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  I brushed the mass of her hair aside. It uncovered the long zipper that held her outfit together. My fingers fluttered along the top of it at her nape. My touch lifted a rash of goose bumps across her exposed flesh.

  “Do you feel that, Peaches? I’m barely touching you, and you’re already shaking.”

  “Ash,” she whispered.

  “Tell me, darlin’.”

  She wet her lips. “I don’t…please.”

  A dark chuckle slipped free, because this girl was just too good. Too innocent and sweet. Never had I been with a woman like her. Not in all my life.

  Slowly, I slid down the zipper. The sound of it ripping free echoed like a promise against the barren walls.

  “Gorgeous,” I whispered across her skin.

  I set both of my hands on her shoulders, massaging light. I pressed a lingering kiss to the back of her neck before I moved to her side, kissing her under her jaw as I glided around to the front.

  Standing in front of her, I watched her expression as I slipped both hands beneath the material on each side.

  A sigh parted her lips and she stared up at me.

  Trusting me to take care of her.

  Carefully, I began to peel the black fabric away, my hands flat on her silky skin as I guided it down.

  It was like the unveiling of some priceless, precious piece of art. One that had never before been on display. One that every bastard in the world wanted but not one of them could afford.

  She trembled, and I all-out shook.

  What the hell was she doing to me?

  She inhaled and exhaled these quivering, harsh breaths as I let the single piece of material glide down her stunning body.

  Her outfit dropped to the floor. A puddle at her feet.

  Kinda like me.

  She was exactly what I expected.

  A masterpiece.

  All toned, long lines and subdued curves. The girl was tall and sleek and slender. Just as willowy as her name.

  Gorgeous.

  Awe-inspiring.

  It felt like if I got too close I would sink right in and disappear.

  Maybe forever.

  Her tits were all pressed up, swelling over the sexiest black bra I’d ever seen, purely lace with a few flimsy straps, underwear to match.

  I let my fingertip trail across a strap. “I like this. A lot.”

  Self-consciously, she chewed at that lip. “You said you like black…”

  She trailed off with the severity that lit up between us.

  Energy spiked and pulsed.

  Every cell in my body was set to high alert as she and I moved through the dense intensity that swallowed every drop of air.

  Barely touching.

  Yet, I felt closer to her than I had to anyone in so many years.

  My dick strained, begging at the sight set out in front of me. Obviously, he’d be getting none of the action tonight. And it was so messed up, so at odds with who I was, that I could be okay with that.

  But it was my spirit that hitched when I caught a hint of what was marked on her skin.

  It was hidden beneath a thick, mahogany wave that cascaded down her bare shoulder on the left side.

  Almost wary, I brushed back the lock of hair to reveal the obscured. My fingertips tapped along the tattoo she had etched there, always before hidden by her clothes. My eyes jumped between the design and the intense pain that struck in her eyes.

  It was a dandelion. An exact replica of the logo hanging on the sign over her store.

  She trembled, her voice abraded with something brutally sad. “My mama…she loved them. She believed they guided the paths of our dreams. We just had to have the courage to chase them.”

  “Peaches.” My murmur struck the weighted air, and she smiled this wistful smile that cut me to the core. How was it possible this girl could touch me this way?

  But she was, and I just stood there while she got that expression on her face. The expression like she wanted to know me. The real me. The parts that were nothing but skeletons and bones hidden at the very back of a padlocked closet.

  My insides were shaking by the time she found the hem of my shirt and started working through the buttons. A needy sound came from the back of her throat as she took her turn to reveal me, inch by inch.

  Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “It scares me…the way you make me feel.”

  Hot hands landed on my stomach, and I suppressed a moan, couldn’t stop myself from letting it go when she began to slide them up the planes of my abdomen that jumped and ticked at her touch.

  She pushed the material over my shoulders, and I shrugged the rest of the way out of it.

  And I wondered what the fuck she would think when she saw the tattoo hidden on my side.

  But it was like she already knew it was there.

  Her attention went straight to it, though she seemed almost leery to caress across the dandelion I had imprinted there so long ago. Though mine? Mine was warped. Rotted. The flower head was completely barren of seed. It looked like a limbless, lifeless stick figure where it was marked deep in a chaotic rush of colors and whirls and despair.

  Inscribed like a home for the deranged and broken.

  A place I’d reserved for those who’d never make it back.

  All the things Willow wanted most? I’d plundered them away. Too much a coward to face the obstacles head on. So I’d let them crash. Obliterated. Gone.

  The words were grit where they scraped from my throat. “Funny…because I always thought they were your dreams floating away. Escaping you. Leaving you standing there to watch them drift out of reach.”

  Her face pinched in sorrow. “Or maybe they’re just out there waiting for us to find them.”

  The smile that hit me was the furthest from feigned. Almost sad and flashing with that bit of old grief I never showed. But this girl managed to pull it from me. I touched her trusting face. “Yours are, darlin’. They’re out there, waiting for you to catch up to them. Think you’re closer. You just have to step up and let it go.”

  “How do I do that when I have so much holding me back?”

