Happily Ever His (Singletree #1)

table and peered up at me from beneath dark lashes. Her almost ebony hair was pulled back into a loose high ponytail and I couldn’t help imagining my hand wrapped in that dark hair, my body pressed up against hers. “Look, Ryan. I’m not a movie star,” she continued. “I don’t live the lifestyle you and my sister do, and I don’t know what’s typical in Hollywood, California. I’m more familiar with Hollywood, Maryland, and—”
“There’s a place called Hollywood, Maryland?” I didn't really mean to interrupt her. But once I had, I thought I might be able to derail the dangerous train she was heading my way.
“Yes, actually. It’s just north of California, Maryland.” A little smile lifted one corner of her mouth.
“There’s a place called California, Maryland?” This was a strange state.
She nodded. “I know. It’s weird.”
“Weird,” I agreed, glad we seemed to be veering away from discussing what had happened in the tent that afternoon.
Just then, the oven timer dinged, and I stood, maybe too quickly, to pull the first pan from the oven. With cakes this big, I didn’t want to put more than one pan in at a time.
“How’s it look?” she asked, peering over my shoulder as I set it on the cooling rack. She wasn’t touching me, but it didn’t matter. Every cell in my body lit up at her proximity and my dick decided this cake-baking thing was some kind of complex foreplay and that maybe now was a good time for him to wake up. I’d had enough trouble calming the guy down after the barn earlier.
I took a wooden skewer and inserted it in the center of the pan, pulling it out clean. A totally misplaced pride washed through me. I didn’t fail in front of her. So there was something.
“Looks good,” I said.
“Here we go.” She slid the second pan in, and I closed the door once it was settled, moving back to my seat.
“Look, the thing is,” Tess said, picking up the thread of conversation where the timer had interrupted it. “I just … I’m not used to being around movie stars, I guess. It’s just, I mean the way you touched me this afternoon…” Her eyes met mine and there was something vulnerable in her gaze, so pleading and innocent—I felt something protective shift inside me, a feeling I needed to hold firm. She was not mine to protect.
She shook her head, as if to force her thoughts to fall into line. “Things are just pretty simple here most of the time, that’s all.”
“You fucking hackers!” Gran’s voice came from somewhere deeper in the house, causing my head to snap toward the doorway. What in the world?
“Is she … um, should we go check on her?” Gran was an interesting character. I didn’t know what she was up to, but I was starting to like her almost as much as I liked her granddaughter, Tess. Although right now Gran sounded pretty angry.
“No, she’s fine. It’s her game.”
Game? I wasn’t sure what game Tess meant, and just as I was about to ask, Gran’s voice came again.
“You can’t fucking camp the spawn! You can’t camp the spawn, you fucking hackers!”
Tess just smiled at me, her eyes dancing. “You really shouldn’t camp the spawn. It’s not polite.”
The question I was about to ask must have been clear on my face as I started to smile, and Tess answered quickly.
“World of Warcraft. She’s addicted.”
“Oh,” I said, the confusion turning to amusement as I leaned back in my chair. “I had a roommate in college who played that. He ended up failing out. Never went to class.”
“He was probably camping the spawn,” she suggested, grinning.
“Must have been.” I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, though I’d played my roommate’s game a few times, but I’d sit here joking about it all night if it meant getting to see Tess smile like that again. The warm feeling I’d had being in this kitchen with her the night before returned. It was homey and close, and so fucking right it terrified me.
I needed to watch myself. It would be so easy to lean into this reassuring comfort. But Tess wasn’t the Manchester sister I was supposed to lean into.
“Sorry. She’s nuts. But she’s happy, so …” Tess smiled. “Look. I don’t know exactly what happened outside today. Maybe I hallucinated the whole thing.”
I was about to jump in, to let her know that she definitely didn’t hallucinate it. The memory playing on constant loop in my brain, and the way my dick jumped to attention every time I let myself focus on that memory could attest to that.
But Tess went on. “I shouldn’t even tell you this …” she laughed lightly, one of my favorite sounds. “I’m probably just bound to read too much into things because I’ve had this ridiculous movie-star crush on you literally forever.” That laugh again.
My body stirred to life when she said this, my heart doing a little tap dance in my chest. “Seriously?”
The blush brightened her skin again, and I had to grip the edge of the table to keep my fingers from chasing it up her cheek. “Yeah,” she said, shaking her head lightly. “So maybe it makes it hard to separate reality from years of seeing you in movies. But you’re with my sister. So maybe don’t touch me. It’s just confusing, you know?”
I nodded, sure the pain of my disappointment must show on my face. She was right, she was only telling me what I already knew. So why did I feel like I was losing something? “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry, Tess.”
I was. I was sorry for putting her in a situation that had made her uncomfortable. I had to do better. Somehow.
“I’ll hold my fan-girling back, but in small towns like this, you can’t just go around … touching people.” She said this as if she knew the idea that I’d almost kissed her had absolutely nothing to do with some misguided belief