18. Baker

CHAPTER 18

BAKER

As soon asI walked into the bar, my cock was hard for her. Standing here, this close to her and unable to touch her is pure hell.

Her eyes are dilated, nostrils flared, and the pulse at her neck is vibrating. At least she’s affected by me, that much is obvious. But her words say otherwise. “Baker, we’ve been through this. We can’t.”

“Fuck that. We can. We’re grown-ups.”

She slaps her hand on the table and then loudly whispers to me, “Think about your dad. Somehow, I’m not sure how, but he’s happy with my mom. Do we want to be the ones to screw it up for them?”

“It won’t screw with them. You know my dad. He loves me and above anything else, he wants me happy. He loves you too, Cassie. He wants you happy. He would never begrudge us happiness.”

Chloe comes back to the table, takes one look at us with raised eyebrows, and shakes her head. “Uh, I’ll go make another phone call.”

Cassie turns on me. “Can we talk about this some other time? Please, Baker. Don’t do this now. Not here.”

I hang my head and grit my teeth. “Fine. I need to go check on things anyway. You okay here?”

For the first time since I walked in, she smiles. “Yeah, I promise no more bar fights.” She points at her glass. “And I’m drinking water.”

I’m about to go when I stop. I lean down and whisper in her ear, “Are you going to dance with anyone while you’re here?”

There’s a softness in her voice when she answers me, and it reminds me of the times we’ve been in bed together. “You mean with a man?”

I growl. It comes out before I can stop it, and she’s lucky I don’t throw her over my shoulder and carry her out of here in front of half the damn town. “Yeah, Cassie. Are you going to dance with a man?”

“No.” She lifts her big green eyes at me, and I see the sincerity in them. “The only man I want to dance with is you. No one else.”

I let my hand find her leg under the table and squeeze. “One day, Cassie, I’m going to dance with you in front of everyone. Our family, our friends, everyone. We’re not going to care who sees us because you’re going to trust in me and what we have together.”

I see the question in her eyes, but I know she’s not going to put voice to it. She’s not going to ask me here in front of everyone. I wish she would because I’m dying to tell her exactly how I feel about her. But she’s not ready. And there’s a part of me that wonders if she ever will be. “I’ll talk to you later, Cass. Call me if you need me.”

She gives me one firm nod. “I will. Be safe out there, Baker.”

I’m about to go when she stops me. “Are you coming to dinner on Sunday night?”

I shake my head, letting her know I don’t know anything about it.

“Mom planned dinner for Sunday night. She said she mentioned it to you. Did she not?”

I stare at her without blinking. It’s a slippery slope, but I don’t want to diss her mom to her. The fact is Brandi doesn’t want me around. She doesn’t want to share my dad with anyone. My guess is she’s seen how much my dad cares for Cassie, and that’s why she wants her out of the house too.

There’s a part of me that wants to say no. It’s pure torture being this close to her and not being able to touch her. But I also know that any chance I have to be with her, I’m going to take it. Instead of answering her question about her mom, I ask, “What time?”

“Six o’clock.”

Her green eyes search my brown ones, and I know I can’t say no. “I’ll be there.”

I nod my head and walk away. I’m tired of doing it because when it comes to Cassie, I just want to stay.

My shift goes incredibly slowly. I drove by the Whistler a few times, and when my shift is over, I drive by there one more time. Cassie is leaving the parking lot so I follow her through town, parking on the road down from my dad’s house. I should leave her alone, but I hate that we sort of argued. I keep pressuring her, and maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I just need to wait until she makes the decision on her own.

So I climb up the tree next to her window and with a soft thud, jump onto her balcony. Not wanting to scare her, I text her. “Hey.”

She answers immediately. “Hey. I was hoping I’d hear from you. I’m sorry about tonight.”

Awww, this girl is killing me. She’s so good for me. “Open your balcony door.”

It takes her only a minute, and she opens the door, looking at me in shock. “Baker, what are you doing here?” She practically throws herself into my arms. “I’m so sorry about tonight. I know it’s hard. It was hard for me too. One of the things I love about you is how you’re always touching me, and it kills me when we can’t touch each other.”

I want to argue with her and tell her that we could. All we need to do is come clean, but I don’t want to have a disagreement with her right now. She leans up on her tiptoes. “Are you going to kiss me or what?”

She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I walk her into the room and kiss her along the way. She pulls me down to her bed, and I hover over her. I can’t get enough of her. I feel like I’m looking at her with my heart in my eyes, but I don’t try to conceal how I feel about her. I wasn’t lying to her because I want the whole town to know.

She lifts her hip. “Is that a gun or are you happy to see me?”

I raise up and remove my holster and belt and lay it on the floor next to the bed before lying back down. I push my hips into her. “That’s for you.”

We kiss some more, and I roll, bringing her on top of me.

