His Southern Temptation (20 page)

Her body clenched around his fingers, signaling the impending break of her climax. Desperate to feel her come apart all over him, he pushed deeper into her, curling his fingers to find her sweet spot and press until she shattered like glass. It was beautiful, the way she gave herself over to the sensations and called out his name, still claiming him as her own.

“Stay.” He bit her earlobe, soothing the spot with his tongue as she came down from her pleasure. She still didn’t respond, her body melting into his own, muscles turned to mush by the orgasm.

Withdrawing his fingers, he pushed her down until she sat on the stairs, panting and wild. He greedily soaked her in. She was wanton, dress rucked up around her waist, one shoulder strap dangling down low enough to expose her breast to his hungry gaze.

Lucky’s hands shook as he undid his belt, lowered the zipper and shoved his jeans down until his thick cock was exposed to her gaze. Taylor had watched the progression of undressing and now she stared at his erection, licking her lips when he stroked his length, savoring the electric rush caused by her wanting. When she looked up, the need in her eyes brought him to his knees on the step in front of her. He tried to be gentle but his touch was rough, frantic when he dragged her under him and entered her in one thrust.

“Lucky. Yes. Please.”

Taylor was vocal, her gasp descending into a whimper of pleasure. She clutched him, legs wrapped around his waist, arms locked around his neck as her wet, slick channel held him tight.

Lucky remained still, watching the sensations flicker across her face until she settled with a shudder and opened her eyes. The green of her hazel eyes was bewitching, the dilated pupils a testament to her arousal.

“Stay.” He emphasized his plea with his first thrust, a deep, slow glide in and out of her sweet body. Taylor bit her lip, keeping whatever response she had locked inside.

Stay.
The word became a mantra, spilling out of his mouth in a cascade of longing that rode the waves of sexual hunger rolling through his body. His universe narrowed down to the small staircase, the moist heat between her thighs, the clutch of her embrace. He drove into her, everything standing out in fine relief in his sensory-overloaded brain. The hardness of the wooden stair under his knees, the smell of sweat and coconut on her skin, the velvet of her tongue as it tangled with his.

His release, when it arrived, was swift. Lightning. Sparks. Fire. He felt the clasp of her muscles as she came, and he drove deeper one last time as he emptied into her body. It was the sweetest agony, the closest thing to heaven on earth. He was humbled by her power over him. Only she did this to him. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

Lucky clasped her face between his hands, cradling her jaw as he pressed soft kisses on her lips, brows, cheekbones, and chin. Taylor responded sweetly, her mouth open and tender for him.

“Stay.” He pulled back far to see her face, look into her eyes, and let her see that he believed enough for both of them. “
I love you. Stay
.”

The time between his plea and her answer was not more than a heartbeat, but it felt like everything stood still. As if the universe knew his world was about to collapse and it wanted to spare him the inevitable.

She smoothed a trembling hand along his face, burying her fingers in his hair as a tear spilled over and rolled down her cheek. She was really sorry, he read it in her eyes, but it didn’t stop her from saying the words he would have given a million lifetimes never to hear.

“Lucky, I can’t stay.”

“So, you’re gonna do this? You’re afraid, so you push me away before I can walk away from you? You expect people to let you down, so you hide behind your job when it gets too scary to risk your heart.” Her eyes were wide with pain, but he couldn’t stop. “You’re convinced that being with you will never be enough to make anyone want to stay. I can’t change that if you won’t give me the time to prove you wrong.”

He stared at her, willing her take that leap with him. This wouldn’t work with just one of them believing. Taylor only stared at him, her eyes pleading with him to understand. She was leaving. She didn’t believe. He wasn’t worth the risk. With that one look, he knew it was over.

He’d lost her. She was already gone; whatever she felt for him was not strong enough to overcome her fear. He’d bet his life that she loved him, but if Taylor didn’t believe that it was enough, he had nothing. He couldn’t make it work when he was the only one trying.

