“Napa, huh? You fly away from our own Sunnyville wine country to the one that rivals ours?” I tease as his fingertips draw feather-light lines up and down the length of my spine.
“Well, I’m not a fan of the people who own the majority of our vineyards. Since the Hoskins are that majority, they kind of took its beauty away when everything happened with Claire.”
He falls silent, and I instantly regret my question and the grief it brings him. The unimaginable heartbreak he must have endured raising a baby and losing the woman he loved. Learning that it’s, in fact, money that makes the world go ’round and not love.
“It must have been hard in those early days. Figuring out fatherhood. Dealing with it all.”
“You have no idea. It felt like I was cemented to the bottom of a well that was filling with water. Work saved me, while at the same time, it also terrified me. Every second I was away from Luke, I worried that he thought he’d been abandoned by his other parent, too.”
“He knows you love him and would never leave him.”
“He does, but knowing that never stopped me from worrying.”
“Speaking of worrying, do you ever fear that Claire will realize what a huge mistake she made and change her mind? That she’ll come back and want to see Luke?”
“I fear that every single goddamn day . . . but even if she did, she signed away her rights—forever, without recourse, so she can ask all she wants but there’s not a chance in hell I’d let her see him.”
“So that’s why you’re so quiet about it.”
“I’m quiet about it because it almost broke me in every way imaginable, and I had to make a conscious effort to let it go and move on. If not, it would have slowly killed me.”
“You’re a better person than I am. I would have told everybody in town so they knew her true colors.”
“I wanted to . . . but what good would that do me other than hurt Luke when he’s older? You know this town. You know how people like to talk. He’d find out somehow. Besides, I agreed to sign an NDA—protect their precious reputation—which allowed me to make a clean break and have a new start without any of their strings attached.”
“You know, I still can’t wrap my head around how you’ve managed to work your ass off to provide for Luke—make a life for the two of you—and still seem so positive about everything. It has to be hard, living in the town in which they own at least some part of everything you look at.”
“We’re doing just fine.” I can see pride war across his face. “I could have left town, but that would have meant leaving my family. Having them be a part of Luke’s life is more important than my wounded ego.”
I keep my eyes focused on the valley below but reach over and link my fingers with his in a show of silent support.
“Hey, Sid?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“I appreciate you caring and wanting to know about how this all affected me, but this is our date night. What do you say we stop talking about Claire and what happened? I have Luke. He’s a good kid. We’ll be fine. Besides, men aren’t too keen on talking about their shortcomings.”
“Grayson, you did nothing wrong—”
My words are cut off when he leans over and kisses me. “Stop talking.”
“Only if you’ll keep kissing me.”
“Now that? That I can do.” He extends the kiss a little longer, a little deeper, a lot more satisfying. “Life is good right now. I’m getting my wings back shortly. Luke had a great report card. And I’m up here on a moonlit mountain with a beautiful woman. There are definitely no complaints here,” he murmurs before pressing his lips to mine again.
When he stops, I rest my head on his shoulder, and we fall silent as we stare at the view and wonder what in the hell this is between us.
Or at least, I do.
“We were sidetracked.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” he says through a chuckle. “I can sidetrack you some more if you’d like.”
“Definitely, but first, tell me how you know about this place. And how do you know they’re cool with you landing here?”
He takes our linked hands and presses a kiss to the top of mine as if it were a normal thing. Something about the action steals my breath and makes me take pause. So much so that I miss the first part of what he’s saying.
“The guy is a family friend and this is his family’s land. They use it for corporate functions, weddings, and stuff like that. They own a helicopter company that takes tourists around, and they also shuttle corporate executives between here and San Francisco or Los Angeles.”
“It feels like we’re on top of the world up here.”
“It does. I’m surprised you weren’t scared about me taking you up.”
“I hid it well,” I say with a laugh. “But you seem very competent.”
“Just competent? Not incredible or mind blowing?” He chuckles.
“We are talking about flying, right?” I ask and squirm out of the way when he reaches out to tickle me. Unfortunately, in my scramble to get away from him, I knock over the bottle of wine, which he saves before too much spills. “My hero. Grayson Malone is my hero!” I shout to the hundreds of lights twinkling in the valley below.
“Don’t even start that hero crap again,” he says, but he’s laughing right along with me.
“Oh, Mr. Malone, you are such a hero,” I continue.
“Says the defiant damsel.” He hands me a glass and begins to fill it with the almost spilled wine. “Scratch that—says the queen manipulator.”
“It was all Rissa,” I refute as I take a sip.
“Uh-huh. I’m not buying that for a second.”
“It was, I swear. I told her you were the one who was going to win the contest. She has her sights on another guy. She decided to plant a few stories in the Gazette—against my knowledge, I might add—to make sure it was a ‘fair fight.’”
“She doesn’t think I can win?”
“Not against her man,” I say, realizing I’m spurring on the competitive side of the man next to me.
