“You’re telling me that you, Fordham Sharpe, dance?” Her eyes are wide, her smile lighting up her face.

  This was a good decision. To get out of the inn. To experience the town and something other than work together.

  She was feeling trapped. I could tell it in the look on her face, and her short fuse when talking to contractors.

  But it was more than that. It’s whatever has been weighing her down. Whatever happened with Chandler? Sleeping with me? Something with her brothers and stepfather? I don’t know and she won’t volunteer it.

  The woman is a closed book. I’m just having to work at it to slowly crack her open.

  And tonight’s a start.

  There’s fire in her eyes, much like that first night we met. A sass to her tone that’s been missing.

  And God, how I want to kiss her again.

  “I didn’t say I could dance well . . . but I have no problem making a fool of myself. None of these people know me. Few I’ll ever see again, so what do I care?” I grab her hand and pull her onto the dance floor. Her head falls back, and her laugh carries loudly as we move to some cheesy pop song.

  We dance for what feels like hours. We laugh for what feels like the best kind of eternity. It’s like being off the property has lifted a weight off our shoulders we didn’t know we were bearing. Roles we had to play fell to the wayside.

  Here at some simple county celebration, we aren’t partners or co-workers. We are friends . . . and a little bit more.

  Her kiss earlier took me by surprise. No complaints by any means because the woman could kiss me any time, and in any place, and I wouldn’t complain . . . but it surprised me.

  Especially after we’ve purposely kept our distance from each other over the past few days.

  And painfully so on my end.

  Every whiff of her perfume. Every echo of her laugh. Every sound of her sigh in frustration cemented her mark on me.

  My space in the soon-to-be rooftop bar is as far from her room as possible—and it’s still not far enough.

  I want her. Plain and simple.

  “Cookies and cream and jamocha almond fudge?” I ask as I peer through the glass case that houses the ice cream.

  When I look over, Ellery’s nose is scrunched up. “Eww. No. Mint chocolate chip and chocolate and peanut butter.”

  “That’s a weird mix.”

  “So is yours.”

  “Okay. What about, chocolate ice cream and cookies and cream?”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I say.

  “No. That’s boring. Mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream.”

  “Is that your final proposal?” I ask as I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her smile lights up the night as she remembers how we got here. The other final proposal I made.

  “Yes. Final proposal.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, Sinclair, making me forfeit one of my favorites.”

  “It’s only fair that we each get something and each forfeit something.”

  “True.” I nod. “Fifty-fifty.”

  She throws her head back and laughs while I fish money out of my pocket to pay the cashier as the ice cream is being scooped.

  “I told you this was a good combination,” Ellery says around a spoonful moments later as we stroll down the sidewalk.

  “So . . . there is one thing we need to talk about,” I murmur as I motion for her to sit on a park bench. She does while we watch a group of kids see whose sparkler makes the best circle when spinning their arms.

  She leans her head back on my arm resting on the back of the bench, a laugh falling from her mouth. “No talking about work when I’m tipsy.” She pushes one finger against my chest. “That’s taking advantage of me.”

  There’s a whole helluva lot I’d take advantage of right now when it comes to her, and it has nothing to do with work.

  “You’re the one making proposals over ice cream,” I tease and take another bite. “It needs a name.”

  “What does?” she asks, but I see the recognition as soon as she says it. “I thought you wanted it to be a Sharpe Signature property?”

  “I do, but it still deserves an actual name.”

  “You mean you’re going to let me help name it?”

  I stare at her, her brilliant blue eyes and flushed cheeks, and hold myself back from leaning forward and kissing her. “Of course, I am. Fifty-fifty, right?”

  “I just . . . I mean good business sense says for you to slap the Sharpe name all over it, so I’d resigned myself to that. I didn’t expect—”

  My lips find hers despite telling myself not to. It’s just a brush of connection, but it sends such a charge through me that it takes everything I have to drag myself away and leave it at that. “Fifty-fifty,” I murmur. “So start thinking of a name for it.”

  The hitch in her breath is audible. I love knowing I do that to her. That she’s affected by my kiss.

  It’s a fucking turn-on.

  “Okay.” She nods, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as we stare at each other, goofy smiles on our faces. “Thank you. For this,” she whispers.

  “It was good to get away for a bit.”

  “It was.”

  “But it is getting late,” I say. But neither of us move. “And it might take a while to get an Uber in this town with everybody drinking like us tonight.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to go back just yet. I want to sit here on a bench with you under the stars, with the sound of laughter in the air, and the moonlight on our faces.”

  “Why, Ellery Sinclair, are you a romantic?”

  It doesn’t fit her. First the romance novel, now this? The woman is a mess of contradictions, none of which I’d expect to be a romantic, and I love discovering them one by one.

  “A romantic?” She snorts. “You have to believe in love to believe in romance.”

  “Whoa. That’s a big statement.”

  She laughs and plays it off with a shrug.

  Then again, who’s not cynical after ending a relationship?

  “But you read romance books?”

  “Those authors write some good sex.”

  “I should have figured.” I bark out a laugh. “You still read them though.”

  “But not the epilogues,” she says, holding up a finger to emphasize her point.

