Page 94 of Brewbies
“No you didn’t…” Still, something he’d said had sent her far away.
With him sitting on the rock and her standing in the circle of his arms and legs, they were level, eye to eye.
Her gaze held a million tender phrases. Her lips slightly parted in anticipation.
Ethan lowered his head slowly until their mouths touched, gentle and soft at first, then deepening as the kiss became more passionate. He moved his hands up her back to cup her face and pull her closer still.
The air around them heated, and they were lost in the moment, lost in each other. She tasted like wine and honey, and he couldn’t get enough of her.
As they pulled back, breathless, he couldn’t help but smile. “I remember what else little Ethan the fourth dreamed about on this rock.”
She grinned back, her eyes shining. “Working your wood?”
“No. I mean…not that there wasn’t plenty of that.” He smirked and shook his head, trailing his fingers down her arms. “Being here with you. Kissing you. Making memories that will meld with the ones I already have of this place.”
She leaned in for another kiss, tangling her hands in his hair. They stayed there, on that rock in the middle of the river, lost in each other, until the moon had risen high in the sky.
He hoped that she felt the way he did.
That, to this woman who was equal parts wild heart and wanderlust, this wasn’t a kiss goodbye.
Because he could kiss Darby Dunwell forever.
NINETEEN
Taint
A NEGATIVE TASTE, FRAGRANCE OR AROMA OCCURRING ANYWHERE IN THE COFFEE CHAIN
Darby wokewith the sun warming her cheeks and a profound sense of disorientation swirling behind the darkness of her sleep-sealed eyes.
A body—large, warm, and definitely male—was in her bed.
Hair-roughened legs tangled with hers, a heavy, muscular arm was thrown over her torso, warm breath feathered the nape of her neck, and one hell of a hard-on branded her ass cheek.
Cautiously peeling open one gritty lid, Darby was struck by a miraculous sight.
Sheriff Ethan Townsend, sleeping in her bed.
His deep chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and his sandy hair was tousled against his forehead. His normally stern face was peaceful—boyish, innocent, and so damn vulnerable it made her heart lurch and a strange, unfamiliar ache grow in her chest.
Danger, Will Robinson.
Darby’s gaze strayed downward, and she drank in his naked torso. Her fingers itched to trace the planes of his abdomen, the ridges of his chest, the lightly furred lines of the powerful arms she’d fallen asleep in last night.
True to his word, sleep was all they’d done.
In her camper.
The carnival, on the other hand, had basically been a foreplay free-for-all.
They’d gotten handsy in the haunted castle. Grappled and groped their way through the funhouse. Bumped bits in the adult bounce castle—which she still couldn’t believe Ethan had shucked his boots to crawl into.
And now, his nearly naked body was in her bed. Nearly naked Ethan Townsend with a nearly naked erection branding her nearly naked ass.
Maybe it was the early-morning hour, or the potent concentration of Ethan’s sexy sleep scent in her sleep cubby. Maybe it was the birds filling the morning air with Disney-esque song.
Darby’s throat closed. Her heart squeezed in her chest.
