Sweetheart Read online

  He gave me a searching look. “I’m not going anywhere. You know that, right?”

  “I know. I still want to make you a pair of boots.”

  It was something I’d thought about a lot during the past couple of weeks, in between hoping there was an us to talk about.

  He leaned close and kissed me. “Thank you. Having seen your work, I know how lucky I am to have that offer on the table.”

  Now that he’d agreed, my head was suddenly full of ideas for his boots, and I hustled us out of the café and into my car.

  When we got back to my place, I led him into my workshop and spent twenty minutes poring over his bare feet. Like a lot of people, his right foot was slightly larger than his left, but this was something I could easily accommodate.

  “You aren’t going to recognize yourself once you get my shoes on your feet,” I bragged as I jotted down measurements in my notebook.

  Beck wiggled his bare toes. “I’m feeling very vulnerable, being half naked over here, and you fully dressed over there.”

  “You poor baby,” I said. “Let me see if I can even things out a little.”

  Because—as always—I was ready for him. Now that the urge to create had been channeled onto the pages of my notepad, I was happy to move on to the important matter of slaking my never-ending lust for Beck’s beautiful body.

  Tossing my notepad aside, I stood and toed off my shoes. Then I undid my jeans and coolly and calmly shed them, along with my panties.

  “Holy shit,” Beck said. “Talk about your wish is my command.”

  I closed the distance between us and straddled him where he sat on my work stool. Then I reached for the hem of my shirt and yanked it over my head. It was the work of seconds to dispense with my bra, and then suddenly I was the one who was vulnerable and exposed, sitting naked in Beck’s lap.

  I didn’t feel self-conscious or hesitant, however. I felt powerful. And really, really horny.

  “Not sure where to go first but let’s start with these gorgeous tits,” Beck said, ducking his head to draw my right nipple into his mouth.

  He sucked on first one nipple and then the other until I was aching to have him inside me. When I breathlessly shared this piece of information with him he gave me a wolfish, deeply satisfied grin.

  “I got you, sweetheart,” Beck promised as he slipped his hand between my widespread thighs.

  I clenched my hands into his shoulders and moaned as he ran an exploratory finger through my wetness.

  “Fuck, yeah,” he said.

  He slid one thick finger inside me before finding my clit with his thumb, and for the next few minutes I rode his hand, thrusting my breasts into his face when I needed an extra nudge to get me over the edge. He obliged me with his talented tongue, and I came with a low, animal groan, my whole body throbbing with pleasure.

  Beck reached between us to free himself, somehow securing a condom from his rear pocket. I rolled it on with shaking hands and then used my hand to guide him to where I was desperate for him.

  “Oh, God. You feel so good. I love your cock,” I told him as I slid down onto him and started to work myself on his beautiful, hard erection.

  “Mngahuh,” he grunted, the tendons standing out in his neck as he sought his own climax.

  I kissed him deeply, slipping a hand between our bodies to find my swollen clit. Beck broke our kiss and pulled back an inch, glancing down to confirm what I was doing.

  “Keep doing that,” he said, and I was happy to oblige as he thrust up into me, his muscles turned to granite as he kept his gaze fixed on what I was doing with my hand.

  “So damned hot,” he panted. “I’m close, baby.”

  “Me, too,” I assured him.

  I held his gaze as the first shudder radiated through me and I saw the exact moment he tripped into his own climax. He pulled me closer, pressing his face against my neck as he came.

  He kept his arms wrapped around me afterward and we stayed like that for a few minutes, Beck’s palm flat and warm on the center of my back.

  “I’m sorry I stayed away so long,” he said. “Please know it was never about you. I missed you like crazy every day. I just needed to sort through some stuff in my head.”

  I tightened my arms around him. “I missed you, too. And you're worth waiting for.”

  I didn’t say the other things my heart wanted to say. There would be time for that. Other days, other nights. Yes, there were a few hurdles we still had to clear, but we’d worked out the hard part now: we both wanted this, and we both knew this was important.

