In the Weeds （Lovelight #2）
B.K. Borison
PROLOGUE
AUGUST
BECKETT
She’s sitting at the bar when I walk in, summer heat thick and oppressive at my back. My shirt clings to my skin, and her eyes cling everywhere else—a smile tilting at the corners of her mouth.
Long legs in cutoff shorts. Straight black hair to her waist. A full bottom lip painted red. She turns in her stool as the door snaps shut and looks right at me like I’ve kept her waiting. A tilt to her brow like she’s pissed about it, too.
“Sorry,” I tell her as I slip onto the stool next to her, not quite knowing why I’m apologizing or how I got over to this seat to begin with. I’m caught halfway between doing and wanting, the humidity from outside lingering.
Her eyelashes flutter like she’s amused and a thick press of syrupy heat curls in the space between us. “For what?”
I … have no idea. I rub the heel of my hand against my jaw and busy myself with the drink menu, an inexplicable rush of embarrassment burning at my cheeks. I’ve never claimed to possess an ounce of charm, but I’m usually better than this.
I nod towards her half-empty glass.
“What’re you drinking?” I ask. She rolls her lips to hide her smile and tips her glass back and forth.
“Tequila.”
I must wince because she laughs, her chin tilting up but her dark eyes staying right on me. “What? Not a fan?”
I shake my head and she drops the glass on the bar top between us, turning it around and around in her pretty hands. One eyebrow arches high on her forehead. “Maybe you just haven’t had the right kind.”
“Maybe,” I agree. I stop the movement of her hand with my fingers over hers and bring the glass to my lips. I make sure to set my mouth against the cherry red lipstick mark she left behind.
Smoke. Lime. A bite of salt.
I drop the glass back to the bar and lick at my bottom lip.
“Not bad,” I grit out.
She grins at me, her dark eyes like a thumbnail scratching at the line of my jaw. “Not bad at all.”
She has a scar at the top of her thigh.
I don’t know if she realizes it, but she wiggles every time I pass my thumb over it, her leg digging into my hip where she’s draped over me. Her skin smells like lemons and rosemary, and I tuck my nose into the space below her ear where it’s strongest, drag my face down until I can press a kiss to the smooth line of her throat.
She hums.
I can’t stop tracing my palms against her skin, feeling her softness against me. Her fingers tangle and tug at my hair and I press my face harder into her neck with a groan. She huffs a laugh against my collarbone.
Two damn nights together and I officially don’t even recognize myself. Evie is like a tide rolling in and clipping me at my ankles. A low, forceful tug. A blissful inevitability.
I drag my thumb over the scar again, slower this time, and her nose digs into my shoulder.
“I don’t usually do this sort of thing.”
I glance at the table tipped over in the corner, the coffee machine that somehow managed to stay upright during our very enthusiastic entrance to the room. The ceramic dish holding the creamers isn’t anywhere I can see, but the little disposable plastic containers are scattered across the carpet like fallen stars. Dots of white against navy blue.
I smooth my palm down her back and stretch my fingers wide, trying to see how much of her skin I can cover at once. She’s warm under my touch, her skin a deep, flawless brown. Like a bottle of whiskey on the highest shelf, afternoon light dancing through.
I shift beneath her and grunt when her thigh grazes something interesting. “Nearly destroy a hotel room?”
She rocks her forehead back and forth against my neck with a laugh and it slips down over my shoulders to sit heavy in the center of my chest. She leans up on one arm and rests her chin in the palm of her hand.
“No.” She reaches behind my ear and plucks a feather from my hair, glancing at the half-torn pillow shoved haphazardly under my head. I’m surprised I didn’t rip the sheets clean off the bed that second time—when she scratched her nails down my back, wrapped her long legs high around my hips, and set her teeth against my collarbone. She sighs low and slow, eyes searching mine, a bemused grin tilting her lips when I wrap a lock of her hair around my finger and tug. I had my whole fist in it about twenty minutes ago, and she looks amused that I’ve settled for a strand now.
“I don’t usually get distracted on work trips,” she explains.
Neither do I. I don’t usually get distracted at all. While a one-night stand is my relationship of choice, I wasn’t planning on one this trip. The Northeastern Organic Farmer’s Conference isn’t a hotbed of seduction. Or it hasn’t been, typically.
Our shared glass of tequila turned into a shot on the bar top in front of me. That shot turned into Evie ordering the rest of the bottle. And that bottle turned into me licking a line of salt from the inside of her wrist, her knee pressed to mine beneath the bar. We stumbled back to the tiny hotel on the hill and fell into bed like we were made for it.
It turns out I don’t mind tequila so much when I taste it on her.
Now we’re here, tangled up and naked for the second night in a row. I told myself I wouldn’t go back to the bar, wouldn’t go looking for her. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Her skin pressed to mine. The low, husky moan when I slipped my hand between her legs. Her dark hair spread across stark white pillows.
As soon as the last speaker finished at my conference, I wandered right back to that dive like she was singing a damn siren’s song. And there she was, sitting on the same stool at the same bar, that same grin lighting up every inch of her face.
I trace my knuckles down her arm, mesmerized by the path of goosebumps that rise in the wake of my touch.
“Do you regret it?” I sit up, gently urging her to follow. She does, long legs rearranging around my hips. “The distraction?” I clarify.
The sweat has hardly dried on my skin, but I want her again. I’ve got an itch in my palms every time I look at her. I want to taste the soft skin just under her ear, feel her body tremble and roll above mine. I want to press my hand to those two divots at the base of her spine and feel her skin burn like an inferno as she moves against me.
She smiles and bites at her bottom lip like she knows where my mind has drifted off to, tracing the line of ink that curls over my shoulder. She taps there once and I get a glance of us in the mirror above the dresser, twisted white sheets and skin that shines like spun gold, my arm banded low around her waist. Never in my life have I wanted to take a picture of myself, but the urge strikes hot and fierce now, her bare skin against mine. Her face in my neck and the swell of her ass just barely visible.
I nose beneath her chin and press a single, lingering kiss to the fluttering skin above her pulse—a wordless encouragement to answer the question.
“No. Turns out you’re a fine distraction, Beck. The best kind, really.” Her answer is a whisper, a secret in the dark. She pauses, and then: “Do you regret it?”
No, I don’t regret it. Much as I probably should. I smile and drag my teeth up the line of her throat, nip at her earlobe and tug once. I watch in the mirror as her whole body shivers, her hips rolling down into mine.