Page 24 of A Complicated Bride

A flood of heat filled me and I had no idea what to do with it. She’d called me sweet? What did that mean? The last thing I’d ever been was sweet. The last thing I wanted to be was sweet. I wanted to be her man, her … what the hell was I thinking? I’d been too used to being the bad boy, I had no idea how to be anything else, didn’t recognize myself.

“I left him without explanation and he didn’t deserve that.” She met my eyes directly, earnestly, without flinching or blinking or hiding the emotion, her shame, her sadness was all there on display.

The least I could do was to match her courage and so I didn’t blink or turn away when every cell in me by rote and habit yearned to cringe away and hide, bluff, mask. Pretend I didn’t feel a thing. But I let myself feel, forced myself to witness and gather in her emotions, process them and make them part of mine, run them through me.

“Did you make it right with him?” I wanted to know, needed to know that for her sake, all was resolved.

“Yes, I think so. As much as I could. There may be more fall out, more details to iron out with the wedding so close.” The smile she’d flashed disappeared and she looked down.

I took her chin in my hand and lifted it up to make her look at my face. There was no backing down now. I was going whole hog with this and there was no way I was letting her demure now.

“I’m proud of you. I know how hard it must have been for you to stand up to him. To hurt him.”

Her eyes went impossibly wide and brilliant with tears, her mouth opened in the most kissable way so that I had to clench my muscles, keep myself in check not to take what I wanted. This was not about lust. Never had been, though there was more than enough hot lust running in my veins to burn down this kitchen.

“You… how do you..know?” she whispered. “It’s as if you read my heart, skipped right past my mind and you could see inside my heart. You understand me.”

I had no chance. Lord forgive me, but I wanted whatever she would give me.

So when she took my face in her hands and pressed her lips against mine, I kissed her back, enveloping the soft folds of her mouth in mine, tasting the coffee and cinnamon and essence of Lily and turned her innocent kiss into a breathtaking plundering.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Billy’s voice boomed and Lily jumped away from me. I held a steadying hand on her arm, feeling her jittering nerves.

“What does it look like, Billy?” I said. I knew the old man well enough to know he was likely delighted and amused more than outraged.

“Looks like a budding romance to me.”

“Bingo,” I said.

Lily laughed then, a slight nervousness mixed in with joy. I’d take it.

“We’ll see about that,” Nora said from behind Billy. She would be a tougher customer, but I’d make sure she accepted that I wasn’t playing games. That’s all I could promise.

“How about if we pack my bags and then head over to the auditions for the community theater group. If I remember correctly, they start today.” I checked my watch. “In about an hour.”

“That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard in as long as I can remember.” Lily stood and I followed her to the back stairs.

I steeled myself for the onslaught of hormonal prodding I’d take with her in my bedroom, but I left the door open when I followed her inside. She got to work lifting my bag onto the bed and lifting my pants to fold them.

“You’re good at this.” I came up behind her and indulged myself, I promised, just this once, until we got outside the proximity of a bed.

It was a good sign that she didn’t pull away from me. In fact, she rested her head back against my chest, the almond scent of her hair floating up to my nose encouraged me to wrap my arms all the way around her, pulling her to me, testing her with her rear pressed against my cock. I held my breath while I grew harder and waited for a protest.

“You feel so good, too sinfully good.” She turned around in my arms. I let her because I felt dizzy, all my blood gone from my head and my hands now planted on her lush rear were shaking. That was not normal.

She looked up at me, earnest blue eyes shining and spoke.

“You’re a dangerous man, Bradley Simmons. I don’t know if I can handle a fling with you. I don’t think I could handle it if we started a romance and you left the way you did with Tammy.”

She was so honest it hurt. If this had been last week I’d have told her she was crazy projecting a relationship and all I ever did were flings, live in the moment. None of those things leapt to my lips today. I couldn’t imagine telling her any one of those things.

But I didn’t know what to say, so I kissed her, let my mind rest with her lips against mine, soothing and exciting. She let me, kissed me back until I felt the need to answer her.

I broke off the kiss, not because I wanted to abandon Lily’s snug lips, because I didn’t. It felt like leaving home, albeit a very erotic home. But my dick could wait because I had something to say.

“You know I have no intentions of leaving town any time soon.”

“Just like that?” she said, tilting her head to the side to examine me. Her eyes glittered and I felt my cock harden even more as my heart softened.

I nodded. My throat was too clogged with my heart to speak. That never happened. When she licked her lips my eyes almost rolled back into my head.

“What if I wanted to leave town with you?” she said.

I studied her face and saw nothing but the earnest young lady I was falling for.

“Just like that?” I said.

She kissed me this time and all remnants of snug comfort disappeared and the creative passion of Lily expressed lust and need and maybe something more if I was lucky.

Whatever ennui I had arrived at the Inn with had evaporated from my soul. However dulled and lifeless my heart had been then, I couldn’t recall now.

Today I was feeling very lucky.

Now I felt every beat, every thump of my heart with pleasure and joy and maybe something more.

If I was extremely lucky.

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