Scott paused at his car, braced a hand on the hood and took a deep breath. Peyton was going to kill him. The moment he got her completely naked, in his bed, handcuffed to his headboard, it was very likely that his head—or his heart—was going to explode. So he needed a second.

He’d never felt lust like this before, but he knew why. Because it wasn’t just lust. He was falling for her. Had fallen for her. Hard and deep.

And yeah, it was the freaking sticky notes that had sealed the deal. He’d liked her for a long time, he’d wanted her for what seemed like forever, he knew things about her that he suspected she didn’t even know about herself. But he hadn’t admitted that he was in love with her.

Until he saw the sticky note that said never a dill moment with you on the jar of dill pickles in his fridge. How was he supposed to not love a girl who would leave him a very bad pickle pun?

And then she was cleaning out his gutters? After letting him do the same at her house for years? Because she knew that he needed to do things for her. She’d been taking care of him, by letting him take care of her.

Scott scrubbed a hand over his face. And she was now going to let him handcuff her to his bed. Because yeah, he fucking needed that. He needed her completely into this, making this choice, trusting him, and knowing that he would take care of her.

Yeah, something was going to explode.

He grabbed his cuffs out of his car, gripping them tightly as he started up the walk to the porch. He was feeling a hell of a lot better, stronger, had less pain, and was getting antsy to get out of his house. But getting out or going to work were not the first things he intended to do with his renewed strength.

His heart was pounding as he approached his bedroom door. He’d never been this jacked up for sex. The buildup here had been long and intense, but he didn’t remember being this ready for someone.

Then he stepped through his bedroom door. And it was completely perfect.

Peyton was lying in the middle of his bed, bare naked, her hands already clutching the wooden slats above the pillows. Her clothes were strewn over the floor. She hadn’t even pulled the comforter down. And her going all in, all at once, was so typical that he felt his heart expand, almost painfully, and his grin stretch his mouth, even as his cock pulsed and ached.

“Maybe I don’t need these,” he said, tossing the cuffs onto the bed next to her hip. He stripped his shirt off, tossing it on top of her clothes, the action strangely intimate.

“Oh, you do,” she said emphatically. “Because you get much closer and there’s no way my hands are staying up here if I have anything to say about it.”

He pushed his shorts and underwear to the floor and kicked them away. “Oh yeah?”

“Come here and I’ll show you.”

He put a knee on the mattress and climbed up next to her. He was already hard and aching, and he thought about just rolling on a condom and going for it. The foreplay had been going on for days. Years, really.

But then she squirmed, her legs parting, her back arching, her breasts rising, and Scott knew he couldn’t jump ahead. Didn’t want to. He’d been inside of her sweet body. And that had been heaven. No question. But he hadn’t been able to worship her body, make her crazy, make her his.

He reached for the handcuffs as she reached for him. She ran her hand down his chest, her fingers trailing over his pecs, nipples, and abs. Scott held his breath as her hand drifted lower and then clasped his cock.

He groaned as she sighed, squeezing him gently, then stroking tip to base. Then she shifted, curling quickly so she could replace her hand with her mouth.

“Holy… Peyton.” His hand went to her head, tangling in her hair to stop her from sucking him deeper into the hot, wet paradise of her mouth. But he hesitated. He could let her go for a minute. Or two.

She licked and swirled and sucked, and Scott felt his fingers tightening in her hair, as the pleasure built and threatened to pull him under.

“Peyton…”

She shifted back and looked up at him. “I have wanted to do this for so long,”

And just like that he was on the edge of coming.

He tugged on her hair. “Can’t do it. Hands up.”

She gave him a look. “You know I’ve been thinking about this since the other day during your shower.”

“Yeah, me too,” he told her. “And a few other things. So put your hands up.”

She grinned and shifted to lie back on the bed. “That’s funny from a cop, you know.”

He gave a little growl and grabbed her wrists, pulling them over her head. He wrapped the cuffs around one slat in the headboard, then around her wrists and clicked them into place.

She wiggled and he looked down to find her already breathing harder. She liked this. A lot.

