CHAPTER ELEVEN

Aimee

I’d left Corbin’s bed at five in the morning and headed straight for Evangeline’s, where I baked three pies, eight dozen assorted cookies, made three slabs of fudge, and whipped up a batch of Georgia peach scones. I still had plenty of baking to do, only I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.

Someday, I’d get enough sleep, I thought as I blinked, trying to get my eyes to focus. But I had to be honest—if having Corbin in my bed meant having to do without sleep, I’d happily embrace the ensuing exhaustion. It would only be two months after all, and I was going to enjoy every second with Corbin I could.

I wiped a hand over my sweating brow then grabbed the tray of scones and bumped the swinging doors open to the main floor of Evangeline’s. Seated at the counter were Brad and Elmer Lamell. I bit back a groan and pasted on a big fake smile.

“How’s you all?” I asked politely, setting the scones on the display stand next to the bar. “Scones for either of you?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Elmer said, helping himself to not one, but two scones. When Brad reached out to grab one, Elmer coughed conspicuously. “Some of us are hittin’ the gym in a few minutes, right, son?”

Brad glared at his father but pulled his hand back. I glanced around the room, desperately searching for one of the other staff at Evangeline’s, but saw no one who could help me avoid conversing with the Lamell men.

“We’d like some coffee, too, Aimee,” Elmer added. “That Beth, she said she needed a break. Left us to fend for ourselves.”

I sighed, but got busy pouring him and his son coffee, then slid the cream and sugar down the bar. Maybe if I kept my head down and said nothing, they’d ignore me and go back to talking about whatever their conversation had been before I’d entered the dining area.

“Uh, Aimee?” Brad’s voice buzzed around my ears like an unwanted mosquito. But he was a customer and I couldn’t slap him. Instead, I gave him a fake smile, hoping he’d catch on to the fact that I really, and I mean really, didn’t want to talk. Clearly he didn’t get the hint, because he started speaking again. “You didn’t give me an answer about my sister’s wedding.”

I did my very best to keep from rolling my eyes. Brad and his damned ego, and his blasted father. Elmer sat there, coffee halfway up to his mouth, giving me an expectant look. “I’m sorry, Brad,” I said patiently, “but I can’t be your date.” Elmer’s sudden scowl took me aback.

“You sure, Miss Aimee?” Elmer asked. “I mean, you got your business to start. Brad’s mighty fine with a hammer, even knows some plumbing. He could help you get that ol’ diner up to snuff. Friends are good to have in these uncertain times.”

I scrutinized him. That had been a veiled threat, hadn’t it? Elmer couldn’t possibly hold my loan over my head if I didn’t date his son? I’d had the concern before, but now… “I already have a date,” I said. “His name is Corbin. He’s the bass player from last night. I’m taking him to Tallulah’s wedding.” Of course, Corbin didn’t know that yet, being as I hadn’t asked him, but I couldn’t think of a reason he wouldn’t want to go with me. And if I had a genuine date, then Elmer couldn’t possibly hold it against me that I refused to go with his son.

“Corbin…”

Brad drew out the silence and I realized he was trying to ask for Corbin’s last name. I swallowed. Uh, oh. I didn’t know the last name of the guy I was sleeping with? Oops. Probably a detail I should have found out before jumping into bed with the guy. Oh well, too late, I guess. I flashed a fake grin at them and pretended I didn’t understand what he was asking. “Yep, Corbin. A real sweetheart. We’re looking forward to celebrating Tallulah’s love on her big day. Now, either of y’all want more coffee?”

“Heard that boy’s a drifter,” Elmer said, holding out his cup for a refill. “Drifters aren’t all that welcome in these parts. They move on, leaving behind broken people. Don’t want to see you get broken there, Miss Aimee.”

I heard the unspoken reference to my mother’s past in his words. Elmer wasn’t looking out for me—he was trying to shame me into dating his son. And although I’d never go out with Brad, I did feel an unwanted sensation of guilt crawl up my spine. Was I being like my mother? Ruining my life for a man who’d use me up and leave me?

No. Unlike my mother, I knew what I was getting into—a short-term summertime fling. And unlike my mother, I wasn’t going to get my heart involved. This thing with Corbin was because it was fun, arousing, thrilling even. He was a decent human being and as sexy as they came. He’d been honest with me, setting the parameters of our short-term relationship clearly. This thing I was doing with Corbin?

This was my choice. And one I didn’t need to feel ashamed of.

* * *

Corbin

The sun was bright in the sky when I woke up, and my bed was empty. Last night, Aimee had fallen asleep in my arms. For the first time in maybe my whole life, I regretted that a woman I’d slept with wasn’t still in bed with me come morning. I yawned, stretched, and noticed a note next to my phone on the nightstand. In the note, Aimee apologized for not waking me up but she’d had to head out at 5:00 to start her baking at Evangeline’s. She reminded me that I’d planned to meet her at Evangeline’s during her break at noon to try her other desserts—adding a naughty note about what we’d do afterwards. Then she’d signed the note with a lipstick kiss that made me grow hard at the thought of those juicy lips around my cock.

I glanced out the window and clocked the sun—it was probably around nine in the morning. My sleep schedule had been rotten for years and had been especially bad during the recent Point Break world tour. Sleeping in was a luxury, and I felt indulgent this morning. There was something about lying in this bed that made me feel amazing and calm. There wasn’t a lot of room for calm in my life. It wasn’t how being a rock star worked. We thrived off chaos and the unknown.

