two more faces that, upon seeing my face, sported Cheshire cat grins.

The two guys from the alley. Shit.

“Clara, what the hell, why didn’t you tell us you were coming in for dinner,” Natalie said, standing up as soon as we came through the front door. “We would have . . . oh, why hello, Archie,” she finished, her voice going all sing-songy.

“Hello, Natalie,” Archie replied, giving her a confused smile.

She slipped her arm through his and immediately began leading him toward their table. “Now, you two must come and sit with us, right, Clara?” She looked at me over her shoulder and gave me a thumbs-up. Oh, for the love . . .

“Actually, Nat, we were planning on working through dinner, you know, boring shoptalk, wouldn’t really interest anybody and—”

“Hey, Arch, how’s it going! I haven’t seen you in a while, it’s been ages,” Leo said, jumping out of his seat and coming over to throw an arm around Archie’s shoulder. The one Natalie wasn’t currently curled into. “What’s been going on?”

Leo I’d met before, when he and Roxie had spent a weekend in New England and stopped in Boston to take me to dinner. Sandy-blond hair, crazy green eyes, and all farmer-boy hot. It was a wonder Roxie spent any time vertical. Born into one of the wealthiest families in America, he’d left the family banking business behind to start up Maxwell Farms, an organic organization here in town that was one of the nation’s leading examples of sustainably grown farming. Brains, money, good looks, he had it all. But the best part was, he was a nice guy. Plus, he adored Roxie, which gave him an A+ in my book.

“Not much, keeping busy, you know how it goes. How’re things on the farm?”

“About to blow up, it’s our last little bit of quiet before the crazy begins in a few weeks. We’ve already got things kicking in the greenhouse.”

“I’ll bet. Roxie, good to see you again,” Archie said, then nodded at the giant. “Oscar, I trust things are well at the creamery?”

I stared, honest to goodness stared, at the amount of incredible that unfolded in front of me. He stood up, but just seemed to get taller and taller and taller. An ex–professional football player, Oscar Mendoza was six feet six inches of fucking Polynesian love god. Golden skin, chocolate-brown eyes, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail that should technically straddle the line between pretentious and cheesy but somehow worked, he was known in these parts for three things. His incredible dairy, his love for his woman, and his gift for gab.

“Archie. Hey” was his conversational offering, and a fist bump that Archie took in stride. His next move was to pull Natalie over to him, wrapping one hand firmly around her ass, a slow grin spreading over his face as soon as she was back at his side.

“Clara, you haven’t met Oscar yet.” Natalie preened, leaning against him.

“I’ve been hearing about you for forever it seems, I can’t believe we’ve never met!” I extended my hand and it was engulfed in what seemed like a grizzly bear paw.

“Nice to meet you, Clara,” he replied. His words were short, but his eyes were kind.

“Seriously, we’ll bring over two more chairs, unless you’d rather sit alone? All that shoptalk?” Roxie offered, halfway toward the stack of chairs in the corner but giving me the chance to bug out.

I nodded. “Thanks, but we’ve got work to do and—”

“Nonsense, Ms. Morg—Clara.” He stopped himself, then shrugged his shoulders. “Sounds like fun.” Two chairs appeared instantly and I was ushered into one of them.

“Great,” I said through clenched teeth as I was now perched across the table from the other two guys, neither of whom had said anything yet, but gave me another matching set of mischievous grins.

“Clara, this is Chad Bowman.”

“Oh sure, the Chad Bowman, I’ve heard all about you,” I said, grinning as I shook Chad’s hand. “Roxie had a crush on this one in high school, right?”

“I did,” Roxie confirmed. “And this is his husband, Logan, who I now have a crush on instead of Chad.”

“It makes sense in a weird way.” Logan laughed, also shaking my hand. They both looked back and forth between me and Archie several times, wondering what exactly might be going on here. While I’d also love an answer to that very question, I silently asked them, with my eyebrows only, to shut it about the alley porn they’d just witnessed.

Chad’s eyebrows asked if it was a secret.