It’d been a long time since Willow had made the trek to her childhood tree house. Truth be told, she had no idea what kind of shape it was even in. It’d been years since she’d been back. It’d just been too difficult, climbing up there and being immersed in the kind of memories she and Finn had made there once upon a time.
But she also knew she needed to extend an olive branch, and she figured this was the best way to do it. She’d screwed up with him that afternoon. He was trying, attempting to prove himself to her all over again, and she needed to give him credit for it instead of biting his head off for doing something nice for her.
She’d really felt like an ass when Avery had done some sleuthing and found out it hadn’t even been Finn who’d placed the flower order, but Nola. If any of the Havenbrook busybodies found out that tidbit, it’d be easy enough to brush off as a thank-you gift for all of Willow’s help in dealing with the red tape surrounding the bar renovation. So Finn had taken her reservations into account and had found a way to work around them. And Willow had spat all over his gift. A gift that, as she’d had time to gain some perspective on the situation, meant the world to her. He’d thought enough of her to let her know she was on his mind, and he did so with her favorite flowers. Which she knew for a fact she hadn’t mentioned since he’d been back. He was trying to prove himself to her every day, and it was time she got out of her own way.
Besides that, Avery had been right—Willow was a grown-ass woman, and it was about damn time she started caring less about what her daddy thought and more about what she actually wanted.
Dusk had settled in fast, and while there wasn’t much to be scared of in good old Havenbrook, and even less on her family’s acreage, she still walked a little faster as she hurried toward her destination, her phone’s flashlight guiding her path. Their daddy’d had the tree house built when Willow had been only three—too young to go in it then. It perched in a thicket of trees, far enough away from the main house that she and her sisters had always felt a sense of independence whenever they’d played there.
Although considering what she and Finn had gotten up to in there, perhaps building it such a distance from the house hadn’t been her daddy’s brightest idea. Even before she and Finn had slept together, they’d done everything-but enough times to lose count, all in that hidden-away place in the trees. But that night… Willow smiled to herself, the memory sitting bittersweet in her chest. She’d been scared and nervous, but he’d been so gentle. So giving. So loving. He’d made her come twice before he’d even slid inside her, just to make sure it was good for her.
At the time, she’d thought they had the world at their feet—that they’d go off to college in Nashville, start a life together.
Days later, he’d been gone.
She shook away the memory as she tucked her phone into her pocket and climbed the ladder into the tree house. Finn had only sent her a short I’ll be there response, so she couldn’t even begin to guess what his reaction to her apology was going to be. For all she knew, he was going to tell her to take a hike. That this, as fun as it’d been, was over. That it was too big of a hassle to continue with anyway, given he was leaving soon.
The thought pierced her chest, leaving a hollow ache in her heart.
But she wasn’t going to think about that now. Finn leaving had been a foregone conclusion. Their relationship would end the same as before. The only difference was, this time, she’d gone into it with her eyes wide open. When her heart broke open again, she’d have no one to blame but herself.
As soon as her head crested the tree house floor, she looked up and gasped. Inside was a fairy wonderland. Hundreds of white twinkling lights draped down from the peaked ceiling before flowing down the walls and bordering the windows. Lush pillows and blankets covered every square inch of the floor. In the center of the space sat a picnic basket with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
And in the corner stood Finn. “Hey.”
Willow climbed the rest of the way, not able to stop gawking at what he’d done. There was no way this space had been in any semblance of decency as of this afternoon. As far as Willow knew, no one used it anymore—she and her sisters were too old, and Rory’s kids were too busy with their twelve-thousand extracurricular activities to ever take advantage of it.
“What—when…” She shook her head then locked her eyes with Finn. “Why did you do this?”
His long legs ate up the space between them, and then he stood in front of her, his body heat seeping into her bones. He reached out and linked their fingers together, resting his other hand on the curve of her neck. “I was an ass.”
“You—what? No, I was the ass. You did something lovely, and I threw it back in your face. I’m sorry.”
Finn was shaking his head before she’d even finished speaking. “Don’t steal my thunder, Willowtree. It’ll screw with my seduction plan.”
She laughed, her head tipped back as warmth filled her chest. She felt…content. For the first time in so long, she was happy. As much as the lead-up to the Fourth of July parade depleted her energy, she loved this part of her job. Like the entire town was her canvas—a living, breathing creation. On top of that, her daddy had finally started to see her worth, she was getting along with all her sisters, and her love life wasn’t a pile of ash like it’d been for so long.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” Finn brushed his thumb down the column of her neck, his breath warm on her lips. And then he dipped lower, bringing their mouths together.
