“Hurt me?”
“She’s crazy, Georgia. She hurt her own daughter to get to me—what do you think she’d do to a girl I was with?”
“Are we talking like guns and knives here?” She wasn’t asking because she was afraid, she was asking because she was worried about Grace. Georgia had the sudden instinct to dig a moat around Easton’s house so no one could get in to hurt her—which was insane.
“No,” he said glancing over at her, waiting for her to tell him to go. “But she knows how to run a good con. Twist people.”
“Sure you’re not talking about my mom?”
It was a joke, but he didn’t laugh, he just looked confused.
“I’m not worried about this girl, Easton. A manipulative bitch raised me, and I’ve spent the last four years of my life with road whores who play dirty when it comes to getting what they want. If you want to use your ex as an excuse, that’s on you.”
Fury washed over his expression, which only confused her more. “What?”
Easton looked down, then away. “I just don’t think that’s the kinda life Lucas would have wanted for you—he sure as fuck wouldn’t have wanted me to make it worse.”
“You gonna tell me you can see dead people now? That my father is whispering to you from the great beyond?”
“I’m trying to be serious here, Georgia. I’m giving you an out—I’m letting you know what you’re getting into before you do.”
“And using my father as an excuse. Why the hell not, it got you through the last few years.”
“I am not,” he bellowed.
Georgia flinched, but then anger came to her defense. “A crazy ex, a beautiful daughter—Easton that is not hell, that is not dangerous.” She stepped up him. “The smell of sour beer and stale ashtrays doesn’t linger on you—I never bother to see if your pupils are dilated or not. I don’t flinch when I see you with a beer, wondering where that is going to lead you. I don’t feel the urge to check your pockets to make sure there are no pawn receipts. I don’t hide my purse from you or track you online to make sure you haven’t royally fucked over your only source of income—causing us to forevermore couch hop. That is hell.”
The whole time she spoke the rage in his eyes did nothing but grow. But she didn’t care.
“If any one of us should be waving the ‘out’ flag it should be you. I come with far more battle scars and trust issues than you, Easton.” The truth tasted sour as it left her lips, but she meant every word. Easton may have his own dramas but at least he knew who the fuck he was, at least he knew he was on the right path.
“Debatable.” He narrowed his stare on her. “Tell me why you would want to get messed up with this, with me.”
“The same reason I don’t want to,” she said quietly. “You see me.”
Easton swallowed tensely. “You ready to come off the road, leave that kind of life behind—can you not pack up and leave when it gets hard?”
“You proposing?” she quipped just because her heart was racing and her palms were sweating and she couldn’t still her mind long enough to answer his question honestly. She wanted to run right then, disappear in a crowd and hide from the emotions and truth he drew out of her.
He stepped closer to her. “Last night you said you weren’t going to let me hurt you again—I can’t let you hurt me either. If this was a year ago, I would have hit the road with you—seen the world. I can’t do that now. I don’t want to. All the excitement and wonder I need is sound asleep in a nursery right now.” He bit his lip before he spoke his next words. “I can’t have a fling with you, Georgia. If that’s what you need right now—if you’re still hung up on fixing this ex of yours or whatever—we’re better off as friends.”
After a calming breath she spoke, breaking the tense silence. “You’re standing in my root.”
“Do what?”
“My root. This is my root, investment, whatever.”
Hoping he understood her right, he stepped forward. “You’re saying you’re home. You want to try this.”
Home should not be a terrifying word, but it was to Georgia’s nomadic soul. “I’m saying this is where I am now. I can’t change my past or predict my future. All I can do is take one breath at a time, and live in the moment I’m in, cherish it, and let it lead me to the next. That is the only way I’ll be able to figure out who I am, where I’m going.” She glanced around. “This house, this town, you—it all scares the shit out of me, like wicked anxiety fear.”
His eyes searched hers not hearing a promise but wanting to.
She looked right at him. “Except for when I’m alone with you…you take all the bad emotions away, Easton, you always have.” Her eyes searched his. “You see what I don’t want you to.”
She robbed his breath and caused a burn to rupture in his chest, rendering him speechless. Apparently his pause was not a good thing. She moved past him and walked to the bathroom.
By the time he told his body to follow her she was carefully touching up paint around the mirror. There was no light in the room beyond a row of candles on the vanity and what was coming in from the master bedroom.
She glanced up. “I ran out of light bulbs. Don’t worry, the local fire department is quick to respond if I happen to knock one over,” she quipped, not daring to look up until she heard the door close.
Before she could say another word, he had pulled the brush from her hand and dropped it in the pan. She went to protest but didn’t have the chance. Before she knew it, she was in his arms, his lips were on hers. She fell into his erotic kiss for the briefest of moments, before pulling away.
“You’re making my head spin, Ballantine.”
His lips were easing down her neck as his hands were sliding down her body. Next to her ear, in a hoarse whisper he said. “I’m living in this moment with you. I plan to devour it.”
Oh dear lord, Georgia thought as her heart picked up a notch or two.
