14. Hailey

FOURTEEN

A blur broke out in front of me.

One second my eyes were wide with the surprise of getting hit in the jaw, and the next, the guy was on the floor and Cody was on top of him.

Cody cocked back an arm and pulled the guy up by the neck of his shirt with the other.

"You hurt her, motherfucker? You're going to pay for that." Cody didn't wait for an answer before that fist flew. It smashed into the guy's nose.

Blood burst at the connection.

A shriek ripped out of me, and I felt frozen to the spot as Cody started to pound the guy's face.

A storm of fury whipping the chaotic atmosphere into disorder as Cody threw his fist again and again.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Screams broke out and the couples split apart, a scattering of feet and bodies across the dance floor to get away from the mayhem while a whole slew of new people rushed forward, making a circle around the mess Cody had just thrown himself into.

The music clanked off, and his shouts ricocheted through the cavernous room.

"You piece of shit. You hit her. I'll end you for that."

He hit him again.

Finally, the sense came back to me, and I surged forward and pleaded his name, "Cody!"

I thought to jump on his back to stop him from being the stupid one, only Ryder came busting through the crowd, a dark cloud that descended in a flash. He wrapped both arms around Cody's waist and hauled him back onto his feet.

Cody tried to break free and go back for the jerk who was moaning on the floor, covering his face with his hands as he cried, "That asshole broke my nose."

"Yeah, and I'm going to break a whole lot more." Cody struggled against Ryder. "Let me go, Ryder. He hit her. This dickbag hit her."

"Cool it!" Ryder shouted, yanking back harder before he leaned in and said something in his ear that I couldn't make out.

Cody finally shook himself off just as Ezra came running up. "What the hell happened here?"

"This drunk fuck hit Hailey in the face with his elbow." The accusation was abraded gravel.

"I didn't touch her." The guy writhed on the ground, and Ezra glanced back at Cody and gave a tick of his head. "Get out of here. I'll take care of him."

Cody hesitated, clearly contemplating diving back for the jerk.

"Now, Cody." Ezra's voice was a low warning, and I knew if Ezra hadn't been there, Cody would likely be heading to jail right about then.

Paisley came through the crowd. Shock colored her expression when she saw the scene, and she rushed over and slid her arm around my waist. "Oh my gosh, what happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm okay." I was barely able to say it, and I was suddenly thankful she had an arm around me to keep me steady when Cody shifted and took two steps in my direction.

His bottom lip had a small cut, and a droplet of blood was already drying into a scab. Every line of his face was riddled with ferocity, with an apology, with the truth that he didn't regret it all except for the worry that he might have hurt me in some way.

Ezra dragged the drunk guy onto his feet and pushed him through the crowd, and the band struck back up and people hit the dance floor like this was a routine event, which I supposed in a bar like this it probably was.

People getting unruly and rowdy.

Alcohol suppressing inhibitions.

In my experience, it was always when true personalities came out, usually amplified, good or bad.

But nothing about this felt routine to me.

It felt like a shift.

A crack right down the middle.

"Get out of here, Cody." Ryder repeated what Ezra had instructed, though it was urgent with a warning.

I stood surrounded by my new friends, flanked by Dakota and Savannah, and Paisley's arm was still solidly hooked on my waist as the crowd moved around us like we weren't standing still in the middle of them.

Cody's attention slanted to me.

That apology grew deeper.

Severe.

Stark.

Before he shook his head like he'd come to some conclusion, like he'd suddenly seen himself as the problem, and he turned away from us and started to carve himself through the disorder that roiled on the floor.

"I'll get you home," Paisley told me, just as Ryder roughed a frustrated hand over his face and said, "I'm going to go check on him."

I swallowed around the thickness in my throat. "No, let me."

A frown cut into Paisley's brow. "Are you sure? He's a lot when he's upset. You might want to let him cool down."

"I'll be fine," I promised.

In reluctance, she wavered, before she dipped her chin. "Text me later?"

"I will."

"Okay."

I weaved through the crowd, heading in the same direction Cody had gone.

Through the toiling bodies that writhed on the dance floor and the groups who'd grown thick around the tables.

I kept weaving through, following the wake of heat.

I pushed out the main door and into the summer night.

The deafening volume coming from the bar was cut in half the second the door clanged shut behind me.

A few people dotted the packed parking lot, their voices distant but distinct with the quiet that echoed in the air.

My attention drifted to the right, to the bluster of energy that pulsed, heavy and hot.