She sighed into his mouth, loving how seamlessly they fit. How he knew exactly where to touch her, exactly the speed to go, exactly the words to whisper to make her melt into a boneless puddle of need at his feet. That wasn’t something you could teach, something that developed after years of intimacy—it just was. Pure, raw chemistry.
And they had it in spades.
“You hungry?” His words rumbled against her neck as he rained kisses there, punctuating them with licks and nips with his teeth.
“Not for food.”
He groaned, the vibration sending a shiver down Willow’s neck and shooting straight to her nipples. They hardened beneath her tank top, ached for his hands or his mouth or both.
“You’re making it damn difficult to give you the romantic replay of that night—the one you deserved that I couldn’t give you then.”
She pulled back and cupped his face, the couple days’ worth of scruff scratchy against her fingertips. “You can romance the hell out of me. After.”
He placed his hand on the small of her back, pulling her in until their bodies were flush. Pressing her against the hard ridge of his cock. “Last chance, Willowtree. You gonna let me be a gentleman, or what?”
Finn and gentleman didn’t belong in the same sentence, especially in regards to the bedroom—or tree house, as it were. And that was one of the many reasons she loved him. He took what he wanted without apology, doled out pleasure like candy, and she was ready for every bit of it.
Stepping back, she gripped the hem of her tank and pulled it up and off, leaving her bare under his gaze. One of the benefits of having small breasts—no need for a bra. Something Finn definitely approved of, if his heated gaze and low growl of appreciation were any indication.
For two breaths, neither of them moved, both frozen, and then it was like something snapped in each of them. They crashed together, hands grappling with clothing, peeling layers off until they were both finally bare. Tripping over the picnic basket, they tumbled into a pile of pillows in the corner, their mouths never breaking.
Finn swept his tongue against hers, his hands roaming her body, exploiting all the places that made her weep with pleasure. When he grazed her clit, she tipped her head back, a moan lodged in her throat. Once he slid his fingers deep inside her and rocked his palm against her, that moan broke free, her hips lifting to meet his hand.
“Ahh, you are hungry for it, aren’t you? My greedy girl.”
Willow groaned, her head tipped back as he sucked her nipple deep into his mouth, his fingers still working their magic inside her. She was already close, though she shouldn’t have been surprised. Finn had a way of wringing every ounce of pleasure from her body—pleasure she didn’t even realize she was capable of reaching.
“You’re gonna come all over my fingers, aren’t you? Christ, can’t wait to feel that pussy squeezing my cock. C’mon, sweetness. Give it to me so I can slide nice and deep.” He pumped his fingers into her harder, faster, his palm a constant pressure on her clit.
Three more thrusts and she peaked, her body going taut, her breasts jutting out to meet his tongue as she pulsed through her release. Struggling to catch her breath, she managed to get out, “Finn…” But he knew what she wanted. What she needed.
Sometime while she was lost in her bliss, he’d sheathed himself with a condom, and then settled his weight between her thighs, his cock nudging her entrance before he slid inside. The girth of him stretching her, just this side of painful.
“Sweet fucking Jesus, how does this pussy get better every time you let me inside?” He pulled out, soft and slow, letting her feel every generous inch of him before he snapped his hips forward and drove deep. “Anyone who says heaven isn’t on earth’s never been inside you, have they?”
Willow couldn’t answer—how could he expect her to? Especially when he sat back and propped her ankle on his shoulder, his hips rolling forward, sliding him even farther inside with each thrust.
“Look at you, taking me so deep. That sweet, pretty pussy spreading wide around my cock.” He turned, pressed his lips to her ankle. “Tell me how much you love it.”
“So, so much,” she managed to get out through panting breaths.
He stared at where they were joined, his thumb brushing in a mindless pattern against her hip. Except when she glanced down, he wasn’t tracing something random on her skin. And he wasn’t watching where he disappeared inside her. Instead, his thumb traced the sparrow at her hip, his eyes locked on it, lips parted.
She reached out, brushing her fingers down the wispy leaves of the willow tree on his side. Caressing each winding path of the roots. Her heart swelled as she split her gaze between those black marks on his skin and his focused stare on her tattoo, the reverent way he traced the mark, the soft words of adoration spilling from his lips.
And hell. She’d known this would happen. There hadn’t been a doubt in her mind when he’d come back, when he’d focused his attention on her, that they’d end up here. That she’d end up here. In love with a Thomas boy who wasn’t going to stick around.
She was so screwed.
FINN ROCKED INTO WILLOW, a slow roll of his hips, wanting to do everything in his power to prolong the pleasure of being inside her. She traced his tattoo with her fingertips and shot sparks off under his skin, hardening his cock even more.
