Getting Over It: Sapphire Falls Book Six (27 page)

“No, you were trying to look like one of the girls.”

She took his hand and put it on her right butt cheek. “Do I look like one of the girls to you, Ty?”

He couldn’t help it. He squeezed the firm curve of her ass. “Not a bit.”

“I wore the boots for the town. I wore the shorts for you. I was trying to distract you from being too charming and smooth tonight during the Q&A.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed. And put both hands on her ass, drawing her up against him. “I think it worked. You were the one in the spotlight tonight.”

“I confessed because of you too,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You led me into that with your questions. You made me open up.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“You’re mad that I didn’t trust you enough to tell you.”

“That’s on both of us.” He took a deep breath. “I liked my dream girl just as she was. I didn’t delve into anything deeper. I didn’t want to rock the boat. That’s my fault too.”

“I can be the dream girl, Ty. If that’s what you want. You go back to Denver and I’ll show up as your fantasy like always, and we’ll both have what we want.”

His gut churned at that. That
was
what he wanted. Wasn’t it?

“I want you to be happy,” he said honestly.

Her smile softened at that. “I want the same for you.”

“I don’t know if I’d be a good twenty-four-seven boyfriend.”

“I don’t know if I’d be a good twenty-four-seven girlfriend.” She lifted a shoulder.

“So, me back in Denver, right?” If she told him that was what she wanted too, then he’d feel better…and less like he was bailing.

Hailey swallowed hard. “I do miss those enchiladas.”

Okay. That was that.

Enchiladas, skiing and his dream girl once a month or so. Who could complain about that?

And why wouldn’t his stomach stop cramping?

He brought her up onto her tiptoes and kissed her. Kissing Hailey never failed to make things better.

She arched against him, kissing him back hungrily. As if she also realized that this would be one of the last times in Sapphire Falls.

But a thought occurred to him and he pulled back. “But we can be together now when I come home to visit, right?” he asked. “I can hold your hand downtown and kiss you in the gazebo and we can make out at river parties?”

She grinned. “Yeah, for a weekend or so, it can work. You’ll distract me, but I can probably let things go for a couple of days here and there.”

Ty recognized that what she’d said was big. “I’ll help keep you on track while I’m here if you have anything going on.”

She kissed him, then whispered, “Thank you,” against his lips.

He deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue over her bottom lip and then taking her mouth fully when she sighed. Her breasts pressed into his chest and her belly pressed into his rock-hard cock.

Ty dragged his mouth to her ear. “You know, my dream girl would let me bend her over that couch.”

“I want to be your dream girl, Ty,” she said softly.

He walked her backward until the couch was right behind her. “Then turn around.”

She spun in his arms, bracing her hands on the back of the couch.

“Damn, I do really like these shorts,” he said, running his hands over the denim-covered curve of her ass.

She wiggled under his touch.

“And I love this T-shirt,” he said. He slid his hands around to her stomach, rubbing back and forth across the soft cotton before moving up to cup her breasts. Her nipples were already hard, and he took his time playing with her through the shirt.

She pressed her butt back into his groin. “More, Ty.”

His cock throbbed at her plea. “Yes, ma’am.”

He pulled her shirt up and one side of her bra down to expose the firm flesh and hard tip while he unbuttoned and unsnapped her shorts with the other hand. The denim parted and he was able to get his hand underneath the silk of her panties and against the wet heat he craved.

Hailey ground against his hand, seeking pressure against her clit, and she gave a soft whimper that fired his blood. But he wasn’t ready to give her what she wanted just yet. Instead, he slipped two fingers into her pussy, feeling the muscles tighten around him and relishing her groan.

She widened her stance and her head dropped forward.

He squeezed her nipple while pumping his fingers deep. “I don’t care where we are,” he said against her neck. “I love making you come apart. Over and over.”

Her muscles clenched and she whimpered again. “Ty.”

“And that. I fucking love hearing you helpless for what only I can give you.” He stroked in and out of her again.

“Yes. God,” she panted.

“I can’t stop touching you for even a second,” he told her gruffly. “Push your shorts and panties off.”

She moved swiftly, shoving the shorts and her tiny thong to her ankles.

“I had a few fantasies of you exactly like this in high school,” he told her, leaning back to take in the sight of her undressed only enough that he could get to where she really needed him.

She looked damn good like this—shorts bunched on top of her boots, T-shirt shoved up, body bent over and at his mercy.

“If I’d ever come over to your house after school, this is how it would have ended up,” she told him breathlessly.

He squeezed her nipple. “Yeah?” Even if she was just saying it, her words fed the fantasy and he felt almost lightheaded as more blood surged to his cock.

“I had a hard enough time holding back from you at school and in public. If you’d ever gotten me alone, I would have jumped you.”

He chuckled softly. Even at age twenty-nine, having had her in every position and several locations over a long period of time, he really wanted to believe what she was saying.

“I would have made you beg for it,” he told her.

She wiggled against his hand. “I would have gladly begged. God, if I’d known that you would take over and take
me
, I would have found a reason to get you alone long before the river.”

He moved his fingers faster inside her, making her gasp and moan.

“You didn’t think I could take care of you?” he asked.

“I didn’t know. I guess I thought that since I was older and more experienced that I’d have to initiate things,” she confessed.

“But you still didn’t.”

