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Much to Mary’s dismay, despite her unexpected pregnancy at twenty-two, I had never planned to leave the Army. Sure, I had agreed to marry her, but I had been selfish. I’d joined the Delta Force operators as soon as I was eligible and had been gone more than I was home.
It wasn’t just any man, but my man. Brandt. My boyfriend. My everything-was-fine safety net—currently balls deep in my best friend.
The Lady of the Dunes. Our entire town revolved around the mysterious legend. A ghostly woman, dressed in a billowing white dress, who walked along the sandy dunes, carrying a bouquet of wildflowers. She was believed to be searching for her lost love who’d disappeared in a shipwreck in the early 1900s, but he’d been lost in the storm.
“That’s because she’s you in a different font,” she said. I blinked innocently, pressing my hands to my chest. “Completely lovable in every single way?” She pinned me with a flat look. “Wildly optimistic and slightly unhinged.”
My life had taught me that even with the best of intentions, sometimes life still grabbed you by the balls.
She was fire and fight, all wrapped up in one frustratingly beautiful package. And if she wanted a war? I’d give her one.
She may be my friend’s little sister, but it was official. Elodie Darling just became my fiercest rival.
Needlepoint was officially on my enemies list, right next to humidity, Cal Blackwood, and feral raccoons.
Mom was soft and strong. She and Daddy were the roots that kept my family grounded so each of the Darling siblings could find our own wings to fly.
They were the sole reason I was wholly unafraid to jump into anything with both feet.
No matter what, I knew they’d be there to dust me off if everythin...
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As I came my body jerked, and a single word slipped past my lips: “Elodie.”
Besides, Cal never had to know. Not about the hallway. Not about the moan. Not about the fact that for the rest of my damn life, I would hear my name in that voice, in that moment, whispered into the dark like a secret. He never had to know.
Oh, I knew. I 100 percent knew Elodie had been in my space and heard me moan her name. The way she blanched and couldn’t stop staring at my dick was a dead giveaway.
Three: She smelled like honey and vanilla and something that made my brain short-circuit.
Jesus Christ. I’d taken a direct hit from a softball at full speed, but this was what rattled me?
She shot me one last look—one last smirk that promised I was thoroughly fucked. And, damn it, I was.
I hadn’t meant to objectify him, but good lord, that man was made to carry things.
His hands grabbed my waist, his body caging me against the stacked crates as his mouth crashed against mine. Hot. Hard. Unyielding.
It wasn’t a soft kiss. Not tentative. Not testing. It was fire and frustration, all sharp teeth and a rough, claiming pull—like he’d been holding back and finally let go.
Cal ran a hand over his face, exhaling hard. “Fuck.”
I wasn’t usually the kind of man who got rattled. I didn’t lose sleep over things I couldn’t control. But Elodie? She had sunk beneath my skin like a sliver, impossible to ignore and impossible to remove without drawing blood.
“Wait—you thought he needed some pussy and brought him an actual cat instead of”—she gestured toward me—“dishing yourself up on a platter?”
“Because if you don’t, I’m going to hate fuck you until you learn to do what I say.”
“Fuck, Cal. It’s only wet for you.”
I grinned. “That’s right, Darling.” She was soaked for me and I was going to ruin her for anyone else.
I stared at the glorious sight of Cal Blackwood on his knees for me.
Elodie wasn’t just beautiful. She was the kind of woman who got under your skin.
Elodie looked like summer, like the kind of warmth you could drown in if you weren’t careful.
This is what Stan saw—not just charm, but heart. Grit. A whole damn future with Elodie at the helm.
I wasn’t the kind of man to talk about beautiful moments. I’d seen too many things, lost too many people to believe that life handed those moments out freely. But standing there, watching her with bare feet in the creek, laughter on her lips, water glistening on her skin—hell, I wanted to believe in them.
I wanted her desperate for me. I wanted her wrecked, and I wanted to be the only man who ever got to see her like this.
My thumb applied pressure to her clit as my fingers pumped in and out, drawing her orgasm out of its cocoon.
My body hummed with the weight of everything that had happened tonight—the intimacy, the way he had opened up, the way I had let him in. Who was I kidding? I had fallen for Callum Blackwood. Hard.
“I don’t want slow tonight. I want—” Her breath caught. “I want you to show me I’m still yours.”
She whispered my name like a tether. I answered with her name like a vow.
The dream I had imagined was beautiful, but it wasn’t mine anymore. She was.
“Every time you laugh. Every time you fight like hell for this place. Every time you look at me like maybe I’m enough. I’ve been falling, Elodie. I love you and not in a someday, maybe kind of way. Not if things work out or when the timing’s better. I love you now. Completely.”
He saw me. All of me. And he chose to lift me up anyway.
“Love doesn’t have to mean someone loses,” I said, voice barely above a whisper. “It can mean we both win.”
Just a man and a woman, standing in the dirt, chasing the sunlight, with wreckage at their feet and the future in their hands.
“It may seem quick, but I’m done waiting for my life to start. I want to chase the sun with you,” I said, voice cracking. “Every damn day.”
Elodie was the reason I tore down every fence I’d ever built. She was the sun. And loving her? That was the only thing worth chasing.