  The low, gurgling growl of a hungry stomach broke the silence, and I started laughing.

  “I have no idea if that was you or me,” I said.

  “If you’re not hungry after the sex Olympics, I don’t know what to say to you,” Beck said. “Who does the best pizza in town?”

  “I love the way you ask that as though we have a choice,” I said. “There is exactly one place that does takeout pizza in Colebury.”

  Beck snagged his phone from the workbench. “Don’t move. I’ll order and we can work out what to do while we wait.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

  I smiled and pressed a kiss to his cheekbone. “You’re a monster.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said.

  And the moment he hung up from ordering us pizza, he proved it to me.

  31

  Beck

  Being with Haley was so much fun, so easy and effortless, a part of me didn’t know whether to trust it or not. I kept waiting for something to explode and ruin everything, but as the next couple of weeks passed by, it only got better between us.

  We spent almost every night together, alternating between her place and mine, and I learned a hundred little things about her, such as the fact that she hated canned tuna with a white-hot passion, and she got cranky if I left the lid off the toothpaste, and she had a minor obsession with a British reality-TV show about baking, so much so that she’d happily watch reruns even if she already knew the season’s winner.

  Sam quickly became her biggest fan, especially when we’d gotten our new sign back from the printers and we’d seen how well her artwork looked on the glossy metal. Haley had held the ladder and passed up screws as Sam and I had positioned the sign above the front entrance, then all three of us had walked down the drive to the road and stood there laughing over how freaking quirky and attention-grabbing Haley’s masked horse looked on the front of our building.

  “You’re a superstar,” Sam had said, patting Haley on the back, and she’d blushed adorably and almost, but not quite, shuffled her feet.

  Zara Rossi’s birthday party loomed large on the horizon, and I watched Haley get more and more tense as the big day drew closer. She’d poured her heart and soul into the boots she’d made for Zara, and even though I knew she was proud of the work she’d done, I also knew she was anxious about Zara loving them, given how many times Zara had raved about Haley’s own boots.

  “I didn’t want to just copy mine, you know? These are Zara’s boots. They have to reflect her life, her loves,” Haley explained to me as we got ready to go to the party.

  She’d been talking like this ever since Dave Beringer picked up the boots earlier that afternoon, but I knew she had nothing to worry about.

  Not only had I followed Haley’s painstaking process as she’d created Zara’s boots, I’d also been there when Dave picked them up. The guy had choked up when he’d seen all the little details Haley had incorporated into the design, which was essentially a beautifully illustrated map of Zara’s life. On one boot there was a man and woman skating on ice, two children supported between them, and they were linked to a charming little two-story house that was a perfect representation of Dave and Zara’s place on Colebury Green. The house scene blended into another scene with tall trees reaching for the sky and a perfectly painted mountain goat on the slope of a mountain. The second boot featured references to the Rossi farm, Dave’s career in hockey, and th
e Busy Bean and Zara’s great friendship with Audrey. Work and family. Home and hearth.

  Zara was going to freaking love her boots, but I knew Haley wouldn’t believe that until she saw it for herself. So while I kept saying all the right things, mostly I just listened as she shared her doubts and fears with me.

  Her stream-of-consciousness chatter ramped up as we made the short walk down the hill, past the Bean and Gin Mill and along the short forest trail to Speakeasy, where the night’s festivities would be held.

  “I love this place. Alec Rossi did an amazing job with it, don’t you think? Such a great combination of old and new,” Haley babbled as we approached the front entrance, her small hand in mine.

  I gave her hand a squeeze. “Yeah, he did good.”

  “Sorry for the word vomit,” Haley said, shooting me a sheepish look. “I really wish Dave wasn’t giving her the boots tonight in front of everyone. That’s a lot of pressure. It’s freaking me out.”

  “She’s going to love them. You smashed it out of the park,” I said for the fifth time as I reached out to push the door open. I would have said it a hundred times if it would help.