Lucky withdrew from her body and uncoiled from her embrace. With shaky hands, he pulled up his pants and proceeded to methodically fasten each button and buckle his belt. The routine movement helped him gain his center, his balance. Heat stung his throat as he attempted to speak. It took two tries before he was able to get anything out that remotely resembled his own voice.

“When will you leave?”

“The day after tomorrow. There is a morning flight out of Roanoke,” she said in a flat, small voice.

She sat on the stairs, looking a little dazed and shell-shocked. He knew what that felt like.

“I know I promised to drive you the airport, but I can’t do it. I can’t keep my promise,” he said.

As his words sunk in, Taylor met his eyes, and he started backing up to make his escape before this scene got any worse. He drank in the sight of her and imprinted it on his mind, because if he was to have any chance of moving on, this had to be the last time he ever laid eyes on her.

When he heard her call out his name he broke into a run and never looked back.

A good soldier knows when to make a tactical retreat in order to fight another day.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Mother, thank you.”

Taylor glanced across the kitchen island at the woman she realized she didn’t know at all. She didn’t know how long she’d sat on those cold steps after Lucky had left the house with a violent slam of the front door. She’d called his name, although there was no point since nothing had changed in the few seconds since she’d told him she couldn’t stay. The hurt and pain on his face was imprinted on her heart, her head—hell, her whole body hurt like it had suffered direct impact.

“What are you thanking me for, Mary-Taylor?” Marian asked.

“For putting me back together. For kicking my ass.” Taylor almost laughed at the displeasure her mother unsuccessfully tried to hide. She’d been a trouper when she’d found Taylor crying at the bottom of the stairs. She’d forced her to eat, shower, and move forward with her plans. “Thanks for not saying ‘I told you so.’”

“I might not approve of your choice, but I’m your mother first. I never wanted to see you hurting like that. All I did was comfort my child, and I was very sorry I had reason to.” She sipped her coffee. “I
am
sorry you’re leaving so soon. It would have been nice to have you around a little while longer.”

“I have to get back.”
I have to get away before I change my mind
. “I need to do some things before I can open, and I can’t do them from here.”

“I understand. Still, it would be nice to have someone else in this big house with me.” Her mother paused flipping through a decorating magazine on the counter. She had plans to spruce up the place. When her mother spoke again, her tone was cheerful and excited. “Teague is going to help me find a job. He suggested something at one of the local colleges. Not teaching of course, but I do have some mad organizational skills.”

“Mad what?” Taylor swallowed down her coffee quickly with her laugh. She was stunned her mother even knew slang, much less let it pass her lips.

“And then I might join one of those dating sites. You know, for more mature people like myself.”

“Mother! I don’t know whether to applaud or tell you to have your doctor check your meds.”

“Oh, my meds are fine.” She dismissed her with a giggle and wave off. “I just look at you chasing what you want and all I can think is, ‘I want that too.’ So, if you can make a hard choice and go back to Hawaii, I can spread my wings a little too.”

“Good for you.”

Taylor pushed down the lump of emotion lodged in her throat. Her mother had taken quite the body blow when her father had left, but her bravery was admirable. She could have stayed in Florida, but she’d come back to Elliott to face her demons and move on. Maybe her mother could reverse some of the regrets she had about her life.

There were so many things she was leaving behind—her mother starting over, the friends she’d made in Elliott, and most of all, Lucky. But this wasn’t about having it all. That wasn’t possible. This was about making the smart choice, the logical choice. Not the emotional or risky choice.

Looking out the window, the mountains towered in the background, their deep foliage shrouded in the bluish fog cover of early morning. Hawaii was beautiful and lush, but she would miss that ridge of peaks and valleys. She would miss so many things.

“Are you okay, Mary-Taylor?”

“I think so. I don’t know.” She leaned on the counter, swirling her coffee in the mug, trying to organize her thoughts.

She’d known this was going to be hard. She loved Lucky—no use in lying to herself about it—and that made any type of commitment with him terrifying. If she cared about him less, if he factored less in her happiness equation, then she might have stayed and figured out what to do about her career. But the risk that one day he would discard her and move on to something better and shinier was a risk she could not take. So, the logical choice was to leave and protect her heart.

