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

with this, but if he is asking about it, then I’m not going to hide it.
"My dad left when I was young, it was just my mom and me when I was growing up," I explain. "And that was fine for a long time – good, actually. That’s how I liked it. She’s the one who taught me how to bake, she came up with the idea for Honey’s Pies, and she got me off the ground and onto the road. But I always came back to her at the end of it, that’s the part I liked the most..."
I trail off. Even though it’s a few years old now, it still hurts for me to even think of this.
"She passed," I confess, my voice soft, still full of hurt and as bruised as it was the day that I found out she’d died. "Heart attack. Very sudden. Quick, actually."
"Oh, I’m so sorry," he replies, and there is a sincerity to his voice that tells me that he means this. He kisses the top of my head and I lean back against him.
"And I’ve just been on the road ever since," I explain. "I haven’t wanted to stop again, because wherever I stop, I know that my family’s not going to be there. It’s not going to feel like home, not really. Even somewhere like this, where Lucky lives, it’s still... it doesn’t feel like mine."
He slides his hand down my arm, laces his fingers with my own.
"I get that," he murmurs. "It’s... tough. My parents are both in care now. They used to help out with the farm up until a couple of years ago, but it became too much for them. They’re still around, but it’s not the same as it was before. And I know it’s never going to be, either. But I just have to find a way to live with that."
"It’s so hard," I reply, and I find my voice catching at the back of my throat. If this is the only date that we are going to have, the only night that we are going to spend together, then I don’t want to bring it down by dwelling on all the sadness that we carry around with us. I take another sip of the cider, try to relax.
And try to ignore the part of me that’s saying, over and over again, that this isn’t the only night that we are going to spend together. That it can’t be. Because there’s no way that I can feel this attached to someone that I just met, and then walk out the door as though nothing has happened.
There is something here. Something about the smell of the apples in the air and the crispness of fall around me. Something that promises more than I thought I was owed. More than I ever believed that I might be able to claim as my own.
I turn, slowly, and plant a kiss against his lips; he tastes of the outdoors, of fresh firewood and smoke and all things masculine and dominant. It makes my heart sing, my body responding to him like it has been made for him, for this moment.
And I know that, if I am going to spend just one night with him like I said, I am not going to be satisfied until I make the most of it. I brush my lips over his cheek and reach his ear, and tell him what he needs to hear.
"Take me to bed."

Chapter Seven


Hank
I scoop her up into my arms and carry her to my bedroom as soon as I hear those words out of her mouth. I don’t need telling twice. She wants me, I want her, and nothing in the world is going to get in the way of that.
Nothing at all.
I lay her down on my bed as though she is the most precious thing in the world, and move on top of her again. She wraps her arms around me and pulls me down to meet her, our tongues finding each other once more as though we have been starved of this for far too long. I sink my fingers into her hips, pushing her down, pinning her there, and she moans against my lips.
"I need you to fuck me," she begs, her voice edged with so much longing that it damn near sets my heart on fire. I kiss her like I have never kissed anyone before as the two of us strip each other down to nakedness, our clothes nothing more than a distraction and a formality between us and our naked bodies coming together for the first time.
She gasps as soon as I move against her, our skin coming together like it has been made for this. There seems to be nothing keeping us apart now, no gap between us, nothing holding us away from each other, our bodies blending into one moving part whose only function is to give pleasure, receive pleasure.
I need to be inside her. I need it more than I have ever needed anything in all my life before, and she is more than willing to give it to me. She plants her feet on the bed, lifts her hips, and reaches for me – I am already hard, and it takes no time at all for me to push inside of her, kneeling on the bed in front of her. She tips her head back and lets out a cry, her eyes bright with want as I thrust deep into her gorgeous pussy for the first time.
I want to commit all of this to memory. I want to lose myself to the way that it feels, but I also want to remember every detail of it – the freckle just beneath her ear, the way that her lips part to inhale, the way that she slides her hips this way and that against me like she is guiding me as deep inside of her as