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“Fuck, Autumn.” Her hand found me through my pants. No hesitation. She palmed the length of my cock like she’d been thinking about touching me all day the same way I’d been thinking about her.

“Your fault,” she whispered, stroking me through the fabric, clumsy and eager and so good I almost forgot what I was doing, which was touching her.

“Stop,” I said through my teeth.

“Make me,” she dared.

“Oh, I can make you do a few things, baby.”

I started stroking her clit again, moving my fingers in and out.

“Wilder.” Her hand on me tightened.

“Like that, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes I do,” she panted, and I moved faster, knowing she was close. Then, before anything else could happen, a low, aggrieved whine cut through the room, followed by the press of a wet nose between our bodies.

Grimm sat on the floor staring at us like a Victorian chaperone.

Autumn laughed against my collarbone, her soft breath warm on my scar. I gave a little growl when she moved her hand off my body.

“Do you think he doesn’t approve?”

“No, he’s protecting you.” I didn’t add, against me, but we both knew what I meant. I eased my hand out of her jeans because if I didn’t, I was going to finish this. She made a small, frustrated sound that almost changed my mind. I brought my fingers to my mouth without thinking and watched her eyes go dark when she realized what I was doing.

I looked down at her. She was warm and willing and looking at me like she would take whatever I offered next. Every part of me that wasn’t thinking wanted to carry her to the back and lay her on that couch, and finish whatever this was.

I had built a life out of not letting want override doing a thing right. So instead, I took a step back. Then another. “I should go.”

She blinked. Some of the heat cooled into confusion. “Should you?”

“Not because I want to.” The cool air between us seemed to settle someplace inside me. My fingers were wet and my cock hurt. “Because when this happens again — and it is going to happen again, Autumn, I am not walking away pretending it won’t — I don’t want it fast and half-finished.”

Something in her face eased.

“That’s either the most respectful or the most frustrating thing anyone’s ever said to me after a kiss like that.”

“Both.” I meant it. I called Grimm to heel and made myself walk out into the cool autumn night before I changed my mind.

The drive up the mountain did nothing to cool me off. Later, I laid in the dark and wrapped a fist around myself like a man with no discipline at all. I thought about my fingers inside her. The sound she made when I touched her. The way she’d touched me. I came hard, but it still wasn’t enough.

I wanted her wrapped around me. Her warmth, her wetness. Her.

I punched my pillow, knowing sleep was useless. Grimm moved beside me on the floor in sympathy and remembered the saying, misery loved company.

CHAPTER FIVE

Autumn

The next day was not the pretty fall day the town council had hoped for. The sky was gray and overcast and the wind, which had acted up yesterday, had apparently decided to hang around and cause trouble today.

One minute I was helping Wilder stake the last corner of my tent, both of us laughing at Grimm’s attempt to help by grabbing the lead ropes, and the next the temperature dropped ten degrees in as many minutes. A pop-up canopy went cartwheeling down the street.

The day hadn’t even started and already it was over. June came by, telling everyone they could move to the town hall and set up there.

Just as I was deciding whether to go there or just go back and open my shop, my phone buzzed. It was the power company. A tree limb had fallen on the transformer feeding my block. The repair would not be finished until morning. While it was not ideal to lose a whole day of revenue, I honestly didn’t feel like being crammed into a small space with everyone else.

Even as I had the thought, I felt the first drops of rain. I officially gave myself the day off.