Cody stood facing away, a giant in the night, eyes on the ground and his shoulders heaving in spastic quakes.

I took a couple tentative steps toward him. My voice was barely a whisper when I spoke. "Are you okay?"

The shake of his head was harsh, and I could almost see the aggression still lining his muscles. All the easygoing casualness he normally wore had gone completely missing and in its place was a frisson of volatility.

"It's not me I'm worried about, Hailey."

"I'm completely fine, Cody. You didn't need to do that."

He peered back at me.

Golden eyes flashed beneath the dingy light that hung from the side of the building. "You don't think I'm going to stand aside and let someone I care about get hurt, do you? I never should have let you go to begin with."

My chest panged.

I never should have let you go.

But he would. He'd already made it clear. And standing there right then made me sure him walking away would break me.

Still, I pushed out the jagged words. "It was just some jerk who had too much to drink. He barely caught my chin. I'm completely fine. It's you he attacked, though I doubt very much he anticipated the retaliation you inflicted."

Sighing, Cody scrubbed one of those big palms over his face. "I lost it, and I'm sorry for that. I just…"

He trailed off like he didn't know what to say. Or maybe he was scared to admit it.

"I ruined the night," he settled on.

"You didn't ruin it. It's one of the best nights I've had in a long, long time."

"Until the end."

"It's not over yet." I attempted to play it a tease, but it came out all wrong, and I knew immediately where his mind had gone. That unflinching gaze flamed, and my stomach twisted, and God, this was getting complicated.

"I think I'm ready to go home, if you are?" I managed.

A rough chuckle skated up his throat. "I doubt much I'm welcome in Mack's right about now. I'm lucky Ezra was here."

"He knows you were protecting me."

"He also knows I can be a bit of a hothead." He looked away for a beat before he returned his attention to me. "But I won't regret standing up for you. It's just the way I am, Hailey. I protect those I care about. I take care of them. Whatever the cost."

A warning was woven in the words, and I knew this man went much deeper than the careless smiles and smirks. I thought if I looked close enough, I might be able to see the ghosts that gathered around him, phantoms that played in the night.

I was worried every single one of them might be a partner to mine.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," I murmured.

"It is if you knew the lengths I'd go."

That warning had gone dark.

I wanted to press him. Push him to open up. But the door clattered open behind me, and I shifted to look at a group of people who came stumbling out, laughing and breaking the moment.

When I turned back, Cody had stretched out his hand. "Come on, let's get you home."

Tentatively, I walked toward him, taking one step, then two.

The power of his presence grew the closer I came.

A shiver rushed through me when he pressed the hand he had extended to the small of my back and began to lead me toward the parking lot.

Heat blazed at the bare connection.

A fire that leapt.

I tried to keep my breathing even, but I was pretty sure there was no way he'd miss the way my pulse was speeding.

The bar grew quieter and quieter the farther we traipsed down the row of vehicles, and the darkness gathered thick. He led me to where his truck was parked about halfway down, his boots crunching in the loose gravel as he guided me to the passenger's side.

The lights blinked when he clicked the locks, and he opened the door. "In you go."

A short gasp left me when he reached down and curled a hand around my side to help me into the high seat.

A low growl echoed from behind me. "That dress should be illegal, darlin'."

I settled onto the seat, trying to ignore the path of his attention. The tingles that rushed and raced as his gaze traveled over me where I was propped in the seat of his truck, hungry eyes riding down over the glittering fabric and fluttering like fingertips down my bare legs.

"I think it's pretty." Why I answered, I didn't know.

"Oh, it's pretty, all right. Now get yourself buckled because I'm going to shut this door and pretend like I don't want to set you back on your feet, turn you around, and push that skirt up around your waist so I can get to the deliciousness hiding underneath."

Before I could say anything, he slammed the door in my face.

My mouth dropped open because this man truly had no filter.

He rounded the front of the truck, and I couldn't look away as he went. He was right back to oozing all that cool as he strode to his side, tossed open the door, and hopped in like he hadn't left the ground shaking under my feet.

I was swept in it, his aura as he buckled himself and pushed the button for the ignition.

Spice and cedar and earth.

He put the truck in reverse and pulled out, then stopped as he shifted into drive, right before his attention swung to me. A deep frown carved into his brow when he saw the way I was just sitting there staring at him, my hands under my thighs to keep myself from doing something stupid like reaching out to touch him.