“Bullshit,” he snorts, and it makes me laugh. “Rissa? It was seriously Rissa who set all this shit up?”
“The article. The hero party. Not my idea.” His eyes find mine through the moonlit darkness. “Now you have no reason to be mad at me, right? Your brothers signed you up, and she egged it on.”
“You’re far from innocent, Thorton.”
“Only in all the right ways.” That earns me a pinch on my side. “For a man who takes risks for a living, though, you should learn to be a little more comfortable being called a hero.”
“Whatever.” He takes a drink of his Coke and leans back on one hand.
“Tell me about the High Sierras.”
“They’re a mountain range in California,” he says drolly.
“No shit.” A part of me loves that he helps without wanting the attention, but I want to hear this story for me, not because I want to use it for votes. “What about the hikers you rescued?”
He looks over to me with an angle to his head and a sudden shyness in his expression. “Who said I rescued any hikers?”
“C’mon. Everyone knows it was you, why are you too shy to talk about it?”
“I don’t rescue people to get accolades.”
“No one said you did.” I can’t figure out why he’s so cagey about responding.
“Anything I tell you is off the record, right? No telling Rissa so she can call the Gazette.”
“This whole date is off the record.”
His smile spreads across his lips and warms so many parts of me. “I don’t talk about it because it was stupid on my part.” His voice lowers, his eyes soften.
“I would hardly say that saving a whole family is stupid.”
“Yeah, but I could have ruined lives, too. I took off, thinking only about Luke. Thinking about how, if that were my son, I’d move heaven and earth to find him and save him. It wasn’t until I was in the air and the chopper pitched and
swayed that I realized how goddamn stupid I was. That I was risking my life and could very well end up leaving Luke fatherless. It was a stupid move. Just too risky.”
“And, yet, you did it again, and it got you grounded.”
He falls silent and shifts to meet my eyes. “If someone needs help, I have a hard time turning my back.”
“And that’s why you’re good at your job.”
“Like I said, I take too many risks.”
“Not all risks are bad things.”
It has to be the damn moonlight in her hair.
Or the high altitude.
But every time I look at her, I think that this is too perfect. That this feels too real. That she makes me feel way too comfortable.
Then I tell myself to step back from the ledge. That I’m only allowing myself to think shit like that because of the night and the moon and I’m fucking thrilled to be getting back in the air.
Good things.
Positive things.
Things that make me wonder if the woman sitting next to me is too good to be true.
“Thank you for bringing me up here,” she murmurs, her lips pressed against my bare chest. Her tits are warm against my body, her thigh hooked over mine as if we are casually lying in a bed instead of on a mountaintop in a field of wispy grass.
Who knew uptown Sidney would have been okay with that?
Maybe I was testing her to see her reaction. Could she handle my flying? Would she trust me? Would she be okay coming to one of my favorite spots in the world?
She passed with flying colors, but now what? What other tests could I possibly ply her with to prove she isn’t Claire? When do I stop and just trust that she isn’t?
Sabotage is never pretty when you’re trying to do it to something good.
“Earth to Grayson?”
“Sorry. I was just thinking.” I shake my head and meet her eyes.
“I thought I just sexed you up so good that you couldn’t think.”
“Ah, you’re right. Maybe I should call you the dick ninja.”
She bursts out laughing, and the sound of it shakes the negative thoughts from my mind. Christ. I can’t even enjoy an evening without throwing my past in my own face to screw it up.
“The dick ninja. I like that.”
“Those words sound so funny coming from you, the prim and proper Sidney Thorton.”
“I don’t think anything that I just did to you was very prim or proper.”
“Mm.” It’s all I can say as my mind relives every lick of her tongue and suck of her mouth over my cock. The way my hand held on to the back of her head, silently begging for her to let me shoot down the back of her throat. But, of course, she had other plans.
Like riding me into oblivion, her tits on perfect display as she ground back and forth on my cock. The way her lips parted. The way her hands ran over her nipples and she pinched them between her fingers. The way she screamed as she came, her pussy pulsing around my dick and milking my own orgasm out of me.
Prim and proper. Definitely not what comes to mind with the sex spell she just drugged me with.
“Mmm?” she asks.
“Shh. Quiet,” I say as I pat her on the ass. “I was just remembering it play by play.”
“I guess I didn’t do a good enough job knocking you into a sex coma, then.”
“Either that or it was so good that I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Nice recovery.”
“Not quite yet, but I’ll be good to go in a bit.”
“Aren’t you the cheeky one?” she says as I squeeze her ass cheek, which is centered in the palm of my hand.
“Thank you for coming with me, Sidney.”
“Ha, that is one thing I definitely just did.” The husky sound to her voice makes my dick want to stir to life, but it’s spent. She just worked me every which way, and I want to save my energy for round two once we get back down from here.