  “Wait. What? Why don’t you read the epilogues? What’s wrong with them?” Our eyes meet as her tipsy smile fades and something flashes through her eyes. Almost as if she let that slip without thinking about it. It’s only a split second of time, but it’s enough to see that guard of hers fall. I know there’s pain hidden behind it. “Elle?”

  The wall is refortified in an instant and is smothered behind an unapologetic smile. “I’m joking. It’s a joke. I mean, what is romance really? Grand gestures that are over the top so the guy can win the big-dick contest when he brags to his friends and she brags to her friends about how much he loves her?” She waves a hand my way and then finishes the seltzer in her hand.

  Clearly, Chandler wasn’t doing it right.

  But I leave the thought unspoken, just as I don’t question her further on her epilogue comment. I stand and hold out a hand to her.

  “Love and romance aren’t mutually exclusive. And it’s not always grand gestures.”

  She rolls her eyes and pushes against my chest. “Show me a man who knows how to do that and I’ll marry him.” She laughs and jumps up, holding her hands out to me. “One more dance before we go?”

  We head to the dance floor and move to the beat.

  Her body against mine.

  Her laughter in my ears.

  Her words in my head.

  She doesn’t read the epilogues.

  She doesn’t believe in happily ever afters.

  Ellery

  How did he know this is what I needed? A night out. Some time away. A little bit of entertainment, some horrible-for-you-food, and laughter. So much laughter.

  I let the feeling suspend me on the drive home. My head’s on his shoulder, his hand’s on my thigh, and our rideshare driver isn’t bothered by the silence or our laughter every few minutes when Ford pokes my ribs.

  It’s been forever since I’ve felt like this. Carefree. Lighthearted. And not that I’m always serious, but it takes a lot for me to feel comfortable enough with someone to let my true self show. To let my guard down and just be me.

  And now as we head toward the inn, our home, I know I want more out of tonight.

  I want him.

  “Stupid lock,” Ford mutters as he jiggles the handle and it doesn’t budge.

  “Let’s try the back.”

  “I don’t have a key for the back one. It was just replaced and hasn’t been rekeyed.” He looks at me and we both burst out laughing.

  “Seriously? Are we locked out of our own property, Ford?”

  He stands back and braces his hands on his hips, his lips twisted, and his brow furrowed in concentration. “I know.”

  “What? Are you going to break in?”

  He shakes his head exaggeratively. “No. But, the windows on the second floor aren’t locked.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  He turns to me, his grin huge, his eyes alive. “Only for you,” he says with a bark of a laugh before running down the sidewalk to the side of the building.

  “Wait.” I scurry after him, the world spinning a bit beneath my feet. “You can’t climb that,” I say, pointing to the side of the building with its attached trellis that Ford is already making his way onto.

  “Why not?” He turns and grins. “We know the owners. Live on the wild side, Sinclair.”

  “I’m not reviving you when you fall off and break your back.”

  “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” he says through a laugh before pressing a chaste kiss to my lips.

  Without another word, and with a lot of laughter, Ford manages to climb the side of the building and push open one of the newly installed windows. “Aha!” he yells down to me before he disappears.

  I run back to the front door, my stomach hurting from laughing so much, just in time for Ford to open it.

  “Voila,” he says, bending at the waist.

  “You broke into our hotel.” I playfully swat at him. He grabs my wrists, holding them against his chest.

  “It’s hard being this perfect, Elle.”

  “Oh, please. Don’t think so highly of yourself.” I roll my eyes but when ours meet again, everything slows down. I feel his breath feather over my lips. Feel his heartbeat race beneath my palms. See the desire darken in his eyes.

  “You know what will make me fall from grace?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Making a mistake,” he murmurs, his eyes devouring me.

  “Is that so?” Our bodies move into one another’s.

  “It is.” His eyes flicker to my lips. “I find it’s hard to be perfect when you keep making mistakes.”

  I lean in so that our lips are almost touching. “Then I guess it’s time we make another one.”

  “Is that so?” he asks as I shut the door at my back and lower to my knees. His breath hitches as I look up at him beneath my lashes, a smile on my lips as my fingers work the buttons of his pants. “God, I love mistakes.”

  Laughter is on my lips as I break his cock free and waste no time taking him into my mouth. His hand fists in my hair almost in an automatic response when the first suck on it takes him all the way to the back of my throat.

  “Elle,” he groans, and hell if the sound alone doesn’t enhance the ache to have him that’s burning through me. “Christ, Elle.”

  I work my hand around the base of his shaft as I suck on the crest of his cock. I’m treated with the salty taste of his precome as his fist tightens. I look up at him with him thick and heavy in my mouth and am turned on by the sight. Eyes drugged with desire half-closed and his teeth sinking into his bottom lip. Tendons taut in his neck and his biceps flexed as he moves his hand with my hand as I work his dick in and out of my lips.

  “Stop or I’m going to come.” His words spur me on. To suck harder. To take him deeper. I can feel him swell and harden when I didn’t think he could get any harder. His next groan has him hauling me up by under my armpits and branding his mouth over mine, swallowing my gasp as his tongue slips between my lips.