This man would destroy me. Chew me up and spit me out.

What Lolly had said was undoubtedly true.

The chewing would be so nice.

But it was my conscience I would never survive.

My jaw unlocked again when he suddenly leaned all the way over the seat, the oxygen gone as he pushed into my space, his unrelenting stare pinning me to the spot when he reached around and pulled the buckle across my front.

Surprise jutted my chest.

Crap. I'd been too busy ogling him to take the time to remember to buckle myself.

I couldn't think straight.

Couldn't move.

The buckle clicked into place, and he never looked away when he rumbled, "I guess I have to do everything myself, don't I?"

There was a gleam to those eyes then, sparks of gold and flickers of light right as that smirk edged up at the corner of his mouth. He was nothing but a toil of charm and mayhem. An easy, tempting danger that would be so easy to slip into.

I hoped I wasn't panting when I peered over at him as he pulled out of the parking lot and out onto the road.

This burly, mountain of a man who drove beneath the cover of night.

"You seem to be taking care of me a whole lot," I murmured into the wisping darkness of the cab.

He sent me a wicked grin. "It's my pleasure to take care of you, Shortcake."

Suggestion flooded the words.

Cocky Cowboy.

A country station played softly from the radio, and the stars were heavy and dense where they hung from the blackened expanse of sky, surrounding us like a fuzzy blanket that we might be wrapped in too tightly together.

We made it through Time River and took to the twisting, two-lane road that wove through the forest and led to Hendrickson.

Soaring evergreens hugged us on each side and the stars glinted overhead, the engine a low hum as we traveled. We were held in this tranquil peace that still had knitted me into disorder.

We chatted about inane things that still seemed to matter.

How my first couple weeks of work had been and vice versa. The project he'd been surprised to win the contract to, how he'd tossed in his bid thinking it'd be a long shot and how proud he was of his team, and for the first time, there was a deep humbleness that penetrated his voice.

I couldn't look away from him the entire trip. My intent focused on his face. On his jaw and his brow and his nose, his strong profile that I thought would forever be emblazoned in my mind.

I cherished every shift and intonation of his voice.

Rapt on his words.

His flirtiness.

His kindness.

"You're a beautiful man, Cody Cooper," I finally whispered as he was making the left into our neighborhood.

Inside and out.

I realized he let very few people see the inside, but I thought maybe he'd allowed me to all those years ago.

He glanced my way, and a dark chuckle rolled up his masculine throat and flooded the space. "You should probably stop looking at me that way if you want to remain friends, Hailey. Not when the only thing I want to do is reach out and touch you."

His face was illuminated by the bare light that glowed from the exterior lamps of the houses we passed, and those eyes raked over me where I'd turned to press my back to the door so I could see him better.

Greed filled the cab. So intense that I felt it coil through the air and crawl across my skin.

Like those hands were tapping out a rhythm on my flesh.

Exploring.

Needy and hot.

I pressed my thighs together, hoping it might be enough to assuage the ache that had been building all night, desperate for the type of pleasure I knew only a man like him could give.

The first person who had ever made me long.

Ache and want.

And I wondered…

Cody groaned and his jaw ticked, his knuckles whitening as he tightened his hold on the wheel. "Yeah, you really need to stop looking at me that way."

He pulled to the curb in front of my house. Here, it was dark, his face in the shadows, his massive body a silhouette. My eyes devoured the outline of his perfect shape.

His big body roiled in sharp restraint, this constant wave of strength that kept battering against me.

He continued to hold onto the steering wheel like it might be the one thing that kept him contained.

The only thing grounding him when the world had floated away from us.

Each thirsting for what we knew better than to chase, but right then, after everything that had happened tonight, all rationale was erased.

"I don't think I can stop." There I went—a fool who was begging for it.

Heartbreak.

Because this man had already broken me a long time ago, and he didn't even know it. Self-reproach writhed, a murmuring that howled from the abyss of my misdeeds and mistakes, though the shout of it was drowned out by the need that howled.

Every muscle in his body flexed, a bristle repression and a rush of greed. "I'm not sure I can give you what you need, Hailey."

"You told me last night you knew exactly what I needed."

His tongue stroked out over his lips, and that energy swelled.

Rising up from the depths to consume.

My thighs pressed together again, and his gaze dropped to the action. I squirmed beneath the weight. Beneath the potency that lured me in his direction.

"That's right. You need to come." The words were harsh. A rough scrape of seduction.