She’s searching my eyes, and I can see she has something on her mind. “How’s your head?”

She nods. “Good.”

I kiss her forehead. “What’s on your mind?”

“Can I ask you something without you getting mad?”

I pull her down slowly because I like having the weight of her on me. “You can ask me anything.”

She’s looking at my chest now instead of my eyes. “I was talking to your dad…”

Her voice trails off, and I nudge her to look at me. “Tell me… it’s okay.”

“He mentioned Gina.”

I wait for her to continue. “What about her?”

She’s drawing circles on my chest through my shirt. “Your dad said you were crazy about her.”

I run my hands through her hair, tangling my fingers in the silky strands. “Did he tell you she cheated on me? That she didn’t want anything serious and was playing me?”

“She sounds stupid.”

I laugh. “Yeah, well, thanks for that.”

When she doesn’t say anything else, I tilt her head up to look at me. “What are you thinking?”

She bites her lip. “Uh, well, I was just wondering if you still love her.”

I’m staring at her, and she looks away. I bring her to the side of me and wrap an arm and leg around her, pulling her against my body. “Look at me.”

She raises her big green eyes at me, and I can see the vulnerability in them. “Two things you need to know about me. If I loved another woman, I wouldn’t have made love with you the other night. That’s not who I am. Second, since the night I walked in the Whistler and saw you holding that ice pack to your head, I haven’t even thought about another woman but you.”

She slides her hand around my waist, holding on to me. “You don’t have to say that—”

I cut her off. “Say what? That I want to spend time with you? That I want you? That all I can think about is you? Talking to you, laughing with you, being inside you…”

She challenges me with a look. “Show me…”

“Here?”

She pulls away from me and stands up. I watch as she undresses, and she’s hiding nothing from me. “I want you too, Baker.”

She’s standing out of reach, so I get off the bed and come for her, but she holds her hand up to stop me. She points at my uniform. “Clothes off.”

I make quick work of removing my clothes, and when I’m naked, she’s licking her lips, staring at my erect manhood. I wrap my hand around my girth and stroke it twice.

Her eyes are glassy as she looks at me. “It kills me that I couldn’t touch you earlier.”

I stroke myself again, but it’s not enough. With a husky voice, I tell her, “You can touch me anytime you want.”

She puts her hands on her hips. “What if I want to do something new?”

I shrug. “As long as it ends with me inside you, you can do whatever you want.”

She looks at her closed bedroom door and back at me. “You going to be able to be quiet?”

I laugh, because we both know she’s the loud one. “Are you?”

She grabs a pillow off the bed and drops it to the floor in front of me. As she lowers to her knees in front of me, my body starts to tremble. I cup the side of her cheek. “You know you don’t have to do this.”

She reaches up, wrapping her hand around my length and smiles. “I want to.”

My hips jerk as she holds me. She takes her time caressing me. Her strokes are soft yet firm. When she leans forward and presses her lips to the tip of my dick, I know I’m not going to be able to take much. Her first kiss is sweet and timid. I gather her hair away from her face and hold it in my hand as she licks me.

Her tongue strokes the underside of my cock from root to tip, and there’s no stopping my hips from plunging forward. When she takes me in her sweet mouth, it’s pure torture.

She’s bobbing her head, and my head falls back as I groan.

She slaps my leg and pops off me. “Ssshhh,” she reminds me before wrapping her lips back around my cock. When her hands go to my ass, holding me to her as she takes me, I know that I’m going to lose it. As good as this feels, I want to be inside her.

I grab her under arms, and she releases me. I pick her up and carry her to the bed and lay her back. Her red hair is spread out around her head, and her lips are wet and swollen. She’s so beautiful, I would be happy looking at her just like this for the rest of my life.

I reach down and run my fingers through her slippery folds. Her arousal coats my fingers, and I lean down to kiss her. “You liked sucking me, didn’t you?”

She murmurs her agreement against my lips. I pull her hips to the edge of the bed and position my cock at her entrance. Slowly, I enter her, and with one thrust, I bury my cock so deep inside her I’m not sure where I end and where she begins. Her pussy contracts at the intrusion, and I wait for her to adjust to me. When she starts to wiggle underneath me, I know she’s ready and wanting more.

She fits me like a glove. “I want to fuck you like you’re mine, Cassie.”

She arches against me. “I am yours.”

I put a thumb at her swollen clit and rub it back and forth as I move in and out of her. She’s clenching on to me, and when she moans, I lean over to kiss her, quieting the sounds. The kiss is intense and adds to my arousal.

“Come for me, Cassie. I need you to come, baby.”

Her fingers dig into my chest as I pummel into her. When the orgasm shoots through her body, she clamps down on me, and we come together. It takes everything inside me to bite my tongue and not tell her that I’m falling in love with her. But then again, how can she not know already? The way we are together… she has to know.