Apple-Y Ever After (The Way To A Man's Heart Book 12)

him to know that I am happy with him and nothing more than him.
"You sure a picnic is going to be good enough?" he asks me, and I nod.
"It’s perfect," I reply. "I can even get some apple pie from the van."
"I’d love to try one," he replies, and finally, a smile spreads over his face. After we found out that our table at the bistro wasn’t going to come through, I suggested that we get some stuff for a picnic – we grabbed some bread, cheese, jams and spreads, and he promised that he would grab us a couple of bottles of the best cider of the new season. Honestly, it sounds far more perfect to me than sitting down at any uptight restaurant ever could.
It doesn’t take long for us to reach his place again; it’s quiet compared to the last time I was here, when it was bustling with the activity of the festival, people filling almost every inch of the few acres of his property. The band is packed up, and the only sound is the soft rustle of the wind through the orchard, and a few crickets in the distance.
He heads inside to grab the cider and a blanket for us to sit on, and then he insists on taking my hand to help me sit down next to him. He’s such a gentleman – I can see why Lucky seems to think that the two of us don’t have much in common, given that the guys I usually end up with are anything but.
"You know, Lucky told me a little about you," I remark to him as he opens a bottle of cider and hands it to me. I take a sip, letting the sweet, fragrant bubbles fill my mouth before I swallow.
"Oh?” he replies, leaning back on the blanket – I can’t help but notice the way his arms look now that he has taken off his jacket, the strength in them, the muscle.
"Yeah, she said that you’re about the most stable guy in this whole town," I explain. "Got to say, that’s a bit of a novelty for me."
"Is it, now?" he asks as he takes a sip of his own drink. A drop of it lingers on his lower lip, and it takes all the restraint that I have in me not to lean forward and brush it off with my tongue.
"Yeah, I’ve been traveling so much I haven’t really been around a stable person in a while," I admit, with a smile. "Turns out most of the people you meet on the road are running away from something."
"You included?"
"I don’t know," I admit. "Sometimes, I feel like I am. And sometimes – sometimes, I feel like I’m running toward something. I just don’t know what it is yet."
"Any ideas?" he asks. I shrug.
"I’ll let you know when I find it," I reply. Something about the darkness of his eyes, the way the soft, sweet scent of the apples in the trees above us fills my senses, imprints itself onto my memory, and I know that I am not going to be able to forget this moment anytime soon.
Good thing that I don’t want to, either.
"Can I ask you something?" he wonders aloud, and I nod.
"What is it?”
"Where did you get your name from?" he asks. "Honey. It’s not exactly one you hear often. Or is it just a nickname?”
"No, it’s my name," I reply, and I grin and shake my head. "My mother chose it for me. All the time that she was pregnant with me, she couldn’t get enough honeycrisp apples, and so she thought that the universe was trying to tell her something."
"Good thing she wasn’t craving crab apples, huh?" he teases me lightly, and he rises to his feet.
"Where are you going?" I ask. He holds his hand up, letting me know that he’s going to be right back. I watch as he pulls an apple from one of the trees next to us, and then joins me back on the blanket.
"Here you go," he murmurs to me, pressing it into my hand. "Your namesake. Honeycrisp."
I lift it to my mouth and take a bite, the sweet, fresh juices running down my chin and under my dress. His eyes are on me, not moving, not breaking, and I know just what he must be thinking.
And, before I can say another word, he shifts towards me and plants his lips on my apple-slick mouth.

Chapter Five


Hank
As soon as our mouths meet, it is as though something that we have both been trying to keep in all this time comes rushing out. I pull her towards me, taste the sweetness of the apple on her lips, and I can’t help but growl against her. She feels perfect, every part of her so delicious that I know that I am not going to be able to hold myself back.
I trace the path the apple juice took over her skin, kissing her chin, her neck, down her collarbone – and then push down the straps of her dress, letting my mouth trace over her breast and down to her nipples. They are already hard, and she gasps and grasps the back of my head as I move on top of her and push her down into the blanket below us.
It’s a warm night, but the cool air on her skin makes her nipples swell to hardness beneath my mouth at once. God, she’s as gorgeous as I thought she would be – braless and pantyless under this dress, the thought of her as naked as this when we had just been talking is enough to drive me crazy. I know now that the restaurant flaking on us was fate – I can’t focus on anything right now but how much I want her, and I know that this is just the way it was meant to go.
I push up her dress, move down further, until I am between her legs.