“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

She said it almost too softly to hear. He paused and she whimpered at the loss of motion.

“Fucking you on that riverbank after graduation was one of the best nights of my life,” he told her sincerely. “You were every fantasy come to life.”

“You had me up on a pretty high pedestal. I was so afraid of falling off,” she said.

“You were like a goddess to me, and that night blew my mind.”

“But you took charge,” she reminded him. “I kissed you and then you took over.”

“I couldn’t hold back. That was four years of lust all coming out.”

She laughed. “It was so good.”

He had to chuckle at that. “No, it wasn’t. It was over way too fast. I had no control.”

“I loved that. That was the best part. No one had ever wanted me like you did. It was like you were a kid, I was a candy store and someone told you I was all yours. You didn’t know where to touch first, what to do first, you tried to do everything at once and you couldn’t get enough.”

He rested his forehead on her shoulder and admitted, “That was exactly what it was like. And then you were gone the next morning and I felt sick—like I’d eaten too much candy too fast.”

She laughed. “I couldn’t believe how good it had been and I didn’t know how to face you. After all the years of thinking I was somehow in control of our relationship and then to lose myself in you like that.”

Ty moved his fingers, getting a heartfelt moan from her. “Do you know how badly I wanted everything to be perfect, mind-blowing and amazing for you the next time we were together?” When she’d shown up in person in Denver, he’d known he needed a redo of the night at the river.

“That was when I knew I’d never get enough of you,” she said hoarsely.

He rewarded her words by brushing his thumb over her clit. The spot was swollen and sensitive and she cried out from even that light touch.

“You’re still like my candy store, dream girl.” He went to his knees and pushed her forward over the back of the couch. He put his mouth to her pussy, flicking his tongue against her clit, his hands holding her hips as she squirmed. “Better than candy,” he murmured. He licked over her clit again, dragged his tongue over her slick heat and then returned to her clit and sucked.

She gasped his name and pressed back.

He looked up to see her digging her fingers into the back of the couch. She was close. He licked over the nub again, increasing the pressure slowly until finally, when he sucked again, she went over the edge calling his name.

Ty was on his feet, his fly undone seconds later.

He grasped her hips and pulled her toward him as he thrust, sliding into her fully. She arched her neck, and he ran his hand up and down her back as she took him.

“Yes, Hailey, move with me.”

She leaned forward, then back, sliding along his length, and he shuddered with the wave of pleasure that washed over him.

And in that hot, erotic moment, it hit him how truly amazing this all was. She had doubted herself, hidden so much of herself from everyone, been taught that things she couldn’t control made her flawed and not good enough, and yet she’d still let him close. She’d turned her body and her pleasure over to him completely when they were together. She might not have trusted him fully with her secrets, but she’d trusted him with intimate knowledge about her body and her fantasies and what fueled and satisfied her passion, and that was something. Something big. Something he could cling to.

He grasped her shoulders as he drove forward, embedding himself as deep as he could get.

“You’re amazing,” he told her sincerely. “More amazing than I ever imagined.”

He felt her body clamp down on his and he thrust again, hard and deep, and a few minutes later, they went careening into an orgasm together.

After a shower together and making love again on the bed, he kissed her and got in his car to head to Denver, and saw that saying goodbye was hard on her too. He was going to cling to that as well.

Thursday night, five days before the next mayoral term began, Hailey sat in the Come Again—Ty’s campaign headquarters—and allowed Phoebe to fill her margarita glass for the third time.

The campaign was almost over.

And having Ty as a next-door neighbor was over.

And keeping secrets from her friends, town and boyfriend was over.

And she was miserable.

“I can’t believe he isn’t planning to vote in the election,” Phoebe said with a grin. “Ty better hope he doesn’t lose by one.”

“He’ll lose by a hell of a lot more than one,” Lauren assured them all. “Hailey’s got this.”

Hailey just drank.

The election was tomorrow, the votes would be counted over the weekend and the winner posted on Monday.

She didn’t care about the election. That was a startling truth that she’d only realized when she’d watched Ty’s taillights disappear around the corner as he headed back to Denver. The place she’d never wanted him to leave in the first place.

Typical.

He’d come to town and stirred her up. As always. This time he’d stayed longer though, and
really
messed around in her life, so it made sense that she felt more annoyed than usual.

But that didn’t explain the aching in her heart.

She hadn’t
missed
him before. Or she hadn’t let herself anyway. She’d believed that she wanted him to stay in Denver, far from her life in Sapphire Falls. So when he left after a visit, she usually felt relief.

Or that’s what she’d told herself she felt.

Now it seemed that the being-honest-with-everyone thing was extending even to herself. And if she was honest, she’d admit that she missed him now that he was gone.

Dammit
.

“Tell me again why he went back to Denver,” Adrianne said.

The women were clustered around one table while their husbands, Ty’s campaign team, sat at another. But they were really only divided because the guys were closer to the television, where they were watching the end of a baseball game. The women had to sit away from the TV so they could talk.

The exception was Adrianne’s husband, Mason, who sat next to his wife. But he was completely absorbed in whatever he was doing on his tablet, and Hailey knew from experience he heard nothing that was going on around him. When Mason Riley was in work mode, the only person who could get his attention was Adrianne. And he was often in work mode.

“He had to go back and check on Bryan.”

“But he’ll be here Monday, right? To see who wins?” Phoebe asked.