“God, you’re a dream come true,” he told her, running one hand over her hair, down her shoulder and then farther, over her breast, stomach, brushing over her mound, then down her thigh.

She sighed, as if his touch was actually comforting her, and shifted her legs apart. “Please do every dirty thing that you’ve been bottling up for the past two years. Please.”

He chuckled. Of course she might be handcuffed to his bed, but she would still use everything else she had to make him crazy. Like her mouth.

He kissed her, holding her chin and ravaging her mouth, his tongue stroking deep, tasting her, giving her a hint about what his tongue would be doing very, very soon on another part of her body. He’d had her, but he hadn’t really had her. Hadn’t put his mouth on every inch, hadn’t erased every thought of any other man, hadn’t made her mindless with pleasure.

And that all ended now.

He cupped one breast, thumbing over her nipple until the point was stiff, then lowered his mouth, licking and sucking. She encouraged him with soft moans and yeses and more wiggling. Her hips didn’t stop. Like she was looking for something, needed something. He put a hand between her legs, just cupping her as he sucked and gently bit one nipple.

Her breath hissed out and he felt her lifting into his hand.

The way she moved her hips was already making him crazy.

“Scott, seriously, please,” she begged.

Already. Peyton didn’t seem the type to beg. But if she lost her mind a little bit with him? Yeah, he was good with that. He circled the pad of his finger over her clit. “What do you want, Trouble? A little more of this?”

Her neck arched as she pressed her head back into the pillow. “Yes, oh yes, please.”

He grinned. He’d barely gotten started. “You’re wound tight,” he told her, circling again and pressing gently.

“I am,” she agreed. “For you. Because of you. I’ve been staring at your naked chest, I’m thinking about you while I’m at work. Every time I’m in the shower. Whenever I’ve got my vibrator. But it doesn’t go deep enough. It doesn’t fill me up like you can.”

Fire licked along his limbs even as he realized what she was doing. He raised his head from her breast and stopped his finger from moving.

She froze and looked at him.

“Yeah, I’m onto you,” he told her.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re trying to rush me along.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know damned well that the image of you getting yourself off in the shower while thinking about me makes me want to put your knees up by your ears and fuck you until the only word you know or care about is Scott.”

Her breathing hitched and her eyes got wide. “Yes, do that.”

“But,” he said, “I don’t want to do that. Yet.”

“Why not? I’m very flexible.”

Jesus, she was going to kill him. He shook his head. “Because I need you to come on my finger, and then on my tongue, and then beg me to fuck you with my cock. Got it? In that order. And I mean real begging. Not this stuff where you know exactly what to say to get me to do what you want, but real begging where I’m the only thing on your mind and if you don’t come, you’ll die.”

Her mouth fell open and she stared at him for nearly a full thirty seconds, but then she narrowed her eyes. “I’ve already come on your finger. Can we skip that part?”

He chuckled, but the sound was less humorous and maybe a touch ominous. “Maybe we could have skipped that part if you’d put American cheese on my ham sandwich instead of Swiss.” He swirled his finger over her clit. “But you didn’t. You used Swiss. My favorite.”

“You always get Swiss on your burgers,” she said, her voice hitching. “I just assumed that’s what you liked.”

“And that,” he said, leaning over to kiss her, and then trailing his scruffy jaw down her throat, over her chest, and across one breast to suck on her nipple again. “Is why I have to make you come on my finger first.”

“Because I was nice and paid attention?”

He nodded. “It’s only fair. Because…” He gave her clit a little more friction, then dipped one finger just inside of her silky heat. “I know that you love when I finger you. It’s kind of your Swiss cheese.”

“No,” she said, though her voice was breathless as he slid his finger deeper. “My Swiss cheese is your cock, for sure.”

He laughed. “Who do you think you’re talking to here?” he asked, sliding deep again and then dragging his finger out along the sensitive sweet spot that made her moan. “My fingers, deep inside of you, thrusting while I play with your clit? That is definitely your Swiss cheese, Trouble. My mouth, on the other hand, is going to be your strawberry cupcake.”

She arched up, closer to his hand, even as she asked, “What are you talking about?”

“I love Swiss cheese,” he said. “It’s my favorite cheese. But I love the strawberry cupcakes you make at the bakery even more.”