"Just once. Tonight."

I could handle that.

Could handle the shame.

The regret that was sure to come.

But right then, the only thing that mattered was getting to experience what it was like to have this man's hands on me.

Then I would go to sleep and pretend it was all a fantasy.

And tomorrow…tomorrow we'd be friends.

A disbelieving scuff blew between his plush lips.

He clearly was on to me. He knew exactly how my brain had processed through everything. How I was rationalizing this disastrous choice.

"And you're going to be fine with it come morning? And here I thought we were going to just be friends?" Irony filled his tone.

"We are." It barely made it free on a breath. "This is just…tonight."

That's all it could be.

"You sure about that?"

"Yes." It wobbled on the tremoring air.

He released his seatbelt, and he pushed a button on his door that sent his seat gliding all the way back. He patted his lap. "Then get that sweet ass over here."

"Right here?" Incredulity jetted from my tongue. I didn't think I'd even fit.

"Right here, darlin', because if I take you to my bed, I'm going to want to keep you there."

My fingers were shaking out of control, and I fumbled to release my seatbelt, my limbs trembled, unsteady with the way those eyes were locked on me.

Intent.

Fierce.

They flamed in the darkness.

Golden sparks.

A fire that lit all the way down in the depths. In that hidden place where I'd always kept him.

He waited like he fully expected me to change my mind.

I crawled to him, over the soft leather that felt cool to the touch. I had to look ridiculous, so awkward in the confined space.

"So fuckin' gorgeous, you on your knees crawling for me." Cody rumbled it like he'd heard my insecurities. A low reverberation that skated far and wide.

I shifted to straddle his lap, keeping up high on my knees as my fingers sank into his shoulders. It was tight where I was wedged between him and the steering wheel, the space enclosed, his temperature close to a thousand degrees.

The skirt of the dress bunched up high, and it barely covered the very top of my thighs.

At the brush of our bellies, he grunted, and a big palm came to curl around my side.

My stupid heart thrashed against my ribs so hard that I knew come tomorrow morning it'd be completely battered.

His hand smoothed up and down my side, both calming and inciting, and his other wound up in my hair as he stared at me.

"What is it about you, Hailey Wagner?"

He searched me in the shadows, eyes flicking all over my face, as if his thoughts were racing back to that time, everything about it digging too deep.

Reaching into the places I needed to keep him from.

The blood careened through my veins, and I lifted higher on my knees.

Electricity crackled when my chest brushed against his.

"Touch me," I begged.

The hand in my hair tightened. "Where's it you want me to touch you, darlin'?"

I wanted to tell him everywhere.

That I wanted his hands and his mouth and that body on me, except I'd lost the capacity for speaking when he angled my jaw back and pressed his mouth to the sensitive flesh of my neck.

He kissed there, up and down the column of my throat, lips suckling and tongue licking along my pulse point.

Heat streaked down my spine, a tumble that pulsed and spread, stretching out to saturate every cell.

Desire lit like a spotlight behind my eyes.

His hand cinched down on my waist, and he dragged me against his body. The throbbing, sweet spot between my thighs rubbed at the stony planes of his abdomen.

The most embarrassing sound got loose of my throat, and my fingers sank deeper into his shoulders. One big hand slipped around to my bottom and splayed out to cover an entire cheek.

He guided me, rocking me up and down, and his enormous cock that I'd been blindsided by last night hardened to steel beneath our movements. Pressing huge and heavy at his jeans.

My hand slipped down his muscled chest, the black fabric stretched wide over his bulging pecs, before I glided south over his trembling stomach. I eased back enough so I could get to the button of his jeans.

The coarse chuckle he released was needy and pained, and he grabbed me by the wrist and drew my hand back to his shoulder. "Only thing we agreed on was me touching you, and I think you might need to hold on for that."

"You don't want me?" It gasped out, my thoughts disoriented, need so intense that I couldn't process anything but the desperation to feel him inside me.

Filling me full.

Taking me over.

"I think it's plain just how damned bad I want you." He ground my center against his dick. "Already told you last night how bad I do. But I don't want to complicate things."

Right.

He didn't want to complicate things.

I should probably be concerned that I felt very, very complicated right then.

But he was right, if we were going to wake up tomorrow and just be friends, then this needed to be a quick release.

This wasn't intimate.

It wasn't anything but feeling good.