  “Zara’s got such classic style, though. I just hope I didn’t make them too whimsical.” She twisted the strap of her purse.

  The bar was jumping, the staff running around with trays full of drinks and food, and there was a duo playing on the stage in the corner, the guy playing an acoustic guitar and the woman a fiddle. We made our way through the noisy crowd, and I kept my hand on the small of her back as we climbed the rugged wooden stairs to one of the private party rooms, conscious of Haley’s high heels. My girl was not taking a tumble on my watch.

  The sound of laughter and music led us toward a set of double doors that had been thrown open to access a large space. People were already milling around inside, drinks in their hands, but Haley suddenly planted her feet, coming to a halt.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “I’ve been so busy worrying about the boots I just realized this is our first big outing together. We’re about to go public.” She sounded a little wary about the concept.

  I let my hand fall from her back. “Is this a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “It’s a good thing. I’m claiming you. You’re mine now.” She winced. “Sorry, that came out wrong. You’re not my property. Can I start again?”

  I smiled. “Go for it, babe.”

  “I’m really proud to walk in there with you. And I’m glad people will know we’re together. But there’s a chance there’s someone here who might know Jess, too. So this could be our outing in more ways than one.”

  “I can back off if that’s a big problem. Keep my hands to myself, just limit myself to fucking you with my eyes from across the room,” I offered.

  It would kill me to keep my distance, but I’d do it for Haley.

  “I am always up for a good eye-fucking, for the record. But I don’t want to hide us. If Jess finds out because of tonight, so be it. It’ll be done, and I can stop worrying about it in the back of my mind.”

  It was news to me that she’d been worrying, but then we didn’t tend to talk about her sister a lot.

  Okay, we didn’t talk about her at all, for obvious reasons.

  Haley caught my hand in hers and moved closer. “Sorry for the brain fart. I’m good to go now. Let’s go in there and let the good women of Colebury know you are no longer an object to be freely ogled and objectified.”

  I frowned. “Pretty sure that wasn’t happening in the first place.”

  Haley laughed. “It’s really sweet you think that, but women are animals. Trust me on this.”

  “If you say so.”

  Haley took a deep breath, lifting her chin. “All right, Daniel Beck, let’s do this.”

  32

  Haley

  Beck’s hand was big and warm around mine as we walked into the private-party room to greet our friends as a couple for the first time.

  As I’d told him, I was more than proud to call him mine, but I also knew it was going to generate a bit of fun teasing from my workmates and the extended Bean family, and I was always uneasy about being in the limelight, for any reason.

  I distracted myself from the upcoming ordeal by taking in the details of the room, making note of the exposed red brick walls that echoed the ones downstairs, as well as the huge old beams soaring overhead and timeworn floorboards underfoot. A bar ran along one wall, and a trestle table had been set up to display a cake and provide a place for people to leave gifts for the birthday girl.

  I spotted Audrey and Zara at the bar right away. Audrey was the first to see us, and she lifted her hand in greeting. Her eyes widened when she saw Beck and I were holding hands, and she got Zara’s attention with a jab to the ribs. One second later, the two women were making a beeline for us, smiles of disbelief on their faces.

  “Oh, this is too perfect,” Audrey said. “I love this idea so much.”

  “How long has this been going on?” Zara asked.

  I glanced at Beck, not sure how to answer. “Um...a few weeks.”

  “I guess we know where the dark horse name comes from now,” Zara said, wiggling her eyebrows at Beck. “You know how to play your cards close to your chest.”

  “Haley was concerned you guys might frown on us fraternizing,” Beck said, his face poker-straight.

  I bumped my hip against his. “What a load of bull.”

  Zara’s gaze was going from me to Beck and back again and she nodded slowly. “I’m going to agree with Audrey—I love this. You guys are pretty cute together.”

  “Cute?” Beck said with a frown, and all three of us women burst into laughter.