“So your cock,” she said, “is my strawberry cupcake.”

He shook his head, adding a finger and relishing her moan as he thrust deep, nice and slow and steady. “No, I love the strawberry cupcakes, but my favorite food of all, the thing I want more than all the others, even as much as I love those? Fried chicken.”

Peyton laughed at that. All of a sudden, surprising them both, she laughed. “Oh my God, we’re talking about fried chicken in bed?”

He grinned. “My cock is going to be to you what fried chicken is to me,” he said. “The thing that you want¸ the thing you crave, the thing you can’t get enough of.”

She shook her head. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Maybe,” he agreed, lowering his head to her nipple again and taking a hard suck. “Because I think I’m about to find something I crave even more than fried chicken. And I’m going to want to have it every day.”

She laughed again lightly. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to ever see fried chicken again and not think of you—and this.”

He picked up the speed between her legs. “You make me fried chicken and you can probably have anything you want from me.”

“What if I throw in strawberry cupcakes for dessert?” she asked, starting to pant slightly.

“Then I’m yours forever.”

Of course, he already was.

He circled her clit and moved his fingers, making her gasp and moan. Then he put his mouth against her ear and said, “Come for me, Trouble.”

She turned her head, captured his lips with hers. And then her body clamped onto his fingers and she let the orgasm happen, her cry muffled against his mouth.

Scott kissed her back, pouring not just his overwhelming desire for her into the kiss, but the sheer awe of having her here, in his bed, at his mercy. But then he had to go on. He had to taste her, he had to make her come apart again. He kissed his way down her body, lingering over her nipples again, before licking over her stomach, and then cupping her butt in his hands and bringing her to his mouth, as he sprawled on his stomach between her knees.

“Your leg—” She started.

But he looked up and said, “That doesn’t sound anything like ‘Scott, you’re amazing’ or ‘Oh my God, I’m coming again.’” And he set to work licking and sucking, sliding, thrusting, nibbling and then starting all over again, until she was wiggling in his hands and repeating the first three words over and over. And only the first two repetitions sounded sarcastic. Then finally, she said those magical six words and she came apart on his tongue.

He rose up on his knees—and yeah, his leg protested slightly, but nothing was going to stop this—and rolled on the condom he’d tossed onto the mattress.

She watched him, her breathing ragged, her cheeks pink, her hair tousled.

“I have never seen anything more gorgeous,” he told her. “You are absolutely everything I’ve ever wanted and more.”

She gave him a smile that was new. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was different about it, but it was sexy and soft and almost…affectionate. Or something.

“It’s easy to say you’re amazing when you have your mouth between my legs,” she said with that smile. “But seriously, you really are. I don’t know why you want to be with me so badly, but I’m really, really glad that you do.”

And Scott felt something happen that had, maybe sadly, never happened during sex before. His heart opened up and got totally involved.

He stretched up and undid the handcuffs, pulling her arms down, massaging them, and making sure all the blood was flowing again. Then he pulled her up into sitting, wrapped her arms around his neck, and hugged her.

With a condom on, with a raging erection, with the taste of her still on his tongue, he just held her. And she held him back.

And when she finally wiggled and he grasped her hips and lifted her onto him and they both groaned as he filled her, and when she moved herself on him slowly and languorously, and when he gripped her hips and thrust deep and hard and his eyes were nearly crossing with the pleasure, and when they both came hard, each other’s names on their lips, and when they fell onto the pillows and drifted to sleep, wrapped up in one another, it still kind of felt like they were hugging.

* * *

Five nights later, Peyton bent over on the edge of the bed to pull her shoe on.

A big arm wrapped around her waist and hauled her back to the middle of the mattress and up against Scott’s hot body.

“Where you think you’re going, Trouble?” he mumbled sleepily.

She sighed and felt herself melting into him. Never having been much of a cuddler, she was shocked by how much she loved having his heavy arm across her in the night. In fact, his favorite position seemed to be with his hand under her shirt and resting on one breast. But it wasn’t sexual. He was dead asleep and seemed to just find that position subconsciously. She had never slept better in her life than she did in Scott’s bed with him next to her with his hands on her.