  “I say we start right here. Right now, you start taking back all the things you lost.”

  “Some are lost forever.”

  Disquiet spun, and I forced it down, pushed forward an inch, erasing all the distance that separated us.

  Skin to skin.

  Chest to chest.

  Her heart beat so wild. A stampede that had raced out of control, beating a mile out ahead of her. I pressed my hand there.

  A sizzle lit in the air.

  I explored just a little, my fingers brushing the lacy fabric of her bra, tracing across the swell of her perfect tit, before I was cupping the weight of it in my hand.

  She gasped out like she’d never been touched that way before, fingers sinking into my shoulders.

  My mouth pressed to hers, softly at first, reminding myself to take it slow. To handle her with care. Treat her the way I knew I’d never treated a single girl before.

  Not even her.

  That dark place ached with the thought, and I shut it down, closed it off, focused on the velvet of this girl’s lips, the soft pants that were escaping between them. My tongue flicked out to get a tiny taste before I was licking into her delicious mouth.

  “You taste so good.” It rumbled free as I kissed her deeper. Harder. Fighting the frenzy that steadily built inside of me.

  Begging for the chance to get a little closer to the kind of beauty I’d never experienced before.

  To brush up against it.

  Take some of it with me after she went.

  She whimpered, and I completely lit.

  Everything sped.

  Her heart and my mind and the world that started spinning out of time.

  Her tongue stroked and explored and begged.

  While mine danced and promised and provoked.

  My cock throbbed. So fucking hard. Dying to dive into all that silky flesh. To get l
ost in this sensation that was winning me over.

  I moved her back another step, wrapped an arm around her waist. “Hold tight.”

  She locked her arms around my neck, and I crawled with her onto my bed until we were in the middle.

  I kissed her mad, just as mad as she was driving me. I rose up on my hands and knees, arms caging her in, my head dipping down as I delved into the well of her hot, hot mouth.

  Her tongue was chaos. Her touch insanity. And I thought, right then, that I had surely lost my mind. Every rational, logical part of me screamed to stop. But I couldn’t. I was barreling ahead into that dangerous territory where I couldn’t afford to be. Feeling a flicker of something other than lust when I rocked my pant-covered cock against the lacy seduction that rested between her thighs.

  She lifted up. Begging. Searching for friction. “Oh my God,” she whimpered. Her head swished back and forth like she could feel the world slipping out from under her and she was trying to take hold.

  Like she’d never felt anything so good.

  And I was just getting started.

  I knew it wouldn’t take more than a brush and this girl was gonna go off. That thought was really all it took for me to let my hand go sliding down, caressing over the crop of her underwear that was soaking wet, her body keening for release.

  “This, darlin’? Is this the way you were wanting me to touch you?” I voiced it like a question when I slid the scrap of lace aside, fingertips slicking into her lips and kissing across her clit.

  Her hips jerked from the bed.

  “This…please,” she nearly begged.

  I shifted so I was entirely on my knees. I watched down to catch her expression as I pressed two fingers into her pussy, the girl so snug and right.

  Her mouth parted, and her eyes sparked.

  I groaned.

  “Shit, baby…you are indescribable.”

  And that was all I could take before I was leaning back on my knees and peeling her panties free.

  Masterpiece.

  I wasn’t lying.

  Pink and pretty and tight.

  I wound my arms under her legs and gripped her by the thighs and dove right the hell in.

  My tongue plunged into all her heat.

  She bucked, fighting the sensations, but I tucked her closer.

  I licked her up and down before I set to lapping at her clit and my fingers returned to sliding deep.

  “Ash.” It was all a surprised gasp when her hands flew into my hair like she needed something to hang on to. I focused all my effort on showing this girl exactly the way she was supposed to feel when a man touched her.

  Tension wound her up fast.

  Pleas panted from her mouth. Growing thicker. Needier. Deeper.

  Willow rode an edge she’d never ridden.

  I could feel it influencing every cell in her body. Tightening. Wringing. Shimmering bright.

  I twirled my tongue and tipped her over.

  She arched from the bed.

  Begging my name like it was a song.

  I fucking loved that she wasn’t reserved or shy about it. That she kept chanting my name in mumbled whispers as she squeezed her thighs around my head. I continued to eat her up, milking every last drop of pleasure I could find from her body.

  Her walls pulsed around my fingers, and I slowed my assault, easing and easing until she stopped throbbing and the tremors took over.

  I kissed her gently on the inside of her thigh.

  And she lay there, gasping as she stared at the ceiling.

  I smirked her way. “Yeah?”

  Was it wrong that I felt a little smug?

  She touched my face. Softer than she should. “Stars.”

  My guts twisted with the way she looked at me, and I backed off her to give her space. Or maybe I needed it for myself.

  She sat up, her hand on my chest. Chocolate eyes blazed. A liquid mixture of curiosity, fear, and want.

  “I want to feel you.” The words scraped across the dense air.

  I shook my head while my dick screamed yes please. “Told you tonight wasn’t about me.”

  She climbed off my bed and stood before me covered in nothing but her lacy bra, body insane and still shaking with the afterglow.