Except now, there was everything wonderful about lying here with the mosquitoes buzzing around me and the muggy air all over my skin. There was everything exciting in seeing Aimee again this afternoon. There was everything enticing about spending another night or a bunch of them with her.

Was this what Tucker and Liam had found with Nikki and Abby?

Oh hell, was I being tamed? After just one night with Aimee, it felt wholly possible, and I didn’t know what to think about that.

I’d always made fun of guys who were whipped. To me, at first, Liam had been hopelessly stuck on Abby’s leash. The more she said jump, the more he leapt for her like a pathetic and damn neutered puppy. Then the same thing had happened with Tucker and Nikki. After he came back from Paris that first time, it was the first time I’d ever seen him at a party looking miserable. No. Not even that. It was like one of those old sci-fi movies, where aliens take over everyone and replace them with pod people or slugs in the brain, some crap like that. All these beautiful women and tons of blow and he just sat there nursing a beer and looking like his whole world was ending because he and Nikki were on the outs.

Both times I thought Liam and Tucker were totally crazy.

Except now, I could almost get it. When I closed my eyes, I saw those hauntingly deep eyes of Aimee’s and that olive-toned skin. I really wanted her, but it was more than just sex. There was something else, something just fun about hanging out with her and, about the thought of trying all the desserts she lovingly made. I was actually looking forward to seeing her again, craving her. That hadn’t happened to me in a long time…not since Kara actually.

I felt my chest do its familiar tightening the way it always did when Kara invaded my mind. Fuck. Damn that woman. So needy, so desperate. So willing to chew me up and spit me out and not give a flying fuck so long as she got what she wanted: a man to make her feel whole.

Kara was the kind of woman I was running from. It had never occurred to me, though, that I could run toward someone vastly different. I’d been an immature shit, I realized, thinking all women were the same, unable to stand on their own. Aimee had no problem standing on her own two feet, and took pride in her accomplishments. The only thing she needed me for was my hard dick, which was fine by me. I grinned, relaxing, as my mind toyed with the memory of Aimee the night before, lying on her stomach on the bed with her pert little ass in the air, moaning as I pounded into her hard from behind. She’d had to muffle her scream when she finally came.

I felt my cock growing hard, and willed my body into submission. I had places to go and things to do—namely, meeting Aimee at Evangeline’s at noon. I hopped out of bed, gathered fresh clothes, and headed down the hall to the bathroom, where I took a quick shower. Aimee had been in the shower earlier in the morning, and her towel was still a little damp. I buried my face in the towel she’d used and breathed in her scent. A little bit of heaven.

I dressed in record time and headed to the front door, but Miss Cecily stopped me and hauled me into the kitchen, where she didn’t have to force me to sit down and have breakfast. The food smelled amazing, just like yesterday. Sausage links, scrambled eggs, and what looked like either a biscuit or scone made me salivate. I could get used to Miss Cecily’s cooking.

Miss Cecily pointed a gnarled finger at the leather thong and rock around my neck. “You see past the veil yet, son?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but as long as she wanted me to wear the rock around my neck, I would.

“I think you have,” she said, cryptically.

I stuffed a homemade thyme and orange biscuit in my mouth. The moan that came from deep in my throat wasn’t planned, but it sure was loud.

Miss Cecily chuckled, a low, dry sound that filled the room with warmth. “Aimee made it. One of her great-grandmother Evangeline’s recipes, that.”

I cocked my head. “Did you know Evangeline, then?”

“Yes,” she said, slowly, “I did. We went to school together, and until the day she died, she was my best friend. A good woman. Worked as hard as our little Aimee does, day in, day out. She passed when Aimee was a young’un. Doted on that little girl.”

“What about Aimee’s mother? Do you know her?”

She pulled a face. “Lily. That woman got no more sense in her head than a flea on a dog’s toe. But that’s Aimee’s story to tell.”

“She did tell me about her parents last night.” I shared with Miss Cecily what Aimee had told me, confident the elderly woman knew every detail and more.

“Evangeline had a daughter, Vivien, who had Daniel in a first marriage. That didn’t end well, so she married again. Her second husband gave her a child—that would be Aimee’s mother, Lily—but he passed a week after Lily’s birth. Vivien did her best as a mother, but with no father and her brother Daniel a good fifteen years older and not to be bothered with a little sister, Lily felt the lack of a male figure in her life. She turned that lack into a need deeper than a fish needs water.”

I chewed and swallowed before saying, “Aimee said she never knew who her father was.”

“True. That Lily ran off on her sixteenth birthday, chasin’ after some musician friend of her brother’s. She came back into town a year later, a baby on the way, father unknown. The town tried to do right by Aimee, and I think we have. She’s a wonderful woman. Too polite for her own good, sometime, but she can usually work her way out of a bad situation.” She sobered and looked at me. “You’re not gonna be a bad situation now, are you, young man?”

I gave her my signature cocky grin and held up a hand, two fingers to the sky. “No way, ma’am. I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that promise, you hear? I learn you done our Aimee wrong and…” Miss Cecily stopped speaking and gave the herbs drying on a wooden rack a meaningful look.

I sobered. I didn’t believe in voodoo, but that look Miss Cecily was giving those herbs had a shiver running up my spine. “For as long as I’m in town, I’ll do right by Aimee.”

I spoke the words, and I meant them.