I’m not ready to move yet. There’s something comforting about the way she has her head on my chest and traces lines over my skin. About the way I’m so damn at ease with her I could fall asleep with her in my arms. About how we can be here like this, enjoy the moment, each other, and she doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence with endless chatter.
It takes a few minutes for those thoughts to really sink in. When they do, when I realize I’m wondering if this is how things would be between us if we did this on a more regular basis—if people were allowed to know we were seeing each other . . . if I let Luke know we were seeing each other—I tell myself we need to get going. We need to get up so the feel of her body against mine stops filling my head with shit that can’t be.
That isn’t possible.
But I don’t move. I just press a kiss to her head and breathe her in as I run my fingers through her hair. I tell myself to enjoy not having to worry about picking up Luke or not skipping out after sex to get home so Luke doesn’t know.
“Are you sure we have to go back?” she groans.
“Only after you drink the rest of this wine.”
“You sure you don’t want any? I feel like a lush drinking this whole bottle myself.”
“No drinking and flying for me, but”—I sit up and slide out from under her—“we could always continue this back at one of our places if you’d like.”
“Really?” She draws the word out, and even though I don’t look back at her, I can picture the suggestive smile that’s toying at the corners of those gorgeous lips of hers.
“Really. Luke’s with my parents until tomorrow.”
“So maybe you should bring me back down to earth,” she says through a laugh, “so you can take me back to heaven again.”
My laugh echoes in the empty space around us as her lips press a kiss onto my shoulder.
It seems as if that simple action allows Sidney Thorton to slip into my life in a way I never saw coming. In a way I never wanted. In a way I’m not sure I’ll be able to give up.
Nor do I even want to think about it.
Christ.
I’m in deep, aren’t I?
Grayson: I’ve been thinking about you all day.
I look down at the text and smile before turning my attention back to Rissa and our plans for how we’re going to end this round of voting and move on to the top five.
“So, I think we close it out and then maybe take the next week and announce one of the finalists each day. Give little tidbits about each of them, make readers like them more, just have fun with it.”
My phone beeps again with another text, and I bite back the new grin trying to form on my lips. Rissa only huffs, eyeing my phone with annoyance. “Sorry, let me turn my ringer off.”
And then I have to feign nonchalance when I look down at my phone and find another text.
Grayson: My dick is rock hard, and it’s you I’m imagining. It’s in my hand when I’d rather it be in your mouth with my fingers in your pussy, working you into a frenzy.
“Is everything okay?” Rissa asks, making me realize I must have made a noise when I read the text. “You look startled.”
I glance back at the text again and shake my head while every part of my body comes to life. “Yeah, it’s, uh, fine.”
“Your ringer.” Her brows are lifted as she glances to my phone and then back to me.
“My finger?” I squeak, thinking she saw the phone screen.
“Ringer. Sound on your phone.”
“Oh, yes . . . sorry.” Flustered, I fumble with my cell, and before I can even switch it off, another text alert pings.
Grayson: I want to bend you over and watch as my cock slides in and out of you.
“So back to next week . . .”
“Yes,” I swallow over the desire lodged in every place it should be and try not to glance at my phone as it vibrates again.
“Are you good with that plan?” Rissa asks as I shift in my seat to abate the sudden ache burning brighter than bright.
“Yes. Sure. I think that s
ounds like a great plan.”
Grayson: I want my cock buried so deep that you feel every damn inch of me.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, why?” My voice breaks like a prepubescent teenager.
Grayson: I want you to come so hard you have to bite the pillow.
“You look a little flushed. Are you coming down with something?”
Grayson: You always have a choice. Isn’t that what you said to me once? Make a choice, Sidney. Isn’t it time to head to lunch?
“I mean, yeah, maybe.” I pull at my collar some. “Maybe that’s why I feel so flushed all of a sudden.”
Grayson: Meet me on the backside of The Cottages. Room Six. Fifteen minutes.
“Either that,” she says as she stands and heads to the door, only turning back to give me a wink, “or you’re guilty as hell. Maybe you should go take care of that itch texting you . . . or take some Tylenol. Whichever one it is, I think you should take the afternoon off.”
Grayson: Choose me.
“Oh.” It’s the only thing I can think to say because my brain is otherwise occupied imagining Grayson following through on his promises.
“And, Sid?”
“Yeah?”
“I sure hope he’s every bit worth breaking the rules.” She winks. “It’s about damn time. Your secret is safe with me.”
I rush out of the office, embarrassed but horny as hell, and park in the central lot that sits squarely in town. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, I walk around the block a few times before I figure the best way to get to the back side of The Cottages, which is a local bed and breakfast.
For some stupid reason, I’m nervous when I see the number six on the door of the only cottage that seems to have complete privacy. Is it because going to a hotel room in the middle of the day for sex is weird, or is it because it’s hotter than hell?
Judging by how damp my panties are, I’m betting on the latter.