Hometown Heartbreaker Read online

  He shifted his position, wrapping his hands around her thighs and drawing her down toward his mouth, tasting her deeply. She gasped, rolling her hips up toward him, and he held her tighter, keeping her still to tease her with his lips and tongue. She was shaking, sobbing beneath him, begging him for release. And he lost track of everything. That they were outside. That anyone could walk up on them at any time. That this was temporary.

  All that mattered was this. This moment. There was no reason to look beyond it. No reason to look behind it. He was filled with Casey. Her scent, her flavor, the sound of her pleasure. And he didn’t want anything else.

  She grabbed hold of his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his skin, and he had a feeling that she would leave marks behind. But that seemed about right. She was leaving marks everywhere in his life. She might as well brand his skin right along with it.

  She gasped his name, shuddering against him as she reached her peak. And that was about it for his control. He reached over, grabbing hold of the condom that she’d stashed in the grass. He took care of the necessities, then positioned himself above her, kissing her deeply as he slid deep inside. It was like coming home. Cheesy as hell, but no less true because of it. She felt right. She felt like his.

  The farm wasn’t his, no matter how much he wanted it to be. The cabin that he slept in every night didn’t have his name on it, and it probably never would. At least not for years.

  But Casey was his. And right now, that felt sufficient. It felt like everything.

  He buried his face in her neck, pressing himself as tightly against her as he could, relishing the feel of being so close to her, so connected to her. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

  “Just being with you.”

  He felt the flutter of her fingertips next to his face, then she slowly pressed her palm against his cheek. “I like it,” she said, her voice strangled, soft. “I like it very much.”

  “Me, too,” he said, not quite sure how he managed to force the words through the lump in his throat.

  A shiver of pleasure worked its way down his spine, and he couldn’t hold still for another moment. He flexed his hips, pushing in deeper before retreating slightly, establishing a steady rhythm that drove the need between them to a fever pitch. Pushing them both harder, higher than he would’ve imagined possible. Sure, this wasn’t the first time for either of them. Not with other people, not with each other. But it felt like it. It felt like the only time. The only thing that mattered.

  “Aiden,” she said, his name a prayer on her lips as she trailed her fingertips down his back.

  And he lost hold of everything. Of his control. Of the earth. And he gave himself over to his pleasure. Dimly, he could feel her shuddering out her release beneath him, but he was barely even aware of that. Shamefully, all he could do was focus on the need roaring in his own veins. It consumed him, took him over completely, a living, breathing dragon that grabbed him by the throat and shook him, left him limp and utterly spent.

  She curved her hand around his neck, stroking her hand over his hair. They lay like that for a long time, nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees and the slow rush of the current filling the silence.

  He didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to speak. Didn’t want to do anything to interrupt the moment. Because the more time passed, the closer they got to the end of this. To the end of them.

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Who?”

  “The women you didn’t talk dirty to.” She wiggled beneath him, scooting to the side, and he followed her lead, readjusting so that they were lying next to each other.

  “It’s a short story.”

  “Perfect. I have a limited attention span.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Because I told you about me. I kind of bared my soul to you. Seems like maybe you should tell me about your past experiences.”

  “There was just one woman,” he said, speaking slowly. She was right. She had told him about her past. And it had left him with a strong desire to destroy everyone in it. He wondered what she would think of his. Such as it was. “My friend. Caroline.”

  “Oh. Caroline,” she said, her voice sounding funny.

  “What? You wanted to hear about it.”

  “I didn’t know there was only one. I didn’t know she had a name.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t tell you the name of the guy I lost it to.”

  “No,” he said, “you didn’t.” He hadn’t really seen it as significant.

  “Because it didn’t matter.”

  “Well, Caroline is a friend. She was before we were together.” She wasn’t really now.

  “I see.”

  “You sound...jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous. I never get jealous.” She sniffed. “That is not how I roll.”

  “You’re upset.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m not. Finish telling me about Caroline.” She said her name like it was an illness and not a person.

  “She kind of had it tough at home, too. Her dad used to help out on the farm. I’ve known her for a long time. Neither of us really wanted a relationship, but we both wanted... Well, you know how that is.”

  “Yes,” she bit out, “I do know how that is.”

  “We started sleeping together sometimes. And after a few years I started saving for a house. I started wondering why I couldn’t have something else. Something other than this. And I thought... I thought maybe we could have a future together.”

  “You were in love with her?”

  “No,” he said, knowing that for a fact. “I wasn’t. But I wanted a normal life, and I know she wanted one, too. We cared for each other. We had chemistry—” He faltered on that, because now that he had discovered chemistry with Casey, he doubted if Caroline and him had ever had anything all that exceptional. “I thought it would be enough.”

  “Okay. So why aren’t you with Little Miss Convenience with a picket fence and a kid on the way?”

  She was being prickly. Defensive. Because she was jealous, whatever she said.

