Three Reckless Words: Chapter 12

Well, shit.

This is what happens when you let instinct jump in the driver’s seat and take the wheel.

I’m not sure logic has had a single say in my decisions ever since I got to Winnie’s house. Seeing her ex barge in like that, belittling and threatening her, turned my vision red.

Before, I wasn’t sure what to think about him. Sure, she didn’t want to marry him, but that didn’t mean he was an absolute subhuman worm.

That just means they weren’t meant to be together.

She didn’t want him for good reason.

It’s not like she ever went into great detail, and I didn’t pry.

Damn good thing she didn’t.

Because I might have been tempted to blow into Springfield to make sure he understood the concept of distance. And yes, maybe to fuck him up a bit for good measure.

If I knew he was an abuser who talks like he owns her, I never would have let him set one foot on my property.

Logically, it’s irrational as hell.

That’s bully fists-first caveman shit speaking, not a man who stakes his entire life on rules, laws, order.

Winnie Emberly is not my fiancée.

She’s not my anything.

She’s just a girl who’s showering down the hall and singing hideously off-key. Meanwhile, I’m in my room, fighting a hard-on, because even though I’m pissed as all hell at her abusive ex, I can’t make myself unsee her showering in my head.

Water curling down round breasts and peaked nipples.

Her soft stomach, hips, and long, long legs.

Soap suds foaming across that softness, running down toward her—

Fuck.

I’m so hard I think my heart has migrated south, throbbing like mad.

How can a woman this strange and annoying rile me up so much? I barely even mesh with her as a person.

I kissed her, yeah, but that just means I find her sexy.

That was base biology speaking, and nothing more, even if she flips my switch in a way it hasn’t been flipped in years.

I shake my head and snort, dropping my face into my hands.

Who the hell am I kidding?

There’s something about Winnie that demands I like her.

Almost like this hurt calling to me every time she speaks. I’d sooner cut off my ears than be deaf to it.

She was so quiet earlier, so wounded, even when she apologized like it’s her fault, having her fuckboy ex coming at her like that.

I had to step in.

I had to act.

I just didn’t need this.

My house? Shit, I could’ve paid for her stay at any hotel in town.

Yet my angry, horny, dick-dragging buffalo brain decided to bring her here, into my home.

I haven’t figured out what I’m going to tell Colt.

The water stops.

I do my best not to imagine her stepping out of the shower, glistening with droplets, tiny rivulets tracing her curves before she dries off with a towel.

Yeah, this is not going well, and it’s barely the first hour.

No matter how much I try to focus on moldy sausages and the last time my little nephew Arlo stuffed himself with too many brownies and barfed on Mom’s Turkish rug, when Winnie barges into the room, all the gross shit in the world can’t undo the awful truth.

I’m still hard enough to cut diamond.

And when I look up, seeing her standing there in nothing more than a towel, I know it’s a lost battle.

It’s modest enough, yes, covering everything important, but it stops mid-thigh like a towel should. I want nothing more than to skate my hands all the way up her leg until she’s gasping and wet—in an entirely different way from the shower.

I focus on her face and try not to look down. She gives me a small smile.

“Hey, Archer.”

“Hey.”

Her eyes flick down and almost immediately snap back to my face. Hopefully she hasn’t noticed the tent in my pants.

“I’m sorry about this whole thing, you know. I just wanted to tell you again.”

“I heard you the first fifty times, Winnie. It’s fine.”

In fact, we’re living the opposite of fine.

“You can call me Win like everybody else. If you want to, I mean…”

I blink at her.

Bad, bad idea.

Take down too many of the flimsy barriers left between us and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from touching her. It’s already all I can think about, a steady roar between my ears and in my cock.

Hell, I’ve already started calling her Sugarbee, releasing that name I only kept in my head. Another mistake.

“Okay,” I say after a second. “But you need to stop apologizing.”

She swallows hard and drops her gaze to the floor.

I hold in a sigh.

Even if I’m currently being tortured by one of the sexiest women alive in my master bedroom wearing a towel and nothing else, I know this was the right decision, getting her out of there.

My bathroom has the best shower in the house with steam and dual rainfall heads. After the shit Holden pulled, she deserved max comfort when she said she wanted to clean up.

She’s so delicate, so fragile, so beautiful inside and out despite her obnoxious singing. I want her to feel safe, dammit.

Then she presses her hand to the towel’s knot under her arm and blushes something fierce.

“Oh my God,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’m so sorry. You… you didn’t have to let me use your shower.”

“I insisted. Rainfall makes anyone feel better. Tell me it didn’t.”

