“That’s it. I’m calling Dad. We aren’t going to make it to some stupid happy hour,” I said as I slid my hands beneath the hem of the sweater.
Her breath turned choppy as my fingers teased the edges of a lace bra. I swallowed her little gasp, setting my mouth on hers and licking inside the sweet heat. She responded by pressing into me, tangling her fingers in my hair, and nipping at my lower lip.
Just like it always did when I touched her, when we were lost in each other like this, time slipped away. Nothing existed but her. The smell and taste and feel of her. Of us. My body ignited. Ached. Yearned. I picked her up and set her on the counter, stepping between her thighs, and angled my mouth to go deeper. To show my devotion, my absolute surrender to anything and everything Maisey.
I’d just pulled aside the cup of her bra, gotten one nipple between my thumb and forefinger, when my cell phone burst to life in my pocket.
Dad’s ringtone.
Damn.
Maisey laughed, but when I pulled back, her eyes were dark green, full of the same heat and longing that was zipping along my spine, over my shoulders, and through my chest.
As I yanked the phone out and swiped at the screen, Maisey brushed at my lips to remove her deep-red lipstick.
“Yeah?” I grunted out.
“Hey, Beck. Just checking. You’re still coming, right?” And the nervousness in Dad’s voice had guilt slamming into me.
I had Maisey with me every single day. I could make love to her anytime I wanted—and I did often. Fiercely. Tenderly. Slowly and sensually. Fast and hard. My fiancée was in my bed each night and in my shower every morning. But Dad had only this one time to make amends with Liza.
He only had this one moment to see if fourteen, going on fifteen years, was too much of a divide to cross or if the love they’d had all those years ago could somehow find a home in them again. And I’d promised I’d be there to break up the tension, to ease the reconnection.
“We’re running a little behind because Vader brought another goddamn kitten home.”
Dad laughed, but it didn’t hide his nerves. I glanced at the clock. We had time to make it before Liza showed up at the ranch, but I’d have to push it a little faster than I’d wanted to in the light layer of snow that had drifted through last night.
“We’re on our way now.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
Before I could hang up, Maisey took the phone. “Don’t be nervous, Kurt. One look at you, and she’s going to remember all the reasons she loved you.”
My dad responded, but I couldn’t hear what it was as I hadn’t put the phone on speaker. Maisey laughed, and they hung up as I lifted her off the counter.
I held her arm as we made our way to the SUV so she wouldn’t slip in those sexy boots on the snow. Once we were on the road, with our windshield wipers brushing aside the wet flakes, Maisey darted me a worried look.
“She’s going to be kind, right? She’s not going to be a bitch and say something mean?”
I thought back to the Liza I remembered. She’d never been cruel, not even when Dad told her if she left to never come back. She’d been sad and heartbroken but said she’d respect his wishes.
I shook my head. “I don’t think she’ll be mean.”
“Good. I don’t want to have to go all Fallon on her.”
I snorted. “Let’s leave all the Falloning to Fallon.”
“If there’s time, after we have lunch with Kurt and Liza, Andie asked us to stop by her office. She’s got some more flower samples for us to look at.”
I didn’t groan aloud, but I swear Maisey heard me anyway. She laughed and said, “I know. I know. This wedding planning stuff is more intense than I even thought. I’m almost ready to say screw it and elope the way Fallon and Parker did.”
“No,” I responded instantly.
“What? Why not?” she asked.
“Maisey, I’m not sneaking off to Vegas to say I do. I’m standing in front of the entire damn town and claiming you as mine.”
“You already did that when you put a ring on my finger at the Firefighters Ball.”