I started to tell him that I only wanted to touch him, but my mind stopped functioning when he smoothed his hand down my leg to my knee before he rode back up, though this time his hand slipped beneath my dress when he got to the hem. He pushed it up higher until it was completely bunched around my waist.

I thought to be self-conscious. My thighs thick and trembling where I straddled him, my legs completely bare.

I thought of looking out the windows to make sure no one was watching us. But I was too enraptured by the growl that rolled up his throat, by the way that ravenous gaze slid over my body.

"How's it I have a Goddess sitting on my lap?"

Every inch of me quivered and rocked.

An earthquake.

He nudged me up a fraction, and he dragged the tip of his thumb over the satiny fabric of my underwear.

Sparks flashed, and he'd barely touched me.

"Look at you…needy and wet."

I choked over the tightness that bound my throat. "Did you expect me not to be?"

"Oh, I expected you to be. I could smell you…" He ran his nose down the slope of my neck before he kissed across my collarbone. "How fuckin' bad you need it."

He nudged my underwear aside, and he dragged his thumb deep between my lips.

I gasped at the sensation.

At the heat.

At the flames.

I writhed and whimpered, not even caring that he probably thought I was pathetic. The mere brush of the tip of his finger nearly setting me off.

"Fuck. If I thought that dress should be illegal, then those sweet little sounds coming out of your mouth should be a felony."

He rumbled it, running his thumb back and forth, barely brushing over my clit with each pass.

"Cody."

"That's right, honey. That's exactly what I want to hear. My name on your tongue. Give me one minute, and you'll be chanting it so loud that I'll have to gag you."

"Cocky Cowboy." It wheezed out as he rolled his thumb over my throbbing clit.

A chuckle reverberated from deep within his chest, the man enjoying this far too much. He had his face tipped up toward mine, our lips a breadth apart.

I was breathing his air.

The scent of him all around.

That spicy aura drugging me, leaving me desperate for a taste.

"Kiss me." I begged it.

Something flashed through his expression.

Terror it looked like.

Fear or regret.

But it was gone before I could process it, and surprise was squeezing from my lungs when he had me pressed against the passenger door so quickly that I hadn't even realized he'd moved.

My mind spun with the disorder that was this man.

A riot.

Peace.

Complete anarchy.

A sweetness that was so hazardous that I felt the truth of it twist like a dull knife in my guts.

Because in an instant, I was spread out for him, one leg bent and pressed to the back of the seat and the other draped out across the floor.

Cody leaned over me, gold eyes glinting in the muted dregs of light.

He took me by the knees and spread me wider. "Look at you. So fucking gorgeous you could make a man weep."

I arched from the door where I was propped, unable to process it, the sensation and the need and the electricity.

The man enthralling.

Entrancing.

Knocking me free of any sense.

Inhibitions slayed.

He planted one hand on the seat and rose up higher, his attention intent on my face as he slipped his hand between my thighs.

He'd never seemed so enormous than then.

Hovering over me like a leviathan in the cab.

A shield of protection.

A shroud of depravity.

He drove two fingers inside me, and my walls clenched around them. I gasped at the fullness.

"Yeah, knew you'd have a sweet little cunt," he rumbled.

He started driving his fingers in and out as he rolled his thumb over my clit. Swirling and pressing and spinning me into a frenzy.

My hips started to move, jutting up to meet each thrust.

He was right. It took all of a minute for me to start chanting his name, pleasure winding and curling and tightening to a boiling point.

"I—" I couldn't speak.

Emotion broke free of where I'd kept it trapped, shackles that vied to be released. Warmth spread, a dark cascade of memories that wound through the recesses of my mind and penetrated to the spirit.

Did he remember?

Did he know?

"You feel that, Hailey? Just my fingers and you're lighting up like the morning. A little fire that's been begging to burn."

"Cody."

He drove his fingers faster, that golden gaze locked on my face, refusing to look away.

Bliss gathered, a rising tide in the cab. A tornado erupting from the bottom of the sea. A whorl of energy. An unfurling of need.

My fingers sank into his shoulders as I levitated beneath the power of his touch, sure I was going to drift away, lost to the flood. "Cody."

"Do you feel it, Hailey? Do you get it yet? How I see you? How gorgeous you are, inside and out? Do you know how bad I've been dyin' to touch everything that you are? All this beauty that's been tapped? Let go, darlin', the way you've been needing to."