She tries to hide her grin but can’t.

“Sorry,” she just whispers again.

“Keep apologizing and I’ll have to give you something to apologize for.” Bad idea. I can’t just say that. I can’t just do that. Even if the only thing I want to do is march over, rip off that towel, and pin her to this bed until she’s fucked senseless.

Her eyes widen and she sucks in a breath, her neck bones standing out in sharp relief, glistening with water beads.

She missed a spot when she dried herself.

Holy fuck, I didn’t know it was possible to be this aroused.

“You can have the guest room. I put your stuff in there,” I say, trying to force this conversation back to safety.

“Okay, sure. I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“No trouble.” Total lie, but if she apologizes one more time, I don’t think I’ll be able to help myself. “This is about the safest place you can get. No one’s getting in here without permission. That’s why I have a gate.”

“Only if you’re sure.” She sucks in another breath, but this one sounds different. “Thank you, Archer. I appreciate it.”

“And if you want to see the bees and work with them, all you have to do is say the word. I’ll take you over there. We’ll both go. If Holden comes back, I’ll send him away on a stretcher.”

She laughs roughly, like she’s a few seconds away from tears. “You almost did that this time.”

“I gave him a warning.”

“Hopefully he listens. Just don’t get yourself in real trouble. He’s not worth it,” she says, and this time her laugh is a little stronger.

She smiles at me, and I return it.

The moment lingers, heavy and potent in the air. The longer I hold her gaze, the darker it gets. She wets her lips and I track the movement.

Goddamn.

I don’t think she knows how sexy she is, how much I want her.

Raging need pounds through my veins. I subtly fist the duvet to keep my hands from being too tempted to touch her.

Touching her is absolutely the only thing on my mind right now.

It fucking dominates my senses, this demanding itch I can’t ignore—especially with the hooded looks she gives me now.

If I storm over and seize her lips, she’ll melt like butter.

She won’t deny me for a second.

She kissed me back at the cabin. Hard, too.

Her mouth was as needy as mine, starved for attention. And she pulled me closer, tangling her tongue with mine like she’s been lost in the desert, dying of thirst.

When I think of her fuckface ex, I get it.

I also get angry.

She’s never had a real man in her life, and this woman desperately deserves one like a blooming cactus deserves rain.

Holy fucking shit, having her here was an epic mistake.

If I can’t stand five minutes of this without my brain going sappy and poetic, how will we survive days together? Possibly weeks?

If she’s in my house, the only thing I’m going to be thinking about is tasting Winnie, making her moan, discovering that beautiful body inch by inch, pushing her up against the wall and wrapping her legs around me and thieving her voice until she’s hoarse from coming.

Winnie clears her throat loudly, tucking a wet strand of hair behind her ear.

“So what do we do about Colt?” Her question throws a metaphorical bucket of cold water on my head.

Yeah, that.

There’s nothing like thinking about how you’ll explain this to your brilliant, insanely curious son without sounding like an animal who just wants to get his dick wet.

“Leave him to me. Don’t worry,” I growl.

Good advice I wish I could take.

I’m already very fucking worried.

The next day, I shut myself away and mostly succeed at losing myself in work.

So effectively that by the time I resurface, my stomach keeps growling like a bear.

Fine.

Probably dinnertime, which also means time to figure out what’s happening with Winnie.

My back aches as I stand up from the chair, launching into a long stretch.

Mom claims forty is young, but it’s rapidly approaching like a boulder heading straight for me, and I can feel the pain.

I’m thirty-seven and now I get stiff as a board whenever I sit too long.

I snort at the thought.

If I could’ve seen this ten years ago, I would’ve laughed myself silly. But working a job where you’re chained to a desk all day fucks your body over, no matter how much you work out or try to step away for walking breaks.

As I head upstairs to the den, I hear voices, and I pause just outside.

That’s Winnie talking, delivering the gospel of bees to a chorus of young voices pelting her with questions.

Colt’s there, of course, and so are his two sidekicks by the sound of it.

Damn.

When did I say he could have people over and leave solitary confinement for nearly burning down my cabin?

Still, I peer through the door.

Winnie’s curled up on the sofa with Colt beside her. Briana and Evans are lounging on opposite sides of the other sofa.

The TV’s going, but no one’s watching it.

Colt has a block of wood and a tray under it for catching shavings, whittling it down into a big, round shape that looks suspiciously like a bee.

Figures. I think all this bug shit is getting to everyone’s head.

But Winnie laughs loudly, her face flushed pink.

Her wild auburn hair curls around her face like a girl cut from a Rubens painting, too beautiful for life.