“It’s not too late.” Marian said.

“Yes, it is. Just drop it.”

“Call Lucky. Talk to him. It can’t make this any worse.”

“Yes it can, Mother. It really can.”

The doorbell rang and Taylor jumped up to answer it. They’d already been over this, and she didn’t want to go over it again. Her mother called after her, but she missed it as she padded down the hallway, the wooden floorboards cool and smooth under her feet.

She opened the door, and the morning sunshine reflected off the bald head of her visitor. Her reflexes were too slow to close the door on his face. Apparently, her day was about to get worse.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Okay, boys. You need to get your butts out of my barn and stop scaring the animals.”

For the second time that week, Lucky woke in a strange place with a belligerent older man doing a loud impersonation of the world’s most annoying alarm clock. But this time he had a killer hangover, his father was the one delivering the obnoxious wake-up call, and Taylor was on a flight back to Hawaii. He rolled over on the hay bale he’d settled on last night to pass out, his head spinning in the opposite direction from the rest of the barn. Fun.

“Come on, ladies. The pity party is over and I’ve got a farm to run. So get moving.” Owen punctuated his words with a firm, jarring shake to Lucky’s shoulder, and from the gripes and groans behind him, Beck and Jack were getting the same treatment.

“Shit, Dad. Do you have to be so loud?” He sat up gingerly, a hand raised to shield his eyes from the glare of the morning, and caught his father prowling around the barn moving equipment loudly from one place to another. On the nearest hay bale, Beck was shirtless and sporting the beginnings of a shiner under his right eye. Jack sat, propped up against one of the horse stalls, his lower lip swollen and dried blood on the front of his shirt.

Lucky hurt all over.

“I’m no louder than you three jackasses were last night. It took me offering to watch one of those romantic comedies to keep your mama from coming down here to see what was going on.” He eyeballed all of them as he leaned against a piece of equipment, his crossed arms making him look huge. “Want to tell me why last night sounded like a cage fight and you all smell like the inside of a Jim Beam bottle?”

Beck and Jack looked toward Lucky, neither of them wanting to spill his dirt. He sighed, knowing his dad wasn’t going to let it go until he found out what happened. Hell, by today most of the town would know anyway.

“Taylor left me.”

His dad cocked his head to one side, confusion marring his features. “I figured it was a woman, but my money was either that this knucklehead had pissed off Michaela”—he gestured toward Jack and then turned a finger to Beck—“or this one couldn’t keep all of them straight and had a jealous boyfriend after him.”

“Hey,” Jack said.

“That happened once, and I never get to live it down” was Beck’s indignant contribution.

His dad ignored them. “But I didn’t know you and Mary-Taylor were that serious, so I think you need to catch me up.”

“She was going to stay and we were going to start a life together.”

“You love her?”

“Yes.” He’d never been so sure of anything in his life.

“Does she love you?”

“I think so.”

“Did you propose to her?”

“That was the plan.” Lucky sighed as he leaned over and rested his elbows on his knees. This position, with his head slightly bowed, made the room stop spinning. Not throwing up was key for this type of conversation. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small jeweler’s box he’d taken to carrying with him everywhere. “I’ve even got a ring.”

He explained what happened to his dad, telling him about the years of meeting up with Taylor and his realization that she was the woman for him. When he got to the last couple of weeks, the details were no less painful with twenty-four hours of distance.

Lucky realized this was the most he’d shared with his father since he was a boy. Instead of being weird, it felt really good—safe and right—to lean on his dad for guidance.

“So, why aren’t you on a plane to Hawaii?” Owen asked.

Lucky wasn’t the only one surprised. Jack and Beck both made the sounds of disbelief that matched their dual expressions.

“What are you talking about, Dad? I can’t go with her and still have the farm. The last time I checked I couldn’t lift it up and transplant it to the big island.”

“Of course not. You go with her and find something else to do. Believe me, you can do anything as long as you’re with the woman you love.” He nodded toward Jack. “You did the same thing, didn’t you? You met Michaela and suddenly the where and when wasn’t as important as the who. Am I right?”