“Just going to do some studying,” she told him. She’d been going to bed with him every night, but after he slipped off to sleep, she got up and headed to the Come Again to get a couple of hours of studying in. Something about being there with the music in the back room and the coffee percolating and other people being up and around and working, helped her focus. It wasn’t that she couldn’t read her lessons and take notes at Scott’s, but when she was here, she liked…being with Scott.

They watched TV, and ate popcorn, and teased, and talked and…yeah, had lots of mind-blowing, amazingly good sex. Sometimes slow on the couch, sometimes fast on the kitchen table, sometimes a little bit of both in the shower.

So she preferred all of that, then slipping out to the Come Again to hit her virtual books, and Scott slept through her leaving and coming back again.

Usually.

“You’re studying? Now?” he asked, peering at the clock on the table beside the bed. It was just after midnight.

“Yeah. I have a test I have to do and turn in online before six a.m.”

He ran his hand back and forth over her belly and Peyton felt her body heating. “Can you take the test in, say, an hour?”

She laughed. Heather was meeting her at the bar, actually. She hadn’t been sleeping well since her new boyfriend, Seth, the cop from Baltimore, had left. He’d come after her when she’d returned to Sapphire Falls, professing his love and staying for a few days so that he could meet her friends and see the town. But he was back in Baltimore now, and Heather didn’t move back there until after school was out. Peyton was going to miss her terribly, and so the idea for Heather to catch up on grading papers while Peyton did her online class stuff at the Come Again seemed perfect.

The Come Again was a much mellower place after hours. There was no blaring jukebox or live band. Just the muted sound of classic rock from the back room where Mitch and Andi worked. Along with the sound of a saw and hammers and drills.

Otherwise, it was quiet. Almost library-like. And Peyton was no longer the only person seeking a place that was open after midnight. Each night, someone new had wandered in. Now there were three other tables occupied regularly. One by Riley Ames, Kyle’s little sister, who was back in town after spending the last few years out in California; one by Hannah McIntire, another Sapphire Falls native who was now home, but only for a visit to help her grandmother after her hip surgery. And some guy that Hannah had brought with her. He sat at a corner table and tapped on his laptop almost nonstop.

Riley and Hannah were a little older than Peyton but she’d always liked them. And she felt a little sorry for Kyle right now with his little sister—who could be a bit of a handful—his ex and some guy his ex had brought with her, all here in Sapphire Falls and spending a lot of time in one of Kyle’s favorite places.

“You need your sleep,” Peyton told Scott, rolling to her side to face him.

“I need you.”

She felt a warm shiver go through her. She was never going to get enough of him saying stuff like that in that tone of voice. “Well…I can give you twenty minutes.”

He rolled her underneath him before she even got all the words out. Bracing himself on his elbows on either side of her head, he pressed his already-thick erection against the seam of her leggings. “Forty-five.”

“Thirt—”

But then he kissed her and started touching her and started saying all of the things that turned her bones to liquid.

And sixty-five minutes later, she walked into the Come Again.

“Where have you—” Heather got a good look at her. “Oh.”

Peyton grinned and pulled a chair out at the table where Heather already had her papers all spread out. “He woke up this time.”

Heather sighed. “I’m so jealous of you right now.”

Peyton laughed. “You’ve got Seth.”

“Seth is in Baltimore,” Heather said. “And I’ve found out I don’t really like sexting.”

Peyton shook her head. “Then you’re doing it wrong.”

“Hey, I loved my vibrator. Before I met Seth. Now it’s just not the same.”

Peyton loved that she had a friend who would say something like that to her. “You should try phone sex—like hearing his actual voice—instead of texting,” she said. “That might be better.”

Heather shrugged. “Probably. And maybe video chatting.”

“There you go,” Peyton said. “Way to be a problem solver.”

Heather giggled. “I’m pretty thrilled that my biggest problem right now is that my boyfriend gives better orgasms than my Rabbit.”

Peyton took in Heather’s bright smile and the general glow—sure enough, it was real—about her. “I’m really happy for you.”