She holds up her hands, telling them about Japanese hornets between laughs. Pretty deadly by the sound of it, and since they’re little punks, they’re fascinated by the morbid side of nature.

“…that’s why they’re also called ‘murder hornets,’” she says. “They can wipe out an entire hive of ordinary honeybees in no time. Washington state’s been chasing them for years before they do too much damage, ever since they showed up there. They’re one nasty invasive species.”

“Damn! Ice-cold,” Evans whispers excitedly.

“Do they attack people?” Briana asks, leaning on the edge of her seat.

“Not typically. Only when they feel threatened like most things.” Winnie holds up a finger dramatically. “But they’re arguably the most dangerous animal in Japan.”

“How come?” Colt looks up from the wood he’s shaping.

“They’re big disruptors in Japan’s honey industry. Did you know as few as ten murder hornets can kill off an entire farm? That’s tens of thousands of bees. Farmers can lose their entire investment for the season if they aren’t careful.”

“Holy crap, that’s wild,” Briana says, examining her black and purple nails. “But can’t they, like, use their numbers to defend against the hornets? Like, selective breeding or whatever.”

“You’re thinking of natural selection, Bree,” Colt says. He turns to Winnie. “We learned about evolution in biology.”

“Oh, right.” Winnie takes a cushion from the couch and hugs it, almost infuriatingly cute with that hair and bright smile. Those big green eyes that were so haunted after Holden hollowed them out sparkle today. “Well, it’s a different situation, but they have evolved a way of dealing with the hornets. It takes some luck and a quick response.”

“Like what?” Colt asks.

I smile, hearing the old boyish curiosity in his voice. I worry growing up might strip that away one day, but it hasn’t happened yet.

I lean against the doorframe, unseen, just watching them.

This is definitely new.

Colt can be a shy kid, even if he’s been perfectly socialized. I didn’t expect this version of my son, letting down his guard with a stranger in our house, but it makes my heart rattle like a rock.

“Well, the bees surround the hornet and kinda beat their wings really fast. The air gets trapped and they create a tight ball of heat around the intruder. A little like a heat ray.” She flutters her fingers, smiling ear to ear.

“Savage!” Evans gushes, glancing at Briana for confirmation this is cool. Or savage, I guess. “So the hornet dickhead dies off, right?”

“With a little luck, yes,” Winnie confirms. “That doesn’t always mean the hive will survive, unfortunately. Sometimes there’s more than one murder hornet or the bees aren’t fast enough.”

“Screw murder hornets!” Colt pumps his fist in the air.

And then they’re all yelling like the kids they are, plotting an entire species’ gruesome extinction with lasers and bee-sized hunter-killer drones based on Winnie’s testimony.

She covers her face in good-natured horror, one hand sliding over her mouth as she giggles.

For a second, it’s too perfect.

My son, his goofy friends, and the stranger who inspired this outburst of passion lighting up the entire room.

I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to be feeling right now, but confusion is a very big part of it.

“How can we destroy them?” Briana demands, curling one hand into a claw like a menacing kitten.

Always the big questions with her.

Winnie hesitates, biting her bottom lip between her teeth as she thinks.

“Guys, hold up. Just because they’re big and mean doesn’t mean they don’t play a role in the ecosystem. We just want them to do it at home, not here.”

Before the kids burst into violent protest, I step into the room to help her save face.

“That’s enough talk about killing under my roof,” I say harshly.

“Dad! How long were you there?” Colt beams at me. “Didn’t you hear how horrible the hornets are?”

“I heard. I also heard Winnie make a good point. You can’t just go around planning to obliterate an entire species.” I fold my arms. “If we could wave a magic wand, a lot of people would do away with mosquitos, too. But you do that, you rob a lot of interesting animals of food. Bats, turtles, fish, you name it. I read about it in an article on my last long flight.”

The kids go silent, guilt etched on their faces.

Winnie looks like she wants to jump up and kiss me.

Shit, we definitely don’t need more of that.

I can’t help myself, though, and I smile at her anyway. She lets her bottom lip drop as she smiles back.

Goddamn, that frigging smile. I could stare at it all day.

“How about some pizza while you’re pondering the universe?” I drop the most important question.

“Yeah, cool, Mr. Rory.” Evans punches the air again. Briana almost smiles at me. “Are we ordering or are you making it?”

“Please say you’re making it, Dad. Your pizza blows away all the chain stuff.”

“What? You make your own pizza?” Winnie’s gaze drifts to me, her eyebrows raised.

“Deep dish,” Colt says proudly.