  “Debt collectors started calling. And I realized just how bad things were here. That my dad had lost a bunch of accounts. That we were behind on things. And the roof needed replacing, and all number of things just went to hell, right at the same time.”

  “You gave them your money, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did. I’m their son. I’m all they have. It’s not my mom’s fault that my dad ended up being worse than a child. I’m young. I have time to rebuild. I don’t think they do.”

  “Still, that was your money, Aiden. It was supposed to be for your life.”

  “I’m well aware of that. But I made a choice. And I told Caroline that things had to go back to how they’d started. No more planning for the future.”

  “Great. So, you told her that she was being put back into the booty-call category. That didn’t go well, I take it?”

  “Understatement. She was mad. She left. I didn’t hear from her for about two weeks. Next time we talked, she told me she’d met someone.”

  “And that was it?” she asked.

  “Yes, that was it. We aren’t really even friends anymore.”

  “No matter whether you loved her or not, I think she must have loved you.”

  Her words made his heart clench tight. “I hope not. I’m not worth that.”

  She frowned. “Why would you say that? Of course you’re worth it. You gave up your future for your parents. You give up everything to keep working this hunk of dirt for them. To spend your nights dragging your dad’s ass back from the bar. Feeding your mom’s strays and taking care of them, so she can feel like she’s doing good deeds instead of wallowing in her life as it falls apart around her. That’s who you are. It’s what you do. How is that man not worthy of love?”

  “Because. I might just grow from this into the same kind of
drunk as my father. There are no guarantees, after all.”

  “You don’t honestly think that could happen, do you?”

  “My dad used to be a really great guy. I know you didn’t know your mom before she was an addict. I remember my dad before he was one. He laughed a lot. He took care of the farm. He took care of Mom, and me. And then it was like he just let his control slip. Stopped caring about how much he drank. And then he stopped caring so much about what he did when he drank. You break your wedding vows once, it’s not so bad to break them again. And eventually, he didn’t even try to keep them. There was a whole lot of life to your mother before she started using. I know you never saw it, but there was. I’ve never taken for granted that I could turn into that.”

  “It’s easy. You just don’t start.”

  He laughed. “If it was that easy, no one ever would.”

  “I hate her.”

  “Who?”

  “Caroline,” she said, rolling onto her back and looking up at the sky. “And it’s not fair. Because I’m not a virgin. Not even close. But I hate her for touching you before me.”

  “That’s a little bit possessive.”

  “Well, I don’t have a lot of possessions. So, just for a little while, can you be mine?”

  His chest tightened and he studied her face. Open, beautiful, none of that hard cynicism that he was so used to seeing present. “Sure, Casey. I would like that.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  BY THE TIME they headed back from the river, the sun was starting to dip low in the sky. It had been like a vacation from life. The kind that Aiden had rarely taken. Being with Casey was a high all on its own. It wasn’t comparable to anything else, to anyone else.

  He should feel claustrophobic when she said possessive things like she had down on the shore. There were already two people in his life who needed him. Who tore him in every direction and used up his every resource. He couldn’t afford one more. But she wasn’t staying. She wasn’t staying.

  That thought caused a hollow pit to settle deep and low in his stomach. He ignored it. Because there was nothing else to do. He looked over at Casey, who was walking along beside him, turning her head every which way, taking in the scenery around them. He envied her. For her ability to see all of this like it was new. He barely saw it anymore. It was a blur of hard work, sweat and blood poured into dirt that didn’t belong to him.

  He felt delicate fingers touch his, and he looked down to where Casey was closing the distance between them. He should’ve pulled away, because there was no reason to walk through this property holding her hand like they were together. Like they were living some kind of fantasy where this belonged to them and the mountains in the future stretched long and tall in front of them with nothing but possibilities and ever after.

  They moved farther down the dirt road, and Aiden heard the sound of men’s voices. “I wonder what’s going on.”

  “Visitors?” Casey asked.

  “Who’s going to visit us? My mom is out of touch with reality, my dad is a drunk and I’m an asshole.”

  “Well,” she said, “sure.”

  They kept walking up the road and as they drew closer, he moved away from Casey. There was no reason to announce that their involvement went beyond casual acquaintance. Just another of his mother’s strays.

  Asshole.

  Yeah, well, he’d said he was.

  “Except,” she added, even as he put more distance between them, “you aren’t. You’re a good man, Aiden. Even if you don’t always feel like one. It’s what you do that matters. Trust me. I’ve heard so many promises that they just kind of wash over me like rainwater. You are what you do. Not what you say.”

  She was trying to help, he knew that, but it made him ask himself what the hell he’d done lately to prove he was anything but a man stuck in one place.

  When the house came into view, his pulsed raced ahead of him, blood pumping hard through his veins. “What the hell?”

  He walked ahead faster, not waiting for Casey as he approached the scene before him. There were two men, and a large tow truck with his dad’s pickup hitched to it. The old man wasn’t saying much, just standing there looking resigned.