  She took my hand, so brave and confident where she was looking down on me. “But what if this is for me?”

  I looked up at her.

  My mind and heart and spirit at war.

  Problem was none of them knew what they were fighting for.

  She pulled me to stand, and I didn’t resist. And I didn’t stop her when she dropped to her knees. Her shyness was back, all the questions and uncertainty returning.

  I caressed her cheek. “Peaches. You don’t need to do this. You’ve got nothing to prove.”

  She traced her fingertips over the scar on my side, her eyes so sincere when she gazed up at me. “I can’t believe he was a part of this. That he did this to you. I…”

  “Fuck him,” I said.

  Her lips danced with the faintest smile. That blush struck up on her face when she let the words fall from her pretty mouth. “You definitely know how to show a man up, don’t you? The two of you? You don’t even live in the same stratosphere.”

  I thought maybe it was that second that I fell a little bit for her. The moment when a dead piece lit.

  Because I swore I could feel my spirit climb into my chest when she started fumbling with the button of my fly, her nerves rippling free like they had wings when she pulled my zipper down.

  My cock twitched. Way more eager than he should be. Neither of us should be getting this involved in the first place.

  Especially when a gush of shocked air rushed from her mouth when she pulled me free.

  Those eyes were wide and so damned wild as she stared at me. Her fingertips came up to barely brush along the swollen, sensitive skin.

  “You are indescribable.” She barely managed to murmur back my praise as she peeked up at me before testing me in her hand. Unsteady and apprehensive.

  “Willow,” I said. Half warning. Half plea. Because here was this girl trying to figure out how to get her hand around my dick while I could feel her sinking into every inch of me. She finally lifted the other, gripping me right in the middle in both hands, lightly, like she didn’t know if she would hurt me.

  Then she…

  She closed her eyes, sat up on her knees, and leaned forward. She set the gentlest kiss against the very tip.

  So damned sweet.

  Fuck. Me.

  And I knew with her eyes squeezed tight she was looking for courage. She was somewhere in her head, trying to unearth the boldness I saw so plainly inside her. She must have found it, because between one breath and the next, she was using her hands to test me against her lips. They parted and pulled me inside.

  I moaned, twisted my fingers through that mass of mahogany, the girl just as intricate and complex as the pieces of wood she brought to life. She began to suck me, gaining a shaky confidence as she took me deeper with each stroke.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I’d had better head in my life. That this was a little fumbly and awkward because this girl was so timid and unsure.

  But not one of those faceless girls stood out, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I’d never experienced anything better in all of my pathetic life.

  And that right there scared the fuck out of me.

  nineteen

  Willow

  “Did you let him kiss you?” Summer knocked her shoulder into Willow’s.

  Willow couldn’t help but drop her head to try to hide the hot flush that climbed her cheeks. Her fingers played through the high grasses where they sat. Warmth filled the Savannah air, the sky so blue and bright above, the trees waving with the gentle winds and dropping their leaves, the sound of the stream trickling through.

  “No.”

  Summer laughed her carefree laugh. “Oh my, Willow, what am I going to do with you? Don’t you know th
at’s what boyfriends are for? Kissin’?” her sister teased.

  “I’m not like you,” Willow admitted.

  Summer feigned offense with a gasp, and her hand slammed over her heart.

  Willow’s eyes went wide. “Oh my goodness…you know that’s not what I meant, Summer.”

  She meant she wasn’t bold and daring like her sister.

  Her mama told her it was her thoughts and ideas that were bold. It was the way she looked at the world that would leave her mark.

  Laughter filtered through with the breeze again. “I know, I know, Willow. You’d never say a negative word about me. Even if they might be true.”

  “Don’t say that,” Willow urged.

  Summer just shook her head and looked toward the sky. “Some things are just what they are, baby sister. Even if I never meant for them to be.”

  Her sister’s tone turned that sad way it had so much lately. “That’s why I can’t wait to get out of this small town with even smaller minds. I can’t wait until I’m free of it all. To live my life the way I want to.”

  Dread curled through Willow. The thought of her sister leaving her, too. Just like their daddy had not a year before. Not with their mama getting sicker and sicker. Being alone was her greatest fear. “What would I do without you? I hate the thought of you not being here.”

  Sadness filled her sister’s sigh. “I hate the thought of leaving you, too. Of leaving Mama. But I don’t know if I can stay, Willow. I don’t belong here. I don’t fit in. Don’t you see that?”

  She turned and faced Willow, expression pleading for her to understand. “You and me. We’re different. All the beautiful things you’ve been creatin’ at Mama’s store? You shine here. Your happiness is here. And I need to find a place where I shine.”

  Willow linked her pinky finger with her sister’s. “You’ll find it. I know you will.”

  Hope that seemed marred by disbelief glinted in Summer’s eyes. “Yeah. I will.”

  Plucking a dandelion, Willow held it out just the way their mama had always done. “Make a wish.”

  Summer’s chuckle was both disbelieving and slow, her voice soft with affection. “See…that’s what I’m saying. You are all the good, thoughtful things I’m never gonna be.”