Getting His Way: Sapphire Falls Book Seven (25 page)

“None taken,” she told him. “She kept me on track. And she does even more for TJ. And she really seems to love it.”

“She’s practically putting the whole festival together,” Bryan said.

“Good thing,” Hailey said. “I’ve been out doing promotions like crazy. This is going to be the biggest one we’ve ever had. Our advertising is covering a huge radius, and I got an insert in the
Omaha World-Herald
.”

“Well, she’s amazing,” Bryan said. “She’s handling the festival, she fills in at the yoga studio and the bakery.”

“And with Delaney,” Peyton added.

Bryan sighed. “Exactly. She’s all over Sapphire Falls. Helping, making things better. And she does love it. She’s energized by supporting everyone else.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Ty said. “That’s you, buddy.”

Bryan nodded. “Yep. I know her. I always rode and ran for the love of it. Never had the desire to compete. I know competing and racing aren’t going to make her happy.” He sighed and looked from Ty to Hailey to Peyton. “But I can’t tell her that, can I?”

Ty started laughing, Hailey looked appalled, and Peyton said, “Fuck no.”

Yeah, that’s what he’d thought.

“I can’t try to convince her to stay.”

“No,” Peyton told him firmly. “You can’t. You can sit your ass here in Sapphire Falls and wait for
her
for a change.”

That was exactly what he could, and probably should, do.

He leaned in, forearms on the bar. He needed someone to agree with him, so he had to make this point. “She’s been saving money for a year. She has four jobs paying her. There’s no way she didn’t have enough money a long time ago to move and start racing. She never talked about running to anyone. Even Ty or
me
—two people who could have and would have helped her with anything. And,” he went on, “she could have done a dozen halves by now. She has the distance, no problem, clearly has for a while.”

He made that last declaration dramatically and waited for the three people listening to start nodding.

“So why is she just now doing it, when you’re here and interested in a relationship?” Ty asked. Like the jackass he was.

Bryan sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Men are so stupid,” Peyton muttered.

Bryan looked at her. “Anything you’d like to share, Miss Wells?”

“You going to make me pay my tab tonight?” she asked.

Bryan narrowed his eyes. “Whatever you’re going to tell me better be good.”

“Deal.” She swiveled her bar stool so she could look at them all. “Here goes. You think she’s still madly in love with you. You think the casseroles she brought over after you moved home and organizing the volunteers that helped you and your family out while you were still in rehab and the cards she sent were because she was in love with you.”

Bryan frowned. Yeah, he had thought that.

“But that’s just Tess, Bryan. And if you think about it, now that you’ve been around her for a while, every day, here in Sapphire Falls, you know that. She would have done the same for anyone.”

Bryan stared at Peyton. Damn. She was right. He couldn’t argue that.

“And you also think that she’s done all the running because of you. Everyone who hears about it will. So she needs to get away from you and do it without you to prove to you—and herself—that she can be her own person.”

“She told me the other night she did start running because of me,” Bryan admitted. That had been huge.

“No. She went out the first time because of
me
,” Peyton told him.

“You? You don’t run,” Bryan said.

“No, I don’t,” Peyton said adamantly. “I fucking hate running. But when I told her I wanted to clean up and get healthier, she talked me into running with her. That lasted about a month. But by then, she was hooked.”

“So she didn’t start because of me.” Bryan felt definitely deflated at that. “Why didn’t she say that?”

“Because you liked thinking it. Tess would rather make you happy than worry about getting credit for something herself. And you did have a little to do with it.” Peyton shrugged. “She thought of it for me because of the stuff you’d written about. But the point is, she did it for me—the way she does everything for someone else. She thinks
you’re
the one she revolves around, but she actually revolves around anyone who needs something. She doesn’t get taken care of—she does the taking care.”

Bryan looked at the younger girl who was well known as a hellion. She was an attention seeker and loved to push boundaries and buttons.

But damn—she knew Tessa. And obviously cared about her.

“You’ve been paying attention,” he said.

Peyton gave a small laugh. “Tess and I are a match made in heaven. I need taking care of, and that’s her specialty.”

And
that
was why she was leaving now. The truth hit him hard.

Peyton nodded as she saw the truth dawn on his face.

“She’s been waiting to take care of
me
,” Bryan said, his voice raspy with emotion.

“And now that you don’t need that and are, in fact, pushing her to let
you
take care of
her
, she’s leaving.”

“She’s leaving
because
I rehabbed and got better,” he said, rolling it all around in his head. “She didn’t leave before this because I came back hurt, and she had to see if I needed her.”

“And she wants to go out into the world and be independent because you’re here being sweet and gentle and caretaker-ish, and she isn’t comfortable being on that end of things. And, no, she’s not competitive enough to race. But running is her only way of going to Denver without feeling guilty for leaving everyone here,” Peyton said.

Bryan was floored. “How do you know all of this?” he asked, while acknowledging that every bit of it made sense.

“It’s obvious,” Peyton said. “If you’re not all caught up in
her
paying attention to
you
, that is.”

He gave her a dirty look. But she was right.

“So now what?” he asked the group.

“You gotta give her what she wants,” Ty said with a shrug.

“I need to let her take care of me?” Bryan asked. “I don’t do that any better than she does.”

“Except when it comes to Tess,” Hailey said. “You’ve always been okay with
her
paying extra attention to you.”

