“I wanted them to be haunting. To reflect how everyone feels about this town, stuck under Sid’s thumb.” He lowered his gaze, then looked at me again. “I like making things with my hands. Creating something rather than just… destroying. Leaving something behind that will be here long after I’m…”
Jayce shrugged as if he were uncomfortable. Not from talking about his potential death, but about the things he had created. He wrapped me in a hug, and whispered, “Thank you,” into my ear.
I hugged him back, and could feel how desperately he’d needed that sort of validation. I ran my hands through his hair until he finally let go.
“So you learned to make art by welding at a factory?”
“Uh huh.” He motioned with his hands, and for a moment I could picture him bending the metal with his strength. “There’s an art to welding. I just sort of, I dunno, translated it over to something more creative.”
“You’ll have to make one of those for my momma.”
He leaned back an inch. “Really?”
“She loves cheesy yard art like that. Something for the birds to sit on.”
He shoved me playfully and we laughed, taking the tension away from the previous moment.
“What are we going to do about Sid?” I asked.
The tension came right back. Immediately I regretted bringing it up, wishing we could go back to the way things were just seconds before. When all our problems seemed a hundred miles away.
“I don’t know, Peaches,” he admitted. He took both of my hands in his. “But for now, I want to make the most of tonight.”
I squealed as he threw me on the bed, tore off my damp clothes, and buried his face between my thighs. I arched my back as he ate me out like he was a starving man, one who craved only the taste of me.
Tonight was for us. Tonight we were safe.
33
Charlotte
I woke to warm lips kissing me on the forehead. Everything was still dark, and strangely silent. It took me a moment to realize it was because the rain had stopped.
“Mornin’, Peaches.” Jayce smiled down at me. His hair was tied back, with a few strands hanging down, framing his ruggedly-handsome face.
This is how I always want to be woken up.
I stretched my hands over my head and squeaked. “What time is it?”
“Time to go home.”
“Do I have to?” I reached for my phone, then groaned. “Jayce, it’s five in the morning!”
“I need to get you home while the town is still asleep.” He kissed my forehead again, and his voice was a deep whisper. “If anyone sees us driving together from my barn…”
“It’s going to take at least eight more kisses to wake me up,” I said.
I meant it as playful morning banter, but Jayce grabbed my head with both of his callused hands and planted exactly eight kisses all over me: forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, and neck. I giggled as his beard tickled its way across my skin.
“There’s eight,” he said, with a final kiss on the lips that lingered longer than the rest. “With a ninth as a bonus. Good enough?”
“Mmm hmm,” I hummed. I was tempted to pull him back down for a deeper kiss, and a third round of sexy time, but he was already getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom. I enjoyed the sight of his nude body as he disappeared, then reemerged a minute later.
“A girl could get used to that,” I said. “If you don’t go back to factory welding, you could be a model.”
“I prefer to work for a living.”
“Modeling is work,” I said.