706 Sugarbush Lane by Penelope Wylde

Chapter 7

Sawyer

When we hit the sidewalk, all I could think about was getting Trinity to the nearest private spot. After she shared what she shared, I needed to make her mine. Now.

My eyes scanned the street up and down, like a hotel might have cropped up since I ducked inside the Sugarbush. When nothing presented itself, I tugged Trinity toward my truck.

“Sawyer?”

I glanced over my shoulder and cursed myself. Trinity stumbled along, her free arm wrapped around her middle to ward off the cold and her lips pressed together in a worried line. My first job, above all else, was to take care of this sweet creature, not act like a fucking caveman.

Looked like I was doing a piss poor job so far.

I stopped abruptly and Trinity ran into my back. I twisted and caught her in my arms, rubbing my hands briskly down her back to transfer some of my heat to her. She stared up at me with those wide eyes and for a second I was lost again, thinking of nothing but burying myself inside her.

Her shiver—whether from cool mountain air or the same desire I felt, I didn’t know—spurred me into action. I wasn’t taking any chances. I shed the black zip-up I was wearing and pulled it around her shoulders.

“Sorry, sweetheart. I’ve waited a long time for you and I guess I lost my head.”

“Waited a long time?” Her head tipped to the side and her voice was just above a whisper.

Of course she didn’t know how much I craved her. How could she?

I pressed a quick kiss on her lips. “Since the day your mom walked into my bar looking for a job when you were barely seventeen.”

Her eyes widened from my admission. “You left this town only a few weeks later.”

“Yep.”

“You had just bought the place.”

I nodded. “I’d signed on to do a job for a company. I had responsibilities I couldn’t walk away from. I left the bar in the hands of a family friend—”

“Birdie.”

I nodded again. “And then you didn’t come back for three years.”

I swallowed wanting to tell her everything from fear of scaring her away, but at the same time knowing the darker days of my life needed to be kept as far away from her light as possible. “I can’t talk about those days, Trinity. You’ll have to understand that. But I will say on the hard days the thought of getting back home to you is what dragged my ass out of a lot of dangerous situations.”

Trinity reached out and skimmed a finger over the jagged scar along my collarbone. A reminder I was not made of steel against a man wielding a knife.

“I missed you. Which is funny because I barely knew you.”

Her words were barely above a whisper.

Sunlight glinted off the rings on her fingers and I reached up to skim the pad of my thumb along the infinity ring I gave her for her eighteenth birthday. The one time I managed to get home before leaving again the next day. For the better too, because I had every intention of claiming her very legal body that night.

“The soul knows even before we do.”

I ran my fingers through the ends of her ponytail.

I leaned her against the truck and made sure she felt the results of our makeout session.

“All that is over now. I’m not going anywhere unless you're by my side.”

As if my words about the past had conjured the image, a sudden memory of Trinity’s house popped into my head. I grinned, grabbed her hand and all but ran down the street and over one block, mindful not to make my strides too long. It was all I could do not to heave her over my shoulder, but as foreplay went, running down the street carrying her in a fireman’s hold probably wouldn’t earn me many points.

And she was a virgin. Just the thought sent bolts of pure need through me to make my dick hard as steel.

“Sawyer, where are we going?”

I just kept moving, all my attention focused on getting her to the nearest bed. Or really, any flat surface would do.

No, a bed. I sucked in a deep breath as I fought for control. My girl deserved a bed for her first time. I needed to take my time and make sure she was ready for me.

I pushed down the frustrated groan that wanted to escape. All I wanted to do was bury myself in her body. Now. Taking things slow might just be the death of me.

A glance over my shoulder at the woman following me so trustingly told me one thing—she was worth it.

I stopped short when I came to the place I’d been looking for. Trinity’s house.

I pulled Trinity into my arms. “Your mom isn’t home, is she?”

Trinity stood staring straight ahead, her gaze fixed on the little house with its overgrown yard. I had no clue what the expression on her face meant.

“Trinity?”

She slowly turned her head to look at me, her eyes strangely emotionless. “My mother hasn’t lived here in years.”

Finally, some good news. “So you live here alone?”

Even as I asked, I knew that couldn’t be right. And at that moment Birdie’s words came back to me about Trinity taking over her mother’s job at the bar. I’d been single-minded then and it blew over my head.

“Did she...die?” With all my time away a lot had changed. It was possible.

I turned my attention back to the house. Trinity worked hard and took pride in that fact. There’s no way she’d live here and let the weeds grow so high or the paint to fade and chip.

“You don’t live here.”

She shook her head. “Not since right after I turned eighteen.”

About the time I left to work for the private security team and stopped coming back to Wild Ridge.

I hugged her tightly. “Did you move to get away from your mother?”

A crinkle formed between her brows. “No, Sawyer, my mother moved away from me.”

The carefully blank expression she wore couldn’t cover the slight quiver in her voice. What had I missed while I was away?

I brushed my lips over her cheek. “Where does she live now?” I asked softly.

She shrugged. “I haven’t seen or heard from her since she took off over two years ago. She said she was heading to Florida, but I’m really not sure.”

Anger and a fierce protectiveness surged through me. “You were still in high school two years ago.”

She nodded and turned her gaze back to the house. “Just about to graduate. That’s one of the reasons I left here. I couldn’t afford the rent and finish school.”

“What about after you graduated? You always wanted to go to college. Why didn’t you leave here, too? Go after your dream?”

Her lips parted and her head whipped back toward me. “Dreams take money. Besides, how do you remember all that about me?”

I shrugged. “Sweetheart, I told you, I waited a long time for you. And a big part of the reason I waited so long was so you could have your dream. I remember every little thing you would tell the patrons of my bar.”

“That was years ago and then you disappeared.”

I nodded. “I needed to give you space. And I needed to be forced to keep my hands off a girl I had no right in wanting.”

Her eyes grew wide. “I don’t know what to say to that. I had no idea you even saw me.”

I blew out a breath and drew Trinity deeper into my arms.

I needed to claim her. Soon. She needed to know she was mine and so did everyone else.