Chasing forever, p.22
Chasing Forever, page 22
Chapter Forty
Lottie
The door to the store chimes, and Brooks walks in. How was I never this tongue-tied before seeing him in his uniform?
“Good morning, ma’am.” He tips his hat at me with a grin, and I swear I just about purr.
“Sheriff, how are you this morning?” I head behind the counter to make his coffee.
“I’m pretty good.”
“Just pretty good?” I pour his coffee and bend to reach into the fridge for the creamer.
“It just got better.”
I look over my shoulder to see him eyeing my ass. “I’m actually surprised you’re still on that side of the counter.”
“Is that an invitation?” He’s already placing his hat on the counter and walking around.
“You never need an invitation.” I turn to face him, and he cages me against the back counter. It’s one of my favorite things that he does. “But I must admit, I’m rethinking that after the ‘pretty good’ morning comment.”
He steps closer. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“So, it was better than pretty good?”
He chuckles, and I trace the last name on his badge with my finger. God, I could actually make it my last name now. That’s something we need to talk about.
“Believe me, getting woken up with your mouth wrapped around my dick is indescribable.”
Romy enters the store and covers her eyes dramatically. “Ew. Ew. Ew.”
Brooks doesn’t move away from me, only securing me to him tighter. “Get used to it.”
“Mommy and Daddy, make them stop,” she says as the door behind her opens.
“Romy, grow up.” My mom comes inside. “Oh, hello, Brooks.”
“Brooks, my man.” My dad follows my mom inside.
“Can you not speak like that?” I shake my head at my dad.
Brooks releases me, puts his hand out for my dad, and hugs my mom.
“You’re ruining our sacred morning tradition,” I say, sidling closer to Brooks, like a dog who refuses to stop being petted.
“Sorry to interrupt, but Lottie’s been keeping you all to herself.” Mom walks around the store, moving things around into different places. “We’d like to invite you over for dinner.”
“Um…” I say and shake my head at Brooks.
“I’d love to.” He smiles wide at me, and I scrunch my eyebrows. Is he crazy?
“I get that you’re doing things a little backward, but we’d like to reverse it now that our daughter has finally come to her senses.” Dad smiles at me as though he’s proud of me.
“Is this going to be a running joke our entire relationship?”
All three of my family members look at one another. “Yeah,” they answer in unison.
Brooks puts his arm around me and kisses my temple, chuckling.
“So dinner at our house next week. Wednesday work?” Dad asks.
“Sounds good to me,” Brooks says.
Mom continues moving things around. “Would your parents like to join us?”
Brooks stiffens next to me. I wind my arms around his stomach and squeeze.
I haven’t told anyone that Brooks has distanced himself from his parents. Any time I try to bring it up, he just keeps saying they’re all dead to him. I can’t imagine, with how he’s feeling, what it must be like to see his dad’s campaign signs on every inch of Willowbrook.
“I’m sure they’re busy with the campaign.” He kisses my cheek and grabs his hat off the counter, placing it back on his head. “I better get going. See you all next Wednesday.”
He nods at my family and walks out of the store.
“Did I say something?” my mom asks.
But I realize that Brooks forgot his coffee, so I ignore her question, snatching it up and rushing out of the store. “Brooks!”
He’s already beside his squad car. I hold out his coffee to him, but he doesn’t take it.
“I’m sorry. I just… wasn’t prepared. I haven’t talked to them or about them to anyone but you. I haven’t answered their phone calls.”
“Hey, it’s okay. Let’s be honest, my mom was only inviting them to be polite. But I’m more concerned that you haven’t really talked to me about this. Not in depth anyway. Maybe you should talk to them. I could go with you.”
“Absolutely not.” He takes the coffee from my hand.
“Why not? If this thing with us is going to move forward, then—”
“Lottie, you’re never going near them again.”
I stand back and stare at him with an expression that says he can’t control that. “And if she pops into my store again? Or I walk past her on Main Street? Run into her at The Sprout House? I can handle myself.”
He kisses me way too briefly. “The answer is no.” He opens his car door and steps into the opening, ready to leave me and go to work.
“Last I checked, I was a grown woman.”
He groans and says my name with zero patience.
“I’m serious. You’ve bent over backward for me. You gave me a space to feel safe without any judgment. You’ve cocooned me in a love bubble, and I love you for it. But it’s my turn to be there for you. So deal with it.” I step back, ready to walk away from him, but he grabs me by the wrist and tugs me back to him.
His coffee sits on top of the squad car, and he envelops me in a tight hug, burying his face in my neck. “I don’t want to fight. It’s just hard for me, you know? They’ve already done so much shit to you. I don’t want you to go through any more for me.”
“I’m not nineteen anymore.”
“I just wish they’d leave Willowbrook, and we could move on without them. How am I going to coexist in this town with them?”
I cling to him tighter. “I know. I know. We can figure this out. But you have to let me in so I can help you.”
“It’s hard.” He sounds like a whiny kid.
“Everything worth having is hard.”
“Did you get that from your inspirational quote of the day calendar?”
I push him back.