“You’re fire, Georgia,” he said as his hands moved to unbutton her jeans. “My chest flames every time you’re close—you make me feel shit I’ve never felt before.”
Georgia moaned right as she felt his hand slip between her legs and cup her sex.
“You dare me to lose control,” he said as one, then two fingers slipped within.
Georgia knew he was in control right then, and she was prepared to fight him for her equal share. She had already pulled at his shirt, her hands were deftly removing his belt and the button on his jeans.
Before she could grasp her prize he reached for her hands and pinned them behind her with one hand, as his other rushed over her body.
“See what I mean, I just meant to kiss you,” he said on heated breath, as he tried to slow them down, turn the heat back.
Impossible.
“I meant to kiss you, too,” she said as she pulled her arms loose and turned, pushing him against the door. Only having success because she’d managed to shock him.
Her lips crashed onto his before falling to his neck as her hands rushed under his shirt and slid over his hard chest cut with muscle.
When she moved down, kissed his stomach, he tensed which only made her grin.
“Georgia,” he whispered harshly. The sound of his deep, southern voice did nothing but heat her up even more, cause her to be all the more determined to ensure this boy lost control under her touch.
Lower, then lower she went, slow, sweet, teasing kisses, each and every one breaking away any and all control he had.
When Georgia’s soft, wet lips brushed across the crown of his shaft, his eyes slammed shut. Wetly she roved down him. Every sound he made, how his body tensed, the feel of his hand through her hair, how his long reach allowed his hands to ravish her chest with wild gasps of abandon —was building her, pulling her into ecstasy with him.
***
The ferocity of her touch made him forget who he was, where he was, it made him forget his own fucking name. For the first time, in a long time, maybe ever, Easton let go of w
ho he was and gave in to the voluptuous touch of the woman who’d lived in every fantasy he could recall.
He felt his body tensing to spend, and pulled her to his lips, then wrapped her legs around him as he braced her against the wall, his hand slipped between them, two fingers within, his thumb pressed to her clit.
She bit back a moan as he rocked his hand and body into her.
Easton was straining to hold himself back. “How close?” he rasped, too focused on his own release to be as aware of her as he wanted to be.
Georgia arched her back, drawing his fingers in deeper. “Don’t stop,” she breathed against his ear.
He might have had a hope of obeying until her lips glided across his ear, before nipping at his lobe. He lost his release—his hand slowed for a few seconds, long enough for him to be sure he could stand, but then his speed picked up and his lips fell to her neck. Seconds later he felt her come undone. He drew back to watch those beautiful blue eyes, glowing in the candle light, glazed with bliss, absolute satisfaction.
He didn’t know if she was ready for them, if he was, but he knew right then, he wasn’t letting this girl go without a fight.
With his chest still heaving from the rush, he brushed his lips across hers. “Woman, you’re going to kill me.”
Georgia quietly laughed as her hands roamed over his chest. He was having quite the opposite effect on her—he was bringing her to life.
All at once Memphis’s voice bellowed from the hall. “Georgia, dinner’s here.”
Easton looked to the side unable to hide a grin.
“One second, finishing up in here,” she yelled back.
They put themselves back together as quickly as they could, did their best to look as innocent as possible. They even cleaned up the paint that had splattered when he pulled brush from her hand before.
“I’m going to ask you to go out, and you’re going to say yes, right?” Easton said quietly as he blocked Georgia from opening the door.
“I don’t know, going out is in the future. I’m in the now.” She meant for it to be a joke, but he didn’t crack a smile. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“When?”
A half grin emerged on his lips. “Few days, next off night.”
“‘Kay.”
Carefully he leaned in, his lips brushed across hers. “One more kiss before reality comes crashing down again.”
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning Georgia woke to a “good morning beautiful,” text from Easton.
I could get used to this…
He and the other guys had all worked on her house until three in the morning, then Memphis shut them all down, saying most there had to be on shift in a few hours. She never really had another moment alone with Easton. But the stolen glances and the way they would brush against each other as they worked to paint a wall was enough to make Georgia feel like a high school girl all over again.
As she laid in bed thinking of him, what they’d said to each other, the unexplainable emotion between them, she scrolled through her phone. As she did she found a slew of missed calls from a number she didn’t know, along with a few missed calls from the bar.
Thinking Sawyer was checking in with her, she called him. “Do I know you?” he said when he answered the phone.
“Very funny,” she said with a calm laugh.
“No, I don’t think I do. This voice on the other end of the call is too relaxed, sounds too happy.”
“Did I ever tell you that you sure know how to make a girl feel awesome?”
He chuckled.
“Did you call me?”
“No, I sent you a few emails though, why?”
“Had some missed calls from there.”
Georgia heard him cuss. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.”
“I had your boy arrested last night.”
“Do what?”
“He was out of control, no big deal. I’m sure that was him stirring up some shit, calling you. I told his high ass you didn’t work here anymore—might be a good idea for you hang out down there for a bit with your family.”
