Page 18 of Forget Me Not

Not that I care, but she hasn’t spoken, or even looked my way in two days. In fact, I prefer it. There’s something about Nova Fischer that gets under my skin, burrowing there until she’s all I can think about.

And that’s a real fucking problem.

I spend those two days finishing the drywall in B-5. Manto, the cook from the restaurant and someone I’ve come to speak to everyday, finds me the right paint in the basement that looks like it doubles as a portal to hell, and I finish that, too. By the time I’m done, you can’t even tell the hole was ever there.

To my surprise, food shows up at my door every night and every morning. Some of the best fucking breakfast I’ve ever had, all neatly wrapped from the inn’s kitchen. I ask Manto about it, but he just shrugs and says he’s not doing it. I doubt Beth is doing it.

That leaves one option.

My suspicions are confirmed the night I finish the wall and a brand new shirt to replace the one that’s covered in drywall as well as an envelope with a hundred bucks shows up with the food.

Then, I snap.

Envelope in hand, I march up the steep path toward Nova’s cottage, anger twisting through me.

I’m not a charity case. I don’t need to be paid. I told her I would finish the damned drywall and I did. I don’t want her damned money. Especially not when the inn is in desperate need of other repairs.

I hop up on her porch, banging on the front door, but no one answers. I know she’s home, because a faint light streams from the front window. Still, she doesn’t answer.

I growl under my breath and step back, looking around the small clearing in the trees where the cottage rests. It’s a nice day. Sunny and warm, but the breeze blowing in is fucking fantastic.

It would be the perfect day to be on the water. Not here, gearing up to fight with a little blonde witch who seems to have stolen every last brain cell I had left.

Accepting defeat, albeit, angrily, I’m just about to leave when a small moan trickles from the backyard.

I freeze, ice sliding through my veins.

Another soft whimper floats to the front of the house and I know I . . . I know I shouldn’t, but I do it anyway. I step off the porch and follow the small stone path to the back garden gate.

And everything inside me turns to concrete.

She’s laying back in the hammock, pretty little yellow sundress on and her feet bare. It’s the site of the pink between her legs that stops me and my mouth runs dry.

I’m not meant to see this.

I also can’t look away.

She grinds against her hand, whimpering as she gets herself off, right here, in the middle of the fucking day, outside. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair a wild mess of curls and her eyes screwed shut.

I could go over there, make her really come. Replace her fingers with my own. See what this budding obsession really is.

Would she send me away or would she welcome me in?

“Reid,” she whispers, so quietly, I think I imagined it.

Fuck. Me.

She just moaned my name. My fucking name.

Never have I wanted something so bad. My knuckles turn white, as I bunch my hand together on the envelope so much that it crumples. My cock strains against the zipper of my jeans and it takes every. Fucking. Thing. I’ve got to not go through that back gate and finish her myself.

So, my little bird does want me.

No.

With every fiber of my being, I tear my eyes away from her. Forcing myself to walk away, I toss the envelope on the front porch and get the fuck out of there because fucking Nova is the last thing either one of us needs. She’s got enough on her plate. My plate is empty and that’s the way I like it.

A girl like Nova is after feelings. Shit I don’t do. She’ll want a relationship. I want to fuck her. She’ll beg me to stay at the end of the summer. I’ll break her heart.

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