  His mom wasn’t out there.

  She’d probably gone back inside. All the better to not hear any of what was happening. She could just pretend they weren’t losing one of their most valuable assets as long as she didn’t see it happen.

  She would probably emerge with PB&J and a smile in thirty minutes like things weren’t falling apart around them.

  “What the hell is this?” Aiden asked, storming into the driveway.

  “Sorry, Aiden,” one of the men said. Aiden recognized the guy from around town, but didn’t know his name, or care to. “Just following orders, you know?”

  “You’re repossessing my dad’s truck,” he said, his tone flat.

  “Yeah,” the guy said, almost apologetically. “No payments made for more than six months.”

  Aiden swore low and harsh, rounding on his dad. “Dad, come on. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Say what? That there was more trouble? That I spent all the money and I don’t know where the hell it all went? Yeah, I could have told you that, I suppose. What’s the point? You’re worse than a cranky old man about things like that.”

  Aiden thought his head was going to explode. “Oh, you mean about things like keeping a farm going? Preserving our livelihood? Our legacy?”

  “It ain’t your legacy, boy. It’s mine.”

  “The hell it is. Without me, there wouldn’t be anything here. You wouldn’t be here.”

  “No, you’re thinking of yourself,” his dad said. “Without me, you wouldn’t exist. Get off your high horse and stop acting like you’ve never made a mistake.”

  Aiden gritted his teeth, rage pouring through him now. “No. I never have. I’ve been too busy cleaning up after yours.”

  “Well, why don’t you go make some of your own? Leave me to mine.”

  Sure, it was easy for his father to be belligerent and angry now. Easy for him to say that he didn’t want or need Aiden’s help. But if the time came when the bank decided to foreclose on the farm, Aiden knew he’d feel differently. Even if the old man didn’t know it.

  “Sure, Dad. But if I’d left you to it you wouldn’t have the farm anymore. You know I invested more than twenty thousand of my own dollars into this place just this year. I was going to buy myself a house. But I’m here instead, giving everything to you so you don’t end up out on your ass.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that,” his dad said, not backing down, not having the decency to be shamed.

  “No. But you benefited from it all the same.” He turned around and walked away, briefly stopping in front of the tow truck. “Just take it,” he said, continuing on away from the house. Back toward his cabin.

  He could hear soft footsteps behind him, evidence that Casey was following him. Casey, who had been silent through this entire exchange. Casey, who had kept him away from work and the house for most of the afternoon, had him indulging in things that could never be part of his real life. Could never be part of him.

  This was what happened when he looked away. This was what happened when he took time-outs, even for a little while.

  And suddenly, it was all just too much. It wasn’t her fault, dammit. He knew that. But he couldn’t deal with it. Not all of this. It was like the whole world was caving in on top of him, and swallowing him whole. His dad, the repo men, the fallout his mother would feel...

  And then there was Casey.

  “Aiden,” she started, her voice soft.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “This is why staying is hard,” he said, turning all of his anger on to her, even though it wasn’t fair. “Because you just see how little things change. Year in year out. I stay and I stay, and this is how it is. Nothing changes. He won’t change...”

  “And neither will
you,” she said.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You think you can put a Band-Aid on a mortal wound, and you just can’t. But that doesn’t stop you from trying. Year in. Year out. That’s on you.”

  “Right, so I should run away like you do?”

  She flung her hands wide, her cheeks pink, clearly telegraphing her frustration. “I don’t know. But you sure as hell shouldn’t invest your entire life in someone who doesn’t even want you to.”

  “He says that, but he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t actually want to lose his house. His livelihood.”

  “Well, he isn’t a man who’s earned the right to it.”

  “My mother...”

  “Is a grown-ass woman. Aiden, at least I know I made my own bed. It sucks. But I have to lie in it. I mean, sure, I didn’t have the best start in life, but blaming other people for my life now doesn’t get me all that far.”

  “Casey, it isn’t your fault—”

  “Bullshit. Plenty of this is my fault. You’re right. I’m a completely capable person. I can hold down a job anywhere. I could be midway up the ladder at...well, a semi-non-horrible job. I could be doing better than minimum wage by now. I could at least be renting an apartment. You know what costs a lot of money? Running. Living the way that I do. And nobody forces me to do this.” Her eyes widened, her breasts rising and falling with the force of her breath. “Nobody forces me to do this,” she repeated. “I do it. It’s me. I do this to myself.”

  His throat tightened, and his spine went stiff. He was witnessing something he had no right to. A revelation about her life that belonged to her, or someone who meant to share the future with her. Not him.

  He gritted his teeth.

  “Well, fine for you. You’re welcome to your little personal revelation. But I have a crisis to deal with. In case you didn’t notice, we lost my dad’s truck. And I don’t necessarily think I have the six months of payments to deal with it, not on top of all the other expenses.”