“I planned to stay awhile.”
“Small town growing on you?”
“Kinda. I found a way to invest some money and I need to get that going.”
“Investing is never a bad thing,” he cleared his throat. “Hey, you know any Dorans?”
“A ton of them, that was the wedding I was at—why?”
“Nothin’.”
“Sawyer.”
“Not a big deal, some people were talking about Wyatt Doran’s wedding down ‘round where you were, I was just curious.”
“No joke? Really? The wedding was insane. It’s probably on the cover of some magazine by now—who was talking about it?”
“Some old regulars, no big deal.”
“Sawyer.”
“Kid, I was just making conversation. Small world and all.”
“Right.”
“I gotta go. I got a meeting with a few promoters here in a minute. You take it easy, kid, and if your loser ex calls—if any weird number does, don’t answer, you hear?”
“Got it,” Georgia said just before she heard him hang up.
She thought about stalking Hunter online to see what kind of trouble he was in, but the thought left as soon as it came. She was over him, way over him, but he was still a weak spot, someone she tried to fix over and over and failed.
***
Georgia had yet to stay a full night in her house. The first night the soup burned, the second the paint fumes were too much and then her glorious airbed had deflated, which meant she had to make yet another more permanent purchase—a real bed. She still didn’t have Wi-Fi, either, so staying at Memphis’s made sense—she had work to catch up on.
Almost every hour, she and Easton had talked via text; random words, back and forth wit. He wanted to see what she was working on so she’d screenshot an image and send it to him, and when he asked to see her ‘edits’ she showed him. And when he actually saw them she was impressed. The simplest change in any of her work was not a few clicks; it was a lot of steps that built on others. What would suck is that to some, those changes were never noticed. Easton saw them—he noticed every one.
She hadn’t forgotten she was supposed to have lunch with Cynthia and Grace, the date was etched in her mind. The only issue she had was she had made the date before she knew Grace was Easton’s, before she and Easton started doing whatever they were doing. Her mind was tangled on what was the right way to go about this, if it was a good idea to keep seeing Grace, if Easton even wanted her to.
She had typed a text to him about it at least ten times but deleted it because there was no way to say ‘hey is it cool for me hang out with your daughter because I’m in love with her?’ and not sound like a psychopath.
When Memphis called and asked her to bring Haven to the fire hall, she decided asking Easton in person might be the best way to go about solving her issue.
She gathered her things, then searched the house for Haven. The pup avoided her like the plague. She wouldn’t let Georgia get too close, ever. Georgia found her in the kitchen by her bowl. When Haven saw the leash in her hands, she stood up and backed away, yelping out an argument.
“Not my idea, Haven,” Georgia said, easing closer, only to get more of a protest.
“Do you want to see Memphis?”
Haven stopped her objection.
“All right, then. You have to come with me. In the truck.” Was she really having a conversation with a puppy? Yep, she was, and that was not nearly as odd as the fact Haven seemed to understand. She raced past Georgia to the front door and stood up as if she could open the door herself.
“You have to have this on so I can catch you,” Georgia said, snapping the leash on before Haven could figure out what she was doing.
Georgia didn’t try to pull her by it. Instead, she ran after the leash as they moved through
the yard. The truck was too high for Haven to jump in, so she reluctantly let Georgia lift her, but then she moved to the far passenger side and barked as she sat down, basically telling Georgia to step on it.
“You know, you’re really going to put a damper on his dating life,” Georgia said as she put her stuff in the back, only getting half a growl in response.
Every time she walked up to the fire hall, she’d been anxious and today was no different. Through all the back and forth texts, she felt she and Easton were breaking through the hard sexual tension which was always present between them. But the thing was, texting or chatting online, anything online, she was good at. She had time to think, to edit or to do whatever to make sure what she said came across the way she wanted. In person, it was impossible, simply because Easton caused too many reactions in her body, in her soul.
Every time he would give her a countdown time to when he was going to take her to dinner, a wave of want and desire would surge through her and her mind would not be right for a good while.
Her name was shouted out from various corners of the hall as she walked in behind Haven, who had run toward Memphis the second she sensed him.
Truman even belted out a Ray Charles song, Georgia On My Mind, as he leaned into Easton. Easton was silent, at least his lips were. His gaze, as always, seemed to say a million things.
She nodded for him to follow her outside. To her relief, everyone acted like they didn’t see them walk out. In some way, they even seemed a bit nervous, which was odd to her.
She climbed in the driver’s seat of Memphis’s truck, and he leaned in the window.
“What project are we working on now?” he asked.
“Website,” she said with a few clicks on her phone, sending him the link to what she had worked on that morning, just like she had been doing the day before.
“Tomorrow,” he said, reaching to brush his hand against hers as it rested across the door frame.
She smiled weakly and looked down, feeling a warm hum settle deep in her belly.
“We need to talk.”
When he didn’t make a sound, she looked up to meet his eyes. Judging from the emotion, he now looked as discomforted as the guys in the house.