For years, he’d imagined this—had hoped he might one day be with her again, but he’d never actually thought it’d happen. He couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to be experiencing this with her again. That she’d not only let him inside, but welcomed him. Time and time again.
It was, quite literally, his dream come true.
On a sharp thrust, Willow curled her fingers against his side, her nails digging in as her eyelids fluttered closed and a moan slipped from her lips. He couldn’t help how his cock swelled at the proof of how much pleasure he brought her. That he was the one wringing those moans from her, the one she squeezed with that tight as hell pussy.
“Is it good, sweetness?”
“Oh Lord. So good.” She dug her nails into his side, trying to pull him closer.
He bent forward, pushing her leg toward her chest and opening her up to take him even deeper, eliciting a gasp from her. “You okay, Willowtree?” He pulled nearly all the way out before sliding inside, a slow glide of skin on skin, the tight fist of her pussy nearly driving him out of his goddamn mind.
“Don’t stop.”
“Never,” he promised, meaning it more than she could know. He was never, ever going to stop with her. Not again. He’d made that mistake once, and it would haunt him for the rest of his life, even if she did take him back for good. And, just like his brother had pointed out to him, he’d spend every day for as long as he was breathing trying to make it up to her. Proving his love. Because it was real and true, and he wanted her to feel it. To know it. To never, ever doubt it.
“Finn—” She cut off on a moan, her eyelids fluttering closed as she pulsed an erratic beat around his cock. “I’m gonna…”
“Come all over me, I know.” He hummed low in his throat and kept up his rhythm, making sure he grazed her clit with every deep thrust. Making sure to keep her on edge, push her right where she needed to go. “You’re gonna strangle my cock, aren’t you?”
She gasped and opened her eyes just as her pussy tightened around him, staring straight at him while she started to come. Dropping her leg from his shoulder to hook over his elbow, she pulled him closer, fusing their mouths together as she reached her climax.
It didn’t take but three more thrusts into her pulsing heat before he pushed deep and spilled inside her, her name moaned between them as they kissed through it all. His heart full to bursting.
Later, they faced each other, Finn in his jeans and Willow wearing nothing but his shirt. Doing a damn good job of driving him crazy. She sat with her legs crisscrossed, which meant if he looked—which he was trying hard not to—he’d see all that gorgeous pink heaven between her legs. But if he went down that path, he’d be fucking her on the floor of the tree house again, and he’d be no better than his nineteen-year-old self.
He was desperately trying to be better than his nineteen-year-old self.
“I’m going to start to think this is the only thing you can make.” Willow bit into the peanut butter and banana sandwich he’d brought. It didn’t exactly pair with her favorite red or the candy bar—also her favorite—that was waiting for dessert, but this wasn’t about an exquisite culinary experience. It was about showing Willow he knew her—then and now. He listened when she spoke, and he remembered everything about her.
He smiled over the rim of his wine glass. “I better rectify that soon, then. Name the day, Willowtree, and I’ll cook you a three-course meal.”
“Will one of those courses be these sandwiches?” She held up the sandwich in question, her brow cocked.
“I see the skepticism written all over your beautiful face, sweetness. You wound me.”
She laughed, a tinkling sound that filled up the intimate space. “Sorry, I don’t mean to tease. It’s just hard.”
He raised a brow, because, yeah, he was definitely hard. Had been even though it’d been less than half an hour since he’d come inside her.
She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “I have no doubt you’re hard. Honestly, are you ever not?”
“When you’re around? No.”
“What I meant was it’s hard picturing you, wearing an apron and flittin’ around the kitchen.”
“I do not flit. I stomp around like a manly man.” Finn finished off his sandwich as Willow laughed. “And if you want to know about the apron, you’ll just have to accept my invitation.”
The statement was innocent enough, but it hung between them, weighted. By the look on Willow’s face, she realized exactly what he was asking. Her inviting him here was an olive branch. That she’d share this with him again after what’d happened last time meant more than he could articulate. He just hoped it was a step toward what he wanted with her: permanence and public declarations.
“I…” Willow averted her eyes as she took a sip of wine, and his heart dropped. She wasn’t going to accept, and Finn would have to decide if he was okay with that. If he could live with taking whatever small bit she could give, whenever she could give it.
The answer, of course, was an unequivocal yes. Without doubt, he’d take whatever she was willing to give him.
“Okay.” Her soft voice filtered into the space between them, and Finn jerked his head up, snapping his eyes to hers. She was already staring at him, looking gorgeous as hell, even more stunning now that she’d basically said yes. Yes, to him. Yes, to them.