He laughs, and God, I love that sound.
“If I had one of those, I would’ve ended up with you a helluva lot sooner.”
“Very true.” His radio goes off. “I gotta go.”
“Okay, be safe out there, Sheriff. You have a woman to come home to now.”
He kisses me one last time before climbing into his squad car. I pick up the coffee and hand it to him.
He reads the name on the cup and laughs. “Sir Satisfies-A-Lot. I’m moving up in the world.”
I lean into the window, needing one more kiss from him before I have to go the entire day without him. “You sure are.”
“Maybe I’ll get to be ‘Hubby’ one day?”
I shrug and stand, backing up a few steps. “Maybe.”
I blow him a kiss, and he squawks the siren quickly and drives away.
I watch until I can’t see him anymore.
Damn, I have it bad.
Chapter Forty-One
Brooks
This morning, Lottie wrote a note on my coffee cup.
Kiln Me Softly-7pm
I’m hoping that means she’s giving me the pottery lesson I asked for.
That evening, I park at her house and walk the trail to her pottery shed, finding the door cracked open.
“Lottie,” I say, pushing it open the rest of the way.
The shed is dark with candles spread throughout the space and soft music playing in the background.
“Lock the door behind you.” She comes out from behind a shelf, wearing a white button-down shirt, and I pray nothing else underneath.
“This seems like a date I should plan.” I break the distance between us.
“Consider this me making up for our third date.” She allows me to pull her to me, and I give her a chaste kiss.
“You didn’t have to—”
“I did. But don’t worry, date four is all yours.”
“I already have a plan.” I tap my temple.
She winds out of my arms, and I miss her immediately, as if I don’t really breathe unless she’s near me.
“Did I dress okay?” I ask, looking down at my jeans and T-shirt.
“You okay getting them dirty?”
“I had hopes I would, but I kind of like this T-shirt.” I strip it off my body. “I kind of like that shirt too.” I eye the shirt she’s wearing, since I’m pretty sure it came from my closet.
“You said you like me in your clothes. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“I’d like it better on the floor.” She feels too far away, so I weave around the battery-operated candles to her.
“Remember, you’re here for a pottery lesson.” She holds up her finger when I get too close.
I hold out my arm. “Lead the way.”
She sits on the stool and pats the spot behind her. I straddle her from behind, and my hands run up the outsides of her thighs. She leans forward to center the wet lump of clay on her pottery wheel, and her ass hits my dick. I could watch her all day. The way her arms move, how her hips shift slightly on the stool.
“Here.” Her wet hands take mine and bring them over to the cool clay.
My lips brush just beneath her ear as I inch closer, pressing against her back.
“You’re gripping too tight,” she murmurs, winding our fingers together. “Loosen your fingers. There. Let the clay come to you.”
I shift slightly, trying to focus on the way her hands manipulate the clay, but it’s impossible to ignore the warmth of the body tucked in front of me, the sweet curve of her breasts, or the way my thighs brace against her. Her voice is low, instructional. I have no idea how she’s able to concentrate on making whatever it is we’re making when all I want to do is abandon the clay, pick her up, and take her over to one of the tables.
“What do we do next?” My voice is way too eager to get this part over with.
She chuckles. “I’m letting you feel the rhythm of the wheel.”
“I’d like to feel something else right now.”
“Focus,” she says, turning her head toward me. “If we don’t control your speed, our masterpiece will collapse.” I groan, and my hand lifts off the clay, ready to touch her teasing curves, but she snatches it back and places it back on the clay. “Pay attention to your task, Sheriff.”
“You’re my task. Or so I hope at least.”
“Hey, you asked for this lesson.”
“I thought you understood why. I’ll leave the sculpting to you, and you leave pleasuring you to me.” My lips lick up her neck before I nibble on her earlobe.
“You’re not even trying anymore,” she whispers.
“Can you blame me?” I glance down through the valley of my splayed open shirt on her. A clear view to her breasts.
Our hands are a muddy mess, my forearms coated in wet clay. Lottie straightens, her hands sliding down my arms, trying to keep me going, but I’ve lost interest in the clay.
“I’m going to have to call this lesson over soon,” she says.
“Do you think I’ll complain?” I nip on her ear.
She continues to work the clay, and my fingers manipulate her buttons one at a time as I graze my nose down the column of her neck, sprinkling kisses along her flesh.
“Make me something beautiful,” I whisper.
She sculpts, and I watch her hands work, how she’s able to use just the right amount of pressure to make the clay do her bidding. Her fingers are fluid as she manipulates it into the shape she wants. Her body is at peace until I flick open another button, and her breath catches for a second.
Lottie’s always beautiful, but admiring her here in her element, the place where I assume she calms any voices in her head, is mesmerizing. It makes me feel special that she’s sharing it with me.
“You’re brilliant.”
She laughs, and her head falls back on my shoulder, her movements not faltering. “It’s just practice. If you weren’t so distracted, you could do this too.”