  His kiss is a mixture of demand and depravity. Of control and chaos. Of want versus necessity.

  The man owns my every sense.

  My every nerve.

  My every thought.

  He laces open-mouthed kisses down the line of my neck and uses a hand to squeeze my breast so he can suck on its tip through the fabric of my shirt.

  I shiver at the warm, wet heat of his mouth all while trying to shimmy out of my jeans. His other hand helps to push them down and then pushes me backwards until we’re against the bar top.

  While his mouth’s still on mine, he lifts me up and sets my bare ass on the cold counter. I yelp because of its chill and then moan. Before I can even process the thought, Ford has my feet on his shoulders and his tongue running up and down my slit.

  “Oh, God.” The two words are one drawn-out sound as I prop myself up on my elbows to watch him unravel me with licks of his tongue and his fingers tucking inside of me.

  It’s erotic. It’s sexy. It’s damn near sensational. His eyes meet mine from above my mound as he circles my clit with his tongue while his fingers pump in and out of me.

  My body coils with each touch, with each lick, with each puff of air he blows on my most intimate flesh.

  I tug on his hair and his face lifts with evidence of what he’s doing to me glistening on his chin and mouth. “Take me. Now. Please.” I pant the words out. Begging. Asking. Demanding.

  His chuckle is all I need to know he’s ready and wanting too. I yelp when his hand connects with my hypersensitized pussy. The little smack unexpected but so fucking hot that I almost come right then. Right there.

  But before my system recovers, Ford is pushing his way into me like a man on a mission.

  And I won’t complain about that.

  He begins to move once I adjust to the fullness. Slow, steady strokes that penetrate deep within me when he leans over and captures my mouth with his. His tongue moving in time with his thrusts.

  My nails scrape down the sides of his torso as my body climbs higher and higher. As the ball of desire constricts tighter and tighter.

  “Come on, baby,” he murmurs against my lips before straightening up. He leaves one hand on my shoulder to hold me in place as he begins to pound into me.

  Sensations overwhelm.

  Bliss mounts.

  Desire detonates into the best kind of devastation.

  The coil releases as my cry echoes through the empty room while a tidal wave of pleasure pulls me under. I’m swamped in every way imaginable, the orgasm powerful with both its sensation and sensitivity.

  “There you go,” he whispers as he moves ever so slowly in and out of me, his thumb rubbing over my clit to help coax the remainder of my climax out of me.

  I tighten around him. Over and over and over. My body’s spent and soaring all at the same time.

  And it’s those little pulses around him that bring him to the edge. His groan is feral as he begins fucking me with a fervor and an urgency.

  His fingers dig into my flesh. His thighs slap against mine. His cock works me in and out until he can’t withstand it any longer.

  “Ellery,” he groans, the walls virtually shaking at the reverberation of the orgasm that slams into and through him.

  He looks like a Greek god between my thighs. Head thrown back. Adam’s apple pronounced. Shoulders tense. Lips lax.

  And I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything sexier.

  I don’t think I ever will again.

  He collapses on top of me, our bodies misted with sweat, my shirt that’s still on dampened from it. He rests his forehead on my collarbone and rocks it back and forth.

  “Good God, woman.” He presses a kiss between my breasts. “Good fucking God.”

  I run a hand through his hair, reveling in the feeling of our hearts pounding against one another’s. In our chests moving in unison.

  “Should I take that as a compliment?” I tease as I twist a strand of his hair around my finger.

  “Mm-hmm. Mistakes. They’re a beautiful thing, aren’t they?”

  “Only when it comes to you.”

  Ford

  Twenty-Six Years Ago

  The world seesaws back and forth with every push of her foot on the porch. The swing creaks with the motion, and if I close my eyes, I feel like I’m spinning in space. But the smell of the barbecue and the sound of my brothers playing Marco Polo in the pool bring me back to earth before I can even pretend.

  My mom’s fingers play absently with the back of my neck.

  “Please don’t tell Dad I cried.”

  “Ford. There’s no shame in showing your emotions.” I look over to my mom and shrug. Her brownish-blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail and her brown eyes hold mine.

  “I’m a boy. Boys don’t cry.”

  “That’s nonsense and you know it.”

  “Dad says men shouldn’t show their emotions.” I sniffle.

  “You want me to tell you a secret?” she asks, and I nod. “I’ve seen Dad cry before.”

  “Yeah. Right.” I roll my eyes. There’s no way.

  “I’m serious. I can remember the times clearly. The day we got married. He teared up when he saw me coming down the aisle. He was in front of hundreds of people, but he didn’t care. He said it was because he knew how lucky he was getting to spend his life with me.”

  Yuck. Love stuff doesn’t count.

  “That’s once.”

  “And I remember the day you three were born.” I love the look on her face. I don’t know what it means, but she looks happy. Like when she was holding her friend’s baby and making that weird humming sound as she rocked her. “You were all in bassinets lined up next to each other in the hospital room. He stood in front of you with this look on his face I’ll never forget. Love. Pride. Disbelief. Like you were his everything and his greatest accomplishment all rolled into one. He was crying then too.”