It was funny because Seth was supposed to have been Peyton’s date to that wedding in Baltimore. Now he was madly in love with Heather, and Peyton had finally admitted that she was crazy about Scott.

Heather’s smile softened. “Ditto, babe. You so deserve to be happy. And you picked a great guy to do it with. Scott is the best.”

He really was.

Peyton felt a vaguely familiar emotion ripple through her. It was the same feeling she got when she stepped back from a decorating job to see that it had turned out exactly the way she’d pictured it. Or when the customer came to pick up a cake they’d ordered and lit up when they first saw it. It was like pride and happiness all rolled together. But pride didn’t quite fit for her and Scott. It was a gut-deep sense of yeah, this is exactly right.

“Wow, that was a very contented sigh,” Heather commented.

Peyton hadn’t even realized she’d sighed. But yes, contented, that was the perfect word for how she felt.

She smiled at Heather. “I’m content. Completely. And that’s weird.”

“Weird?” Heather asked.

“I’m never content. I’m always looking for something to do, people to be with, a party to start. Content isn’t a normal word for me.”

Heather nodded. “I guess that’s true.”

“But I never had all the things I have with Scott,” Peyton said. “I’ve never wanted to go home, and stay home, before.”

Heather squeezed her hand. “That’s awesome, Peyton.”

“It is.” She swallowed hard. “I mean, we don’t even really do anything. We watch TV and talk and cook and do laundry. I’ve been going to bed around eleven every night. I’ve eaten more meals at a kitchen table in the past few days than I have in the last few years combined. It’s all just really normal, boring stuff. And it’s so…nice.”

“You seem stunned by that.”

“I am,” Peyton agreed. “Who would have believed that I would be so happy being normal?”

Heather didn’t laugh. She sat back in her chair and looked at Peyton thoughtfully. “I completely believe it.”

“It doesn’t seem strange?”

“Not at all. It’s what you’ve always wanted,” she said. “A normal home and family life. Some people don’t get to go out much, so having a night on the town is a treat. Some people never get to travel, so they dream of seeing the world. Your dream is the normal, contented life that you didn’t have growing up and staying home doing nothing is your treat.”

Peyton nodded. Heather was exactly right. “I’ll tell you, not doing the whole hair and makeup thing every night is a treat. And my feet feel great since I haven’t had heels on in over a week.”

Heather laughed. “I really am happy for you.”

Peyton grinned and glanced down at her computer. The test she needed to take was up on the screen. She looked over at the coffee cup that sat to the right of the keyboard, then up at her friend.

“Do you know how many shots we’ve done at this table?” she asked Heather.

“I’m not sure I can count that high.”

Peyton chuckled. “And now here we are, drinking coffee, working, talking about our relationships, and how nice it is to stay in. What happened to us?”

Heather sat forward, also looking very content. “We fell in love.”

Peyton felt her eyes widen. In love? She knew Heather was in love with Seth, but her and Scott? She knew she was crazy about him. She knew that she was maybe falling in love with him. But was she already there?

“You do know that you’re in love with Scott, right?” Heather asked, clearly reading Peyton’s expression.

Peyton felt her head nodding slowly. “Yeah. Okay.”

Heather snorted. “You’re not actually surprised by that, are you? I think you’ve been in love with him for a really long time.”

Peyton thought about that. Heather might have a point. It would explain a lot. Like how bossy she let him get. And how her heart rate kicked up every time she saw him. And how she could still feel the icy coldness coursing through her when she’d heard “Scott’s been shot”.

“Wow,” she finally said.

“Wow?” Heather repeated. “That’s it?”

Scott had been so in her face about taking care of her and wanting more from her that it was a little surprising to find out that he’d actually snuck up on her. “I guess I would have expected to realize I was already in love.”

Heather gave her an affectionate smile. “Scott made it easy and comfortable. Just like he does everything for you.”

And Peyton felt her heart expand. That was so true. “Heather?”

“Yeah?”

“I think that maybe this—” Peyton swept her hand over the table, indicating everything from her coffee-cup-instead-of-a-shot-glass to her computer to their conversation. “—might be what being grown-up and mature is like.”

Heather laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned.”