Page 8 of My Brooding Valentine

My heart sank. Yeah, it had been a little silly for me to assume he’d want to go out with me. I was so out of practice with this stuff. Forget out of practice—I’d never started practicing in the first place.

But just as I lowered my eyes to my plate, he spoke again. His words lifted my head.

“Our first date will be my treat,” he said. “I’ll take you to dinner at the ski lodge. Fanciest restaurant in town.”

I couldn’t stop the smile that spread over my face as I accepted his offer. But my spirits started to sink as something hit me. I was leaving town in a couple of days, and I didn’t have plans beyond that. If I won the competition, I planned to rent a place in town somewhere while I worked at starting my business. But if I lost, my only choice would be to return home to the bonus room above my parents’ garage.

I’d put every extra dime I had into staying here and traveling to the competition, plus buying all the supplies I needed. My future was riding on winning that prize money.

But now I wanted, more than anything, for my future to be here in Hope Peak. I didn’t want to walk away from this guy and never see him again.

4

SAWYER

Iwas hard. Hard as a rock. And I didn’t want to do anything about it.

It made no sense. Normally, I’d jerk off and be in a deep sleep in a matter of minutes. But tonight, that wouldn’t do.

I let out a grunt and tossed off the covers, which made it impossible to ignore the very obvious boner in my line of sight. I could just go next door and knock. Hailey had a doorbell I could ring. I’d be better off doing that to make sure she heard it.

And then what? When she answered the door, I’d just grab her and kiss her? See where things led?

No, that wouldn’t be right. She seemed like someone who’d want to get to know a man before she slept with him.

I’d have to be patient with her. I’d take my time. As soon as her competition was over, I’d convince her to come back. Or maybe I’d go to where she was. We could get to know each other by phone. Or text. Or carrier pigeon. Whatever method she preferred.

A noise in the living room bolted me upright. Damn it. I knew I should have gotten a dog. A mean one. The kind that would attack an intruder who broke in late at night.

But I’d left my front door unlocked. Yes, I’d done that for a reason. I had this weird fantasy that Hailey would wake up wanting me in the middle of the night and sneak over here. Maybe she’d climb into bed with me and one thing would lead to another and…

That hadn’t happened. Instead, I’d left the door wide open to a burglar. Or maybe even a murderer.

I scanned the room for anything I could use as a weapon. I had an ax, but it was out back. There was no way I could get to it.

Finally, I climbed out of bed, deciding my fists would have to serve as weapons. Maybe the burglar would be so shocked that I slept in the nude, he’d run. At the very least, he’d drop whatever weapon he had.

“Sawyer?”

The female voice was not at all what I expected. It stopped me in my tracks. That was the voice of my neighbor. It was the voice that had been going through my mind since I left her place after a delicious dinner, followed by the best damn cookies I’d ever tasted.

“Hailey?” I asked, stopping at the doorway to look out into the main living room, my hand on the doorjamb. “What are you doing here?”

Why had I asked that? It had been my fantasy that she’d show up here, unannounced but always welcome.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t asleep, but hold on. Let me throw on some clothes.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

I’d taken a step back, but once again, her voice stopped me. I was still keeping my lower half back as much as possible to avoid flashing her. Had she just said I didn’t have to get dressed?

That probably meant she was leaving. No need to get dressed. She was just dropping by, and now she’d be on her way.

A long silence followed as I struggled to figure out what to say. I couldn’t step through the doorway, and I certainly couldn’t invite her in, so I was stuck in this awkward position, my dick still hard as a rock.

“Can you come out?” she asked.

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