Old Fashioned Sweetie by Megan Wade
Vaughn
She tastes like a dream as my tongue slides along hers, exploring her mouth while I resist the urge to devour her whole. What is it about this woman? Her curves, her smile, her smell, her look. I’m obsessed with all of it. This entire evening has felt like one drawn out tease with fleeting looks and secret smiles from across the room. And now that everyone has left and we’re finally alone, I intend to claim what’s mine. Maybe Jade was right when she came up with her ‘soulwink’ theory. Maybe something magical is happening in Whisper Valley.
“Ready to go?” I murmur, my voice thick and raspy when we pull apart.
“Go?” She looks up at me with dreamy eyes, and everything that’s inside me vows in that moment to protect everything inside her. She’s mine.
Smiling, I brush her white-blonde hair away from her sweet face. “My place. You’re staying with me, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. The guestroom.”
“You can stay in my room if you like,” I blurt, catching myself and quickly adding, “I’m not expectin’ you to do anything in return. This is all gonna happen at your speed, OK?”
A slow grin curls up one side of her mouth. “I like the speed we’re going at now,” she whispers, placing her hand on my chest and leaning in close. I inhale deeply. She smells like wildflowers and rain, and I don’t know how someone I only just met can smell so good and so familiar at the same time.
“In that case, let’s get out of here and see where this night takes us.”
“OK,” she says, sliding her hand in mine when I offer it.
Just like her mouth when I kissed her, and her body when we were dancing, holding her hand feels natural. Like we were made to fit together somehow. And while I don’t want to get carried away and run with this feeling the way Kellen would, I still can’t help that focusing on that ‘maybe’ continuing to scratch at the back of my mind.
“Should we take your car or mine?” Charity asks, looking around the parking lot.
“Neither,” I say, tilting my head in the opposite direction. “My place is within walking distance.”
“Really? I didn’t see a house for miles before I came upon the bar.”
“There’s a reason for that. Whisper Valley is a small, close-knit community and we like to keep it that way. Most properties are set back from the road, and the pockets you’d call suburbia are quite small and off the beaten track. You kind of have to know about us to find us.”
“Sounds peaceful,” she says with a happy sigh. “The city is just busy, busy, busy. It exhausts me.”
“Why do you stay there?” I ask, the gravel crunching underfoot while I lead her to the worn path that leads up to my cabin.
“I don’t know. I grew up there and went to school there, so it’s familiar.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I manage a bookstore. It’s one of those places that has the fancy coffee and café attached to it to encourage more than just readers to pop in. The owner calls it diversification.”
“Are you in it for the books or the coffee?”
She laughs at that. “I was in it for the books in the beginning. I’ve always been a bit of a book nerd, so working in a bookstore seemed the ideal career.”
“And now?”
“Well, I suppose ever since the coffee shop side of things went in, the job has changed. I love drinking coffee, but serving it and smelling it all day kind of messes with the joy of it. Not to mention, it masks the smell of the books. I really miss that.”
“Sounds like you need a shake up then.”
“There aren’t a lot of bookstores around that don’t serve coffee anymore, I’m afraid.”
“The library in town needs a librarian. Maybe that’s more up your alley?”
“You think I should throw in the towel and follow my friend to Whisper Valley?”
We hit the tree line behind the bar, and I pull my keys from my pocket,. “Maybe,” I say, hitting a button on the fob that connects to a row of string lights up in the trees. The path ahead of us illuminates and Charity looks up in wonder.
“Wow. I kept laughing at Jade and her magic talk earlier, but this is making me wonder if she’s onto something.”
I chuckle as I shove my keys back into my pocket and we continue on. “No magic involved here. Just a bunch of lights, a solar panel and a remote sensor.”
“Science then,” she says, leaning into my slightly. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you in the bar for the job or for the family?”
“Interesting question. I’m in it for both. I like the work, and I enjoy working with my brothers. We’ve always been real close—none of that in fighting you get between most siblings—so workin’ together just feels natural. Kind of like bein’ with you.”
She sucks in a breath and looks up at me. “It does feel natural, doesn’t it?”
I nod slowly as I stop walking and hook my finger under the bottom of her chin. “And I don’t wanna question it or analyze the reason why. I just wanna go with it and see what happens.”
With her eyes on mine, she swallows hard then nods. Her tongue darting out to wet her lips is a signal for me to close the distance between us. She whimpers when our mouths connect, her arms coming up over my shoulders until they’re wrapping around my neck and she’s up on her toes. I let out a groan as my hands slide down to her ass, pulling her against me and showing how badly I want her when the evidence of my arousal presses into her soft belly.
“Vaughn,” she whispers, breathless as our foreheads touch and our mouths separate. “I think I should tell you something.” Please don’t tell me you have a boyfriend.
I have a strict policy of never cutting another man’s grass, but where Charity is concerned, I might not be able to help myself. It would definitely cause complications though.
“OK.”
She clears her throat a little, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of my neck in a display of nerves. “I, uh…I’ve never gone home with someone before.”
“Oh.” The information hits me in a way that has me stepping back in surprise. Is she saying she’s never had sex before?
“I’m not going to make you marry me tomorrow if that’s what you’re worried about,” she says in a rush, her fingers twisting as she holds her ground and I rub the back of my neck and blow out a steadying breath.
“I’m not,” I assure her.
“You look freaked out.”
“I guess I’m just wondering why me?”
A small smile curves her pretty mouth. “I thought we weren’t questioning it.”
My hand scrubs across my face as I release a chuckle. “Because it feels natural.”
She nods. “I’m twenty-nine years old and in all that time, you’re the first man I’ve ever felt something like this with. So I want to explore that.”
“Is that why you’ve waited so long?” I ask. “Because you were waiting until it felt right?”
“Yeah. Mind you, I’ve never really been the object of anyone’s desire before, but even if I was, I didn’t want to throw it away on some guy I didn’t have real feelings for.”
“Do you think you have real feelings for me?”
“All I know is that I wanted you as soon as I saw you,” she whispers, rubbing her lips together and giving me a look that tells me she’s showing me her heart and I need to be careful not to break it. Never.
“Me too,” I rasp, hooking my hand around the back of her head and pulling her up against me, kissing her so deep it feels like we might actually drown inside of each other. And all the while, there’s only one thought floating around in my head. Mine, mine, mine.
I don’t even know her last name yet, but what I do know is that Charity is mine. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what her last name is now, because I’ll make it Valentine before long.