“No, babe, I couldn’t.” I have no idea the hours she’s spent in this shed. The failed attempts, the small successes that encouraged her to keep going. So much rage and reflection has probably happened in these four walls. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”
Her head lolls back to my shoulder, and I finally get the last button undone, my hands sliding the cotton fabric open.
Still she has the patience to finish the bowl she’s making, dipping her fingers into the water and bringing them back to the clay as her foot knows exactly how hard to press on the pedal. I don’t touch her breasts but keep my hands on her thighs, moving them up and down, not wanting to bother her too much.
“Your hands feel so good.”
“At least I’m good for something because I’m not doing much to help you here.”
“Hmm,” she hums.
The bowl is finally shaped, and her foot lifts off the pedal.
I kiss her neck, and after a beat, she gets off the stool and straddles me, thighs pressing outside mine. There’s clay smeared along her arms and legs, thanks to both of us.
“Lesson’s over,” she says.
“Jesus,” I mutter, my hands flying to her hips.
She lets the shirt slide down her arms slowly and tosses it aside.
I grip her tighter, pulling her flush against me. “Fuck, Lottie, you’re gorgeous. Here, in your element, doing what you love, it brings out a beauty I hadn’t discovered in you yet.”
“You’ve done that.” Her fingers weave through my hair, nails scraping my scalp. “A lot has gone down in this room, but my body is calm because of you. You bring that out of me, Brooks. Only you.”
She undoes me with her confession. Another thing I’ve always dreamed of has come true.
Our lips crash in a kiss that’s all tongue and teeth and pent-up hunger. Her hands are in my hair, mine sliding under her ass, dragging clay as my fingers dive under her silk panties. Her skin’s flushed, smeared in fingerprints and streaks of gray, her breathing shallow, and I drag my mouth down her throat, over her collarbone, across the swell of her breast.
“Brooks,” she gasps, arching into me as I suck on one nipple and tease it with my tongue. “God—”
She rolls her hips and grinds down, and I swear I could come in my pants. She flicks the button on my jeans. It’s a little frantic, her hands wet with clay while she’s full of awkward laughter and cursing. I inch up and finally get my pants removed, then her panties. Somehow, we manage for me to line myself up to her core and drag her forward.
“Shit, condom?”
“Oh god, yeah, of course,” I say.
“Brooks, I was tested after my last partner, and I’m on the pill since I don’t want to get pregnant by accident.”
“Me too. I came back fine, and there hasn’t been anyone since.”
She smiles at me, “So, we’re good.”
“You sure you’re okay with it?”
She nods and wraps her arms around my neck, holding me to her. “Yeah, I don’t want anything between us.”
She sinks down slowly, and I almost black out.
It’s everything. Heat and pressure and her mouth falling open in a gasp, my name tumbling from her lips. I grip her hips and thrust up, watching her fall apart above me. She chases the friction and control she wants.
She rides me slowly at first, drawing her pleasure out, her lips brushing mine, her fingers digging into my shoulders. I thrust up harder and faster, and her moans grow louder.
I really hope no one is walking by outside.
Her climax rips through her, and I follow right behind her, groaning into our kiss as my release hits me.
She stays in my lap, and I run my fingers along her skin, our bodies connected until our racing hearts calm.
Eventually, she laughs against my shoulder. “Maybe we should be choosing activities where we’re far apart in proximity.”
“Appears so.” I chuckle.
“You couldn’t even hold out to make a bowl.”
“Next time I’m going to sit in front of you in nothing but my boxer briefs, and we’ll see how long you hold out.”
“Hey, I made a whole bowl with your hard dick pressed to my back and your lips on my skin. I deserve a reward.”
“Didn’t I just give you that?”
She laughs and lifts off me. I miss her immediately.
There’s wet clay on the floor, the stool, the table. My clothes lay wet and ruined on the floor. But my favorite part is the flushed look on her face as she brushes damp hair out of her eyes.
Hours later, after two more rounds, we lie on the ground, a blanket under us and the lights casting our flesh in a soft glow. She nuzzles into my chest, and I keep my arm around her shoulders, addicted to touching her soft skin.
“Can I ask you a question?” I worry about broaching the subject that could ruin our night.
“Sure.”
“That morning with the woman from Lincoln… she wanted your coffee mugs, and you acted like you weren’t the potter?”
Her finger traces the dips and valleys of my abs, running up my chest, though her eyes never meet mine. “I’m not sure I can handle the criticism.”
“She was in love with them, so disappointed she couldn’t buy them. That says something.”
Lottie picks up her head and rests it on my chest. “I started throwing pottery after Holden. I wanted to control something because my body and my mind felt so out of control. It kept me going, so it’s hard to share.”
“But you give them as gifts and put them in the store.”
She nods and lays her head on my bare chest but tips her head up to me. “They’re safe there. It took me years to even do that. If you haven’t noticed, I have a bit of a fear of not being good enough, and there’re a lot more talented potters than me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, you probably haven’t been into the pottery world. There are.”
“Would you ever think about selling them?”
She laughs. “I never wanted to before, but I will admit after that lady, I have thought about it. I just have to get over my fear. But now that I see what my reward was after putting myself out there a little, I’m debating it.”
