“Ah!” My heart leaps in my chest the same time I literally jump at a noise from the back. “Damn it,” I grimace. “Grow up, Ellie.”

I’m such a chicken when it comes to being alone in the dark. Put me in the woods in the middle of the night and I’m fine, but put me in a store on Main Street in Savannah and I’m a big ‘ol baby.

It’s people that scare me. Crazy serial-killers or demented lunatics that sneak into the bathroom when the curtain is closed or are hovering over you while you sleep. It’s also the ridiculously good-looking men with blond hair and the most incredible blue eyes and crooked grins that terrify me. Those that fit the latter description are the most dangerous of them all.

Humming a tune and shaking it off, I pour more paint into a pan and pick up the roller. It spreads evenly on the wall. There’s something calming about the fluidity of the motion.

Violet and I were supposed to take today off. She wanted to spend the weekend getting the last few pieces of her apartment put together. I thought a free day sounded perfect, but the quiet afforded me too much time to think.

I’ve been here for the last ten hours.

The streetlights glow on the other side of the black paper we hung in front of the windows to keep prying eyes out until we’re ready to debut the store. The traffic outside has slowed. Only a random car now and then can be heard roaming down the road.

I roll the brush back through the paint and have it nearly touching the wall when a knock raps against the door. Instantly, my heart lodges in my chest.

The roller splashes in the paint, spattering my shoes with mint green drops, as I scramble to find my phone. The knock comes again, a little louder this time.

“Shit!” Grabbing my device, I stand facing the door. I don’t know what to do. Should I call 9-1-1? Should I start screaming now? After all, no one knows I’m here. That means two things: One, no one should be looking for me, and two, no one will be until tomorrow sometime, in which case my body will be stone cold by then.

I’m dead. A goner. A missing person’s report in the making.

Creeping to the window, I pull back the paper a tiny bit and peek out.

And suck in a breath.

Ford is standing under the light in the front, his hands stuck in the pockets of his khakis. A green polo shirt is stretched across his chest. He looks tired, his posture not quite as perfect as it normally is.

His head tilts to the side and he catches me spying. His shoulders lift and then drop, as if he’s thinking the same thing—he’s not sure why he’s here either.

I attempt to keep my face as sober as possible when inside my traitorous body is doing a round-off back tuck.

I want to be irritated with myself for reacting this way. Frustration is what I should feel, not a blip of excitement.

He moseys towards me, slipping one hand out of his pocket. It’s planted near mine on the other side of the glass. My fingers bend, as if trying to make contact with his. His do the same.

I pull back.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

Forcing a swallow, I look him in the eye. “Why?”

He shrugs again, but doesn’t respond. That gives me nothing to work with.

“I’m busy,” I say.

“Painting.”

“How did you know?”

A finger is carefully pressed against the glass on the other side of my forehead. “You’re wearing more of it than whatever you’re painting,” he smiles.

Blushing, I look away. Here he is, standing before me looking like he walked out of a dressing room at a men’s store and I look like Cinderella, minus the ball gown. Not the impression I wanted to make.

“I can help,” he offers. “I’m good with my hands.” He tries to hide his smirk, but fails miserably.

I try not to show my ever-growing amusement. “I’m sure you are.”

“You don’t remember?”

The double pane of glass between us seems to disintegrate, melted by the fire that just kicked up between our bodies. Of course I remember. Every cell of my being remembers his touch. It’s impossible to forget how one brush of his finger seemed to switch on an energy inside me.

“Barely,” I lie.

“I could remind you.”

“You could leave.”

“You’re right. I could. But I don’t want to.” He leans towards me until his face is directly across from mine. “And I don’t think you really want me to either.”

His eyes plead with me, pull at my heartstrings. And no matter how mad I want to be at him, no matter how dangerous this specific man is to my existence, I relent.

“Fine.” I’m opening the door before I can be logical about it. I regret it as soon as I do.

He slips in easily, smelling all delicious, with the confidence he carries like no other. It’s not vanity or arrogance, nor is it some holier-than-thou persona. It’s a charisma, a self-assuredness, a faith in himself that rolls off him with complete and utter ease.