She had been taking care of him all these years—her thinking he was amazing, being his secret admirer and sharing all her thoughts and feelings with him, waiting and saving herself for him—had all taken care of him because it had fed the part of him that wanted to be important to her.

“So I need to—”

“You read
Erotic Research
?”

Bryan turned slowly to his right as the main subject of conversation stomped into the Come Again, much as she had the night she’d announced to the whole town that he had no say in her love life.

He grinned. So much for that.

But he stopped grinning when he really looked at her.

She was ticked. Tessa Sheridan was ticked at him.

Tess stopped in front of him, the bar separating them. “Hope just told me that Hailey told you to read
Erotic Research
. And you
did
?” Her voice rose on the last word.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” he asked. “It’s basically a guide book to your imagination and fantasies.”

“So you read about him tying her up and using sex toys, and you
still
think that romance and flowers and everything is the way to go?”

He looked at the three people sitting at the bar and the three guys at the nearest table.

Tessa’s eyes followed his as she seemed to realize for the first time that there were other people paying attention to the conversation. She blushed a pretty pink and pressed her lips together.

“I thought Ross was romantic in certain parts,” Bryan said easily.

Tess looked Bryan directly in the eye. “I need to see you in your office.”

Bryan didn’t know what exactly was going through her mind, but there was
something
in the air between them.

He looked at his customers—the three at the bar and the four tables of patrons in the room.

“Closing time, guys,” he called.

The three at the bar just grinned. The rest of the place would be harder to clear out. It was only nine p.m.

But Tess turned on her heel and headed for his office.

“If you leave now, you don’t have to pay your tab for the night!” he called.

Chairs scraped as everyone suddenly got to their feet and started for the door.

Peyton was the last one out. “Don’t mess it up,” she told him helpfully.

“Thanks so much,” he said. “Now get the hell out.”

She went with a grin, and he turned the lock on the door the moment it shut behind her.

He looked at his office door from across the bar. He knew exactly what to do. He just needed to rein in his desire a little before he got to her. He was definitely going to take care of her, exactly the way she needed him to, but she was a virgin—a virgin with a dirty mind, but a virgin nonetheless. That would require at least
a little
care.

He opened the door to his office. Tess was standing next to his desk, her arms crossed. “I’m not into butt plugs.”

Bryan took a second to let that hang in the air between them. Tess had just said butt plugs to him. “Okay.”

“Just because I like reading about some of that stuff, doesn’t mean I’m into doing it all,” she told him.

“Okay.”

“But I can’t believe that you read that, knowing it was one of my favorites, and you still want to romance me. I don’t want sweet. I like the bossy thing.”

Bryan’s body tightened. “Okay.”

“And the blowjob stuff.”

Blood rushed south. “Okay.”

“And the pirate-slave stuff,” she added.

“Tess,” he said firmly. He needed her to stop talking. And start doing.

“Yeah?”

“Take your clothes off.”

Chapter Eleven

She blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

“I said take your clothes off.”

Her eyes flashed, partly in anger—and partly with heat.

“Just because you said so?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“You think that’s enough?”

“I do,” he said honestly. “But if I add I want you to get up on the desk so I can lick you until you come, I think you’ll definitely do it.”

Her eyes widened and her lips parted.

“Don’t make me say it again. If I have to undress you, I’m not going to let you come until you beg.”

Her breathing was faster now, and she wet her lips.

Should he do this? Of course he should. Would it make it harder for her to leave for Colorado? Maybe. Hopefully. He’d feel like shit if it was
easy
for her to leave, even without the sex. After he rocked her virgin world, he really needed it to be hard for her leave.

But she would. He’d make sure of it. He was a fantastic coach. He’d gotten far more stubborn people to do far more than leave him and Sapphire Falls behind.

His heart ached again with that idea—that Tess had a dream he
could have
been a part of if not for his fucking accident.

He didn’t let himself spiral down that path very often. The accident had happened. He couldn’t change it, and it had changed him—mostly for the better.

But there were times when he got pissed off at Fate.

And with Tess, he was as close as he’d ever been to feeling sorry for himself.

Thankfully, she chose that moment to take off her shirt.

He’d been grateful for naked breasts in his life. Multiple times. But probably never more than he was in that moment.

If he had to contemplate the injustice of his situation, at least he could look at Tessa’s naked breasts while he did it.

“Keep going, darlin’,” he told her, gripping the edge of the desk to keep from reaching for her…yet.

She reached behind her, unhooked her bra and let it drop.

Her breasts were full, soft and round, exactly the way Bryan liked them. Her nipples were already hard, perfectly pink, begging for attention. But he needed
all
of her.

He looked back to her face. “I didn’t say stop.”

Tess hooked her thumbs in the top of her pants and she pushed them to the floor and stepped out of them. She either hadn’t been wearing panties or she’d slid them off too. It didn’t matter. She was bare now, and Bryan wasn’t looking at anything except all of that delicious, kissable skin.

“Now up on the desk. Where I can reach you.”

She looked at the desk. And hesitated.

“Your safe word is pickle,” he told her. Then he reached for her.

He grasped her wrist, tugged her close and then grabbed her waist with both hands and lifted her onto the desk.

He felt her surprise—not because he hadn’t warned her, but because she hadn’t thought he’d be able to lift her. He grinned. He bench pressed more than she weighed in the gym three days a week. He also easily outweighed her, and propelling himself in his wheelchair and with his crutches was no breeze.