Unable to hold back anymore, he shoved everything between them aside, slid his hand around her neck, and brought her face to his, claiming her mouth in a kiss.
“I won’t let you down,” he said when they finally pulled apart. He meant more than just the meal—he only hoped she realized it.
She trailed her hand down from his neck to his chest, tracing the rough sketch of a map and the coordinates that just happened to be this exact location. “Will you tell me about these?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything?” She dropped her fingers to the willow tree on his side. “It’s weird, feeling like I still know you so well but having this gaping hole in time where I know nothing.”
His chest ached, regret over costing them so much time nearly consuming him. “I know what you mean.”
“Question for a question?” she asked, reminding him of a time long ago when she’d sat in his beat-up truck and said the same thing.
“You first.” He shifted to lean back against a stack of pillows and lifted his arm, hoping she’d settle in to his side.
She didn’t disappoint. Once she’d snuggled in, she traced one of the twisted roots over his hip bone. “There are more roots here than when you left. So many more.”
He’d been waiting for this, had wondered how long it’d take her to ask about it. He pressed his lips to the crown of her head. “That’s not a question.”
She pinched his side and tilted her head back to meet his gaze. “Tell me about it?”
Reaching up, he brushed the hair back from her face, stroked his fingertip down the slope of her nose, around the outline of her lips. “That first year…” He swallowed, averted his gaze, and guided her head to rest on his chest again. Thinking it’d be easier if she wasn’t staring at him with those beseeching eyes. “On your nineteenth birthday, I was in a bad place. I fuckin’ missed you. Every day, but especially that day. I passed a tattoo parlor on my way home, and I didn’t even think—just pulled in. Hoped like hell they had an opening. I got the first root added that night. The others happened every year on your birthday.”
She was quiet for a moment, then she whispered, “Why?”
Would it be too much to tell her it was the only thing he’d had of her when he’d been gone? That he’d craved that connection, even when he’d been the one to sever it? Probably.
“Uh, uh. My turn, sweetness.”
She huffed, pinching his side again. “Well, come on, then.”
There was really no question what he wanted to ask. The same thing he’d been desperate to know since he’d found out she’d moved back to Havenbrook after college. “Why’re you back here, Willowtree? Why didn’t you go to Nashville and do what we planned? Are you as happy here as you would’ve been there?”
“You think if you shove three questions together real fast it’ll only count as one?”
“Umm…I was sorta hopin’ it’d work like that, yeah.”
“Cheater.” She didn’t put any heat into the insult, though. “I’m here because it’s my home, and leavin’—much as I yearned for it then—felt…wrong. And, yes, I’m happy. For the most part. I have good days and bad days, same as anyone, I suppose. But I really do love what I do—or I do when I’m not doin’ the work of three people. Revitalizing the square…” She shook her head against his chest, her deep breath brushing across his skin. “Seeing it come to life because of what I did? It’s like a living, breathing canvas.”
He waited for her to answer why she’d hadn’t gone to Nashville like they’d planned, but when she didn’t, he nudged her. “And?”
“And…it’s your turn for a question.” She turned on her side and propped herself up on her elbow, using her other hand to trace the numbers over his heart. “Coordinates?”
He swallowed, watching her as she stared at his skin. True, he’d only added to her tree on her birthday, but every other tattoo he had on him was a tribute to her in some way. The map and coordinates reminding him where his home was. The compass because she was his true north. “Yeah.”
“Of what?” She looked up at him then, her lip caught between her teeth.
Reaching out, he tugged her lip free, brushed his thumb across it. “This. Here.”
“Here?” She furrowed her brow. “The tree house?”
“The one and only.”
Her mouth dropped open, her eyes full of something he couldn’t quite name. “Finn—”
“My turn. Tell me about Nashville.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, wanted to press, but then she shrugged, dropping her gaze. “Nothing to tell. You left. I withdrew my admission and went to MSU instead.”
“Because?”
“Because…what I thought I wanted wasn’t the same without you there too.”
Damn, this hurt. Getting all this out in the open was good for them, but he couldn’t deny the way his stomach clenched over all the time they’d lost. All because of the decisions he’d made—decisions he hadn’t been given much choice over, but his all the same.
“I’m sorry, Willowtree.” He cupped her neck, needing to feel her any way he could. “Even though it won’t give us back the time we lost, I want you to know I’m sorry. And not a day went by when I didn’t think about you. About coming back to you.”
She stared at him for a moment then opened her mouth, no doubt to ask why the hell he didn’t. Before she could do so, he pulled her toward him. Pressed his lips to hers and waited for her to melt into him. Hoping with everything he had that her doing so meant maybe, just maybe, forgiveness would come eventually.