“Thanks for letting me in. I wasn’t sure you were going to.”

“I wasn’t sure I was either,” I admit. “I probably shouldn’t have, but no one has ever accused me of being a good decision maker.”

“Why do you say that?”

I shrug, turning away to try to center myself. My brain feels like a frazzled wire, every emotion crossing with the other and leaving me a giant walking disaster. I plead with myself to keep it together, to stand my ground. I’ve waited for years to show him I was better off without him. Now’s my chance.

“Since you’re here, I thought I could tell you that I’ve talked to Violet and she agrees—we don’t need security.” I stare at a little dribble of paint rolling down the wall. “We’re just wasting your time.”

I hear his shoes against the floor, stepping closer. “I don’t do anything that wastes my time.”

My breath catches as his hand rests on my shoulder. His palm is heavy and warm, and I could easily tilt my head just a few inches to the side and rest it against his forearm. I’ve done it a hundred times.

“I want you to know,” he begins with a gruff to his tone, “that if you honestly don’t want me here, I won’t come. I respect you too much to do that.”

“You’ll just walk away. Trust me, I believe that.”

It’s a direct reference to the past, a jab at him in the most juvenile way. I know he catches it, but he lets it slide.

“I never said that.” He circles around until he’s standing directly in front of me. “I never said I’d leave you alone. I said I wouldn’t do that to you here, not at your business.”

I don’t know how to take that. I’m not sure I even want to read into it. I just know my cheeks are hot as hell and my stomach is flipping all sorts of ways.

“What do you want, Ellie?”

“What I want is for you to go away so I can look into some voodoo light stick and have you erased from my memory altogether so I can live a life without knowing you exist.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” he chuckles, lifting his hand from my shoulder. Instantly, I miss it. “I see you’re still blunt like your dad.”

The look in his eye is genuine, as is the clarity in his voice. They always got along—two country boys with a lot to chitchat about. His concern makes me happy.

“I was over that way today,” Ford says. “You think I could swing by and say hi to him sometime?”

I want to say no because that’s too personal. My dad is my territory and it feels risky to let Ford bleed into that. Still, I know Dad likes him and seeing Ford would make his day. “He’d probably love that.”

“So would I.”

I lift the paint roller again and try to concentrate on covering the wall with the mint green Vi and I picked out.

“Need help?” he asks.

Looking over my shoulder, I see him slipping off his jacket. I nearly choke when the hem of his shirt lifts when he tosses his jacket on a nearby box and I see the edge of the ridge going from his hip to his groin.

“Not really,” I say, trying to force myself to look away.

He doesn’t seem to notice anything other than my stubbornness to let him lend a hand. He flashes me a disapproving look.

I continue stroking the brush up and down the wall.

“Talk to me, Ellie.”

“About what?” I ask through parched lips.

“Anything,” he says. “I just want to hear your voice.”

“What if I say I hate you?”

“No one hates me more than I hate myself.”

“I might be close. Besides,” I add, “I think you’re way too self-centered to hate yourself.”

“That’s about the third time you’ve called me self-centered.”

“Yeah. So? What’s your point?”

His jaw sets firmly in place. “I’ll admit I’ve done some hedonistic things, namely to you, but I’m not some asshole on an ego trip, El.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Turning away from him, I go back to painting. I’m a half a stroke up the wall when he plucks the brush out of my hand.

“Hey!” I object as he drops it into the pan with a thud. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He steps towards me. I take one back.

He’s eyeing me like I’m an opponent on the other end of a table, one that he’s ready, willing, and able to bend to his will.

Throwing my shoulders back, I look him straight-away. “I asked you a question.”

He moves towards me again, but I can’t go back any farther without touching the freshly-painted wall.

“I’m sorry.”

They’re both the simplest and hardest words in the English language and can be the sweetest to hear or the most bitter. Watching them topple out of mouth with that fire in his eyes is a mixed bag.

“I bet you are.” There’s a swagger to my words, a hint of moxie that I don’t try to hide. “You’re not ignorant. You’re just a typical man.”