  “I forgot. Men don’t do cute,” Zara said.

  “Cute is for puppies,” Beck confirmed. “And small humans who don’t use the bathroom yet.”

  I reached into my bag and pulled out the gift I’d wrapped earlier, offering it to Zara. “Happy birthday.”

  “Haley. I said no gifts,” Zara said, taking the present.

  “Come on. As if anyone was going to listen to that,” Audrey scoffed.

  Zara leaned close and kissed my cheek. “Thanks, Hales. I’m going to open this later, so I can savor the goodness. In the meantime, you guys hit the bar. And keep an eye out for the food—Alec’s outdone himself tonight.”

  Beck rubbed his hands together. “Are there mini burgers? I love mini burgers.”

  “On baby pretzel buns with little dill pickles,” Audrey said. “There’s also pulled-pork sliders with gouda and cherry BBQ sauce and wood-fired chicken wings and a whole bunch of other good stuff.”

  Beck’s eyes glazed over with food lust, and I laughed and caught his hand to tow him toward the bar. “Come on, stomach-on-legs.”

  We’d just ordered our drinks when Roddy and Kieran arrived. I waved to them and noted the way Roddy’s eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly as Beck reached out to straighten the shoulder strap on my dress.

  “Here we go,” I said as Roddy came our way, his eyes alight with interest.

  “Hello. What do we have here?” he said.

  Beck and I endured his and Kieran’s teasing for a few minutes, then a waiter came past with food and the men were instantly distracted. While they fed their faces, I had a minor freak out when I recognized Mark Tankiewicz talking with Dave Beringer across the room. The Tank was one of my favorite players to watch on the ice, and even though I knew he was married to Dave’s sister, Bess, I was still a little starstruck to realize he was standing just across the room.

  “Careful, sweetie, you’ll get drool all over your dress,” Beck said quietly in my ear.

  “I don’t care. That’s Mark Tankiewicz. Right there.”

  Beck gave me an approving look. “Didn’t know you were into hockey. Maybe you really are the perfect woman.”

  “Perfect for you, anyway,” I said, and even though I knew he was only joking, my chest got warm from his praise. Then I recognized the man walking toward
the bar with an attractive, athletic blond woman. “Holy shit, that’s Leo Trevi. This is insane.”

  Beck fanned me with his hand. “Do we need to get you some smelling salts? Should I slap you?”

  I turned and grabbed the lapels of his shirt in both hands. “Promise you won’t let me gush if I get a chance to talk to either of them. Promise you’ll save me from myself.”

  Beck laughed and pulled me into his arms for a quick hug. “You’re fucking adorable, Haley.”

  The next hour and a half passed in a whirl, washed down by copious glasses of Shipley cider and accompanied by lots of laughter. Somehow I managed not to ogle the star guests too much and it was nearly ten before Dave silenced the room with an ear-splitting whistle.

  “Thank you, you rowdy bunch of yahoos,” he said when the room fell silent. “Just want to say a few words here about the woman of the hour.”

  Zara groaned, but when Dave crooked his finger to invite her to join him by the trestle table, she rolled her eyes and walked into his embrace with a big, goofy smile on her face.

  Dave looked down into her eyes, dropping a kiss onto her lips.

  “This woman, as you all know, is an amazing person,” Dave said.

  Zara squirmed with self-consciousness and rolled her eyes again.

  “You can keep doing that, but it’s not going to stop me,” Dave said. “Now, where was I? You’re amazing. You’re also strong, smart, resilient as hell. An amazing mother, an unstoppable businesswoman. Every day I wake up with you, I pinch myself to make sure that you’re real, that this life we’re living together is really happening, because you make me so damned happy, Zara Rossi. Happy birthday, baby.”

  I had tears in my eyes by the time he was done. The look on his face as he lay his heart bare in front of everyone...it was everything. I felt Beck’s arm slide around my shoulders and when I glanced up at him, he offered me a warm smile before giving my shoulder a little squeeze.