Page 110 of The Promise Of You

On instinct, I go for the safe question. “What made you want a pub?”

He doesn’t answer right away, instead he pulls me closer and starts trailing his hands up and down my legs, caressing my calves, my knees, stopping shy of the inside of my thighs. Then finally he says, “I wanted to stay in town, but I didn’t want to work on the farm.” His gaze wanders away from me, and my heart clenches as I listen to him trying to tone down what had to be the most difficult time in his life. “I didn’t think I could pull my weight, at least in the beginning, and I wanted my own thing. I was working on getting better, getting back to a hundred percent. I knew I wouldn’t get there if I lived at home. I didn’t want my parents or anyone pitying me.”

There are so many things I want to know about him, but I get that he’s just opening up about this. Some things take a while to come out. Sometimes they never do. Sometimes the people around you need to understand the words you’re not saying. “Were you in a lot of pain?”

His eyes swing back to me. “Mostly, yeah,” he says casually. “I needed to do my own thing,” he continues, “and I wanted to do it in this town. I got some money, saw this block in foreclosure, bought it, saw the town needed a pub, took a loan to make it a pub. The other space was already a restaurant, so I didn’t touch it.” I scoot closer to him, wanting to hold him, but he moves my feet to the floor, stands up, and mutters, “I wasn’t the running away type.”

Then he pulls me to my feet, and I land against the length of him. “Hungry?” he whispers, his hands at my back pressing me deep against him, his mouth dipping to my ear.

I tie my hands behind his nape. “Not for food yet.”

“Not for food?” His eyes are dancing, his smile is deep. He’s past the sadness, or maybe he’s learned to live with it and can chase it away whenever it shows up. He gives my lower back another pull, rubbing his erection against me. “You’re driving me crazy.”

“Then do something about it.”

He growls and lifts me, one hand behind my butt so I’m straddling him. In a few long steps, we’re in his bedroom. The shades are drawn, the bed is a king and it takes the whole space.

He sets me down on the bed. “Don’t move,” he says as he yanks his shirt off, then shucks his jeans and underwear, never breaking eye contact with me.

He’s so intense, his gaze so hungry, that despite feeling a pull to look at him getting undressed for me, to look at his magnificent body I’ve reimagined so many times since Boston, my eyes stay locked to his. Then he drops his gaze to my body, and I squirm under his scrutiny. My center pulsates, and I reach for the hem of my dress.

“Keep it on,” he says as he lowers himself to the bed, trails his hands up my thighs, reaches my panties, and pulls them off. He growls as he watches them dangle off his fingers for a beat, then drops them and turns his attention back to my center. He nudges his face between my thighs, growling against me, then lets his tongue take over, swirling around my clit, driving me crazy.

“Justin, please,” I beg. His hands take a firm grasp of my waist, giving me a tug, then he growls and finally, finally hits my spot. I start moaning, my release building fast, and he pulls away.

“Not without me, babe,” he says as he grabs a condom.

I look at his magnificent body, so strong and full of life and ready to fill me, and all sorts of dirty thoughts run through my mind. “Hurry, baby,” I say just as my eyes narrow on a spot right where his heart is that last time had no ink but now has a…

Clover.

My heart ba-booms, and my center clenches but not in a sexual way.

In a primal, existential, scary way.

I grab his neck and pull him to me. “What is that?”

“Babe, what?”

“On your chest.”

His face softens, his lips dipping to mine.

Is he trying to avoid answering my question? “What is that new tattoo?”

“Clover…”

Why did he act that way with me when he had me tattooed on his heart?

“Tell me.”

He doesn’t tell me anything. His eyes go somewhere sad and deep again. He grabs me behind the knees and folds my legs up, bucks his hips and enters me hard, then lets go of my legs to cup my head. He leans his forehead against mine as I wrap my limbs around his body, pulling him against me, never letting him go. He’s relentless in his pounding.

“Tell me,” I beg, the words getting lost in my moans, my body betraying me.

He undoes the top buttons of my dress, slides a hand under my bra, flicks the pad of his thumb over my nipple and just growls, “Clover,” and I come undone under him, my orgasm still rippling through me when he comes inside me in long, hard jerks.

I pull his body to cover mine entirely, but he props himself on one elbow as he catches his breath, his locks of hair caressing my face, his exhales like feather kisses down my neck.

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