His chuckle dances over my skin as the blues of his eyes darken. “What do you want me to say? That I fucked up?” He stretches his arms out to both sides. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“No,” I bark back. “It’s not. I don’t want to hear anything from you. I don’t even want you here!”

My throat burns as he steps closer, my eyes widening in anticipation of his next move. The look on his face is unreadable. All I know for sure is that a conversation I’ve been curious about for years now is about to come to a head.

“I was nineteen, Ellie. I didn’t know what to do.”

“I was eighteen. I didn’t know what to do either,” I point out.

“You said you were pregnant, and all of a sudden, reality hit me.”

“Would it have been that bad, Ford?” I ask, the chip on my shoulder sitting pretty. “Would it have been so terrible to have been linked to me that once you realized you were free, you had to flee the state? Hell, you had to flee my life altogether?”

“That’s not what happened—”

“Oh, it is what happened,” I snort. “Once we realized I’d jumped gun and it was stress, not pregnancy, that delayed my period, you were out of here.”

“Ellie,” he begins, “listen to me. That’s not what I was thinking.”

“Then how do you explain coming to me the week after and just breaking up with me, giving me some bullshit excuse that you had to ‘go find yourself’ or whatever it was.” I laugh angrily. “I knew what you were doing. You were getting away from me.”

He charges forward, and as I step back, my shirt sticking to the freshly painted wall. It’s a distant observation because his blazing eyes won’t let me look anywhere but at him.

He pins me in place, his body just inches from mine. His lips twitch as he considers his next words. “I was getting away from you,” he admits. “Because I was sure I was fucking you up. I’d been so careless with you, so cavalier. When you told me you thought you were pregnant, I realized I wasn’t that much different than my brothers, El. Here I was, the one that always prided himself on being the simple guy, the one that didn’t need the silver spoon, acting as entitled as the rest of them.”

There’s a wave of emotion pooling across his eyes. “Not that it’s an excuse, but I kind of broke. I had all this pressure to figure out which college to go to, which major to go after that would put me on a Landry-approved career path, and I just wanted to be me. Only I didn’t know what ‘me’ even meant. I just felt like a fuck-up, to be honest.”

“You were never a fuck-up,” I tell him. “There’s no way you believed that.”

“I did,” he says quietly. “And all I could think was that I was bringing you with me as I was spiraling down this hole. I wasn’t worried about me, Ellie. I was worried about you.”

“Really, Ford?”

“Yeah.” He reaches up tenderly and brushes a strand of hair off my face. “Then that fight when I told you …”

I gulp. “Not my best memory.”

“Mine either.”

We exchange a sad smile as we both sort through those memories. I can’t even look him in the face.

“We don’t need to talk about this,” I say, trying to go around him, a lump stuck in my throat. He steps in my way. “It doesn’t make a difference. We’re just wasting our breath.”

“Maybe it doesn’t make a difference,” he admits, “but I want you to know I’m sorry. If I had to do it all over again, I would’ve figured out how to stay with you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

The tough me is gone and in her place is an eighteen-year-old girl that’s wanted to hear those words all her adult life. I wish for a witty comeback, something to lighten the feeling between us, but there’s nothing.

“Do you love me, Ellie?”

“I don’t even know you,” I whisper. “How could I love you?”

“Did you used to love me?”

“Yes.”

His eyes flutter closed, and he holds them there for a long minute. When they open, there’s a fire there I haven’t seen before. He reaches for me, but I catch his hand mid-air. Something catches my attention.

In between his thumb and forefinger, there’s a tiny star tattooed into his skin. It settles in the bend of his hand. It seems like an odd choice and an even stranger location for a tattoo, especially for guy like him.

“What’s this all about?” I ask, running my thumb over it.

When I look at him, I see a gentleness in his face that nearly melts me.

“Do you remember the night we climbed into the top of your neighbor’s hay loft?” he asks. “And we sat there for hours, talking and laughing and you trying to show me constellations and getting it all messed up?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “That was the first night that we … Um …” I look down.

“The first night that we were together.” He puts his finger beneath my chin and lifts it so I’m looking at him. “This tattoo is my reminder of you.”

My chest compresses, my breathing gets shallow, as I try to process what he’s saying.

“I got it here, in the bend of my right hand, so I see it, and regardless of what I’m doing—eating, writing, firing a weapon—I see you.” His cheeks flush. “Well, not really. But I think of you. I’m reminded of you.”

“Ford, I don’t know what to say to that,” I admit, dropping his hand. Flooded with a warmth like the desert in mid-summer, I can’t stop looking at the little star.

He blushes. “It was a late night in San Diego and I may have had too much to drink. The guys dragged me to a tattoo parlor and they were all getting something inked and I walked out with this.” He looks at the star, a faint smile crossing his lips. “Picking out a tattoo is a lot harder than you think it will be.”

“I couldn’t get a tattoo. I’m afraid I’d hate what I chose down the road.”

“I didn’t think I could either.” He drops his hand and looks at me. “I knew if there was one thing I wanted, it had to be something that I’d never regret.”

My heartbeat quickens as our eyes lock together.

“I may regret some things, or even a lot of things, that have to do with you. But those regrets are all from the way I acted.” He takes a step towards me, his chest rising and falling more quickly. “You are the only person in my life that ever just let me be me. I mean, I love my family. You know that. But I always felt so much …”

“Pressure.”

“Yes,” he says, blowing out a breath. “There was, there is, pressure to make good choices, do the right thing, toe the line in some ways that I’m not interested in doing.”

“Is your mom still doing all those fancy charities?” I ask with a grin.

“Yes,” he laughs. “I understand them more now. It’s her way of giving back in the way she understands.”

“I still think you could just donate all that money you spend on setting it up to the Shelters for Savannah or the Food Pantry.”

“You’d be happy to know,” he grins, “that Lincoln and Danielle have started a charity in town. I’m not sure of the ins and outs of it, but I know Dani is passionate about under-privileged kids and they do a lot of charity work with those types of things.”

“Really?” I ask. “Maybe we could team up and do a back-to-school drive together or something.”

“She’d love that. Mom always wants to help and then it becomes this glamour thing. Dani is more like you.”

“Are you saying I’m not glamorous?” I tease.

“Your sneakers with paint splattered over them are so, so glamorous, Ellie.”

He laughs, a warm, rich, captivating sound that feels like a balm to so many of my wounds. It doesn’t fix anything, obviously, but it does soothe me somehow.

“You always did have a way with words,” I joke, sighing for dramatic effect.

“You should give me a chance to show you how much better I’ve gotten with words.” He shoots me a smile so sinful I have to look away.

“I bet you have.”

“I’ve gotten better at a lot of things,” he whispers.

He searches my eyes as if he’s asking for permission and in my amped-up state, I’m not thinking clearly … because I smile. It’s a tiny fissure in my persona that he takes full advantage of.

My back suctions against the paint behind it as Ford cages me in. One foot on the outside of each of mine, a hand planted on the wall on both sides of my face. My knees wobble the slightest bit as he leans down and feathers his lips over mine.

They’re as soft as I remember and my eyes flutter closed as my chin angles towards him, wanting more. We move together effortlessly, like there hasn’t been a decade since the last time we did this.

My bottom lip drops open and that’s all it takes for him to deepen the kiss. His tongue finds mine, exploring my mouth, the heat of his breath bringing up my temperature hundred-fold.

I can feel his kisses shoot through my bloodstream, regrouping again in between my legs. My hips tilt just as he presses his body closer to mine and I feel his hardness through the fabric of our clothes. My clothing pulls, sticking to the tacky wall behind me.

Moaning into his mouth, my body goes lax. Any sense I had moments ago to keep this in check—to keep it somehow to kisses—is long gone. Instead, my hands are roaming beneath his shirt and splaying over his chiseled abdomen.

As he takes my face in both of his hands, continuing his delicious assault on my lips, I drag my hands all over his body. Across his stomach, along his hips where the muscles are cut to perfection, up his sides and around to his back. Each movement causes those muscles to flex beneath my palms and with each ripple, I lose a little more judgment.

We’re going so fast, trying to fit so many years of not having into this moment of having that his fingers are fumbling with the button of my jeans before I realize what’s happening. I shimmy my hips, helping them drop to the floor. He grins salaciously.

“Spread your legs.” It’s a command, an order, given with such authority I shiver.

I’m nearly panting as I widen my stance as much as the jeans pooled at my feet will allow. The wall is warm against my bare skin, my hair feels like it’s glued to the space behind me. All of that is forgotten as desire pools everywhere from my vagina to my breasts.

He holds up his right hand, showing me it’s paint free. Not that I care at this point. I’d take a trip to the ER as long as I got off first.

I’m nearly trembling with anticipation as I wait for his touch. I gasp when his finger slides into me, my legs almost buckling. He draws his finger through my slit while his bright blue eyes watch my reaction.

“Damn,” I hiss, my back arching at the sensation. Lacing my fingers through his hair, I bring his face down to mine. There’s nothing sweet about it this time; it’s frenzied, capped off by a moan into his mouth as he slips one, then two, fingers inside me.

My body hums to the tune of Ford’s insertions. As he intensifies his pace, adding another finger to the mix, I think I’m going to lose it.

I feel how wet I am and know I must be dripping down his hand. The insides of my thighs ache from the build-up of the orgasm that’s well on its way.

He kisses me hungrily, ravenously, even, as my hips work against his fingers, absorbing every fraction of friction I can get. Everything moves at a million miles per hour as he uses his free hand, lifts my shirt, and frees my breasts from the lace bra. Paint smears through my hair and along the side of my face in his haste to rid me of my clothes.

“Ford,” I breathe, my eyes rolling in the back of my head. He rolls one of my nipples with his fingers while the other hand continues its onslaught of my pussy.

“This is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen,” he whispers.

I feel his gaze on me as heavily as I feel any other part of him. It feels just as heavenly.

Tilting my hips even more, craving the final couple of steps to climax, he presses a simple kiss to my lips.

His hand slides from my breast, down my stomach, and splays his hand on the top of my legs. Using his thumb, he presses on my clit. One touch sends me over the edge.

“Fuck,” I groan as an eruption begins in my core. Like a flash flood, it crashes through me with no warning. “Ford!”

I buck against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. He presses and pushes on every part of me that he knows will elicit a spark of ecstasy. He works me over like he wrote the book on how to make me come. In a way, maybe he did.

He brings me down as expertly as he took me up. Slowly, he allows me to drop from the clouds and land, shakily, on my own two feet.

When I open my eyes, he’s grinning ear-to-ear.

“That was …” I don’t know what to say, so I giggle.

“That was awesome.”

“You got nothing out of that.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I got more out of that than you did.”

“But …” He’s making no move to do anything else, no indication that there’s more where that came from.

As if he reads my mind, he nods. “That’s all that’s happening tonight.”

I look at him curiously as I pull my jeans back over my hips. They stick to the paint, making it harder than normal to get in place. “Whatever you say,” I say, fastening the button. “It felt amazing.”

I stall mid-zip as his grin turns wicked. He holds his hand up in the air. My juices are all over it, his fingers covered in my come.

His eyes on mine, he brings them to his mouth. My jaw hangs open as he licks his fingers. “It tastes better than it felt.”

My cheeks turn red as I scramble to regain my composure. He has every upper hand in this situation and now that I’m not all worked up, I see I’m at the disadvantage. And a complete mess.

My hair is matted to one side of my head, the ends of my ponytail acting like little brushes and rubbing the green material all over my shoulders.

Before I can figure out what to say, he heads towards his coat.

“Where are you going?” I ask, trying to work my hair into some semblance.

“I need to get home and get to bed,” he says nonchalantly. “I have a meeting on the golf course first thing in the morning. That’ll be two days golfing and I don’t particularly love it in the first place.”

“Oh.”

Whether I expected him to stick around or offer to take me for coffee, or a shower, I don’t know. But I didn’t expect this—whatever it is.

He’s faces me with a smug look on his face, his jacket slung over his shoulder. “Did that prove I’m not selfish?”

Before I can answer, he’s out the door.