His praise swarmed me, the gruff of his voice spurring me farther, as if he truly knew how badly I needed to hear it. The way I'd been living without it for so long. In a darkness where I'd remained hidden. He pushed up higher, hovering right over me as he pumped deeper, his thumb working magic, but I thought it might have been the expression on his face that threw me over. His words tipping me right over the edge.

"That's right, Shortcake. Let me feel you come all over my fingers. Let me hold your pleasure…just this once."

Ecstasy splintered me apart.

A shockwave that barreled through my body.

I writhed and jerked as sensation raced, every nerve ending firing and alive.

Wave after crashing wave.

Cody stroked his fingers in time, leading me through, and I thought the orgasm might go on forever as he eked out every drop of pleasure that he could coax from me.

Ridge after rising ridge.

Trembles rocked me, and I shivered as the intensity flickered then ebbed.

Cody's jaw was clenched the whole time, his body rigid, though his eyes went soft while I sat there panting and trying to catch my breath.

"I was right…it was the exact same expression when you come. Don't think I've seen anything so beautiful as that."

"I already told you that you're the beautiful one."

My fingers quivered with the need to trace every rugged, handsome line of his face.

Commit him to memory.

So I gave in and let my fingertips trail the contours and lines of restraint that hardened his stony features, before my hand glided down his neck and over his chest until I was cupping him through his jeans.

The man so big.

Heavy and hard.

"Shortcake," he warned, his stomach jolting as I stroked him over the fabric.

"You got to touch me…it's only fair."

A growl got free of him, and harsh rasps panted from his mouth as I jacked him over his jeans. He burrowed his face in my neck, groaning before he forced himself back, his hand hot as he curled it around my wrist to stop me.

Only he lifted it between us, hesitation brimming from him before he brought the inside of my wrist to his lips.

A buzz burned at the connection.

So damned sweet that I thought my chest would cave.

And God, I had the urge to beg him to kiss me again. To push this farther. For him to take me right there.

But I think we both somehow knew where that would lead. This already felt far more significant than it was supposed to. Like merging spirits and twining hearts.

He affirmed it when he said, "You touch me like that, and I promise, we aren't going to be friends tomorrow."

That was all it took for the guilt I'd tried to suppress to spring up from the recesses of my mind, from the dark corners where grief lived. For a beat, I squeezed my eyes closed like I could protect myself from it, and I silently whispered, Oh, God, please forgive me, to that ghost that lingered in my head.

It was wrong, doing this. Letting him touch me this way. Leave it to Karma that it would feel so damned good.

Punishment.

A tease.

Everything that I couldn't have.

Sitting back on his knees, Cody readjusted my dress and pulled it down to cover my thighs.

I still felt wholly exposed.

He canted me one of those easygoing grins like he might be immune to the energy that crackled in the cab. "Let's get you inside, Shortcake. It's late, and I'm betting that sweet little Button is going to have you up at the crack of dawn."

Then he pushed away, popping open his door and sliding out. He strode all kinds of casual around the front of the truck, while I was barely able to get my body to cooperate enough to sit upright by the time he swung open my door.

Confounded.

Body weak and sluggish while my mind started to spin.

He held out the same hand that he'd just touched me with, and the man had the audacity to wink.

"This didn't happen," I finally said, voice still haggard.

I needed to erect a wall. Guard myself from the feelings that were threatening to sprout. Hell, they'd been there all along, and I'd just drenched them in life-giving water.

The edge of Cody's mouth ticked all the way up, that smirk back in full force. "Whatever you say, darlin'."

Reluctantly, I took his hand and let him help me out, and he reached out to steady me when I swayed the second my feet hit the ground. "Whoa, there. I've got you."

He shut my door and guided me onto the curb, and he rested his hand lightly at the small of my back as he guided me up my driveway and around the sidewalk that led to the porch. He followed me all the way to the door.

I didn't realize how badly my hands were shaking until I fumbled with the zipper of my little purse, how I couldn't stop the quaking of my insides when I retrieved my key and tried to get it into the lock.

Cody reached out and set his hand on mine, his movements controlled as he helped me slide the key into the lock and turn it. The latch gave, the knob twisted, and the door creaked open to the darkness of my house.

I went to step inside, only Cody's mouth went to my ear as I passed. "You might want to pretend that didn't just happen, but believe me, Shortcake, the sight of you coming is going to be imprinted in my mind for the rest of my life."

Then he backed away, stuffing his hands into his pockets and wearing one of those flirty grins, and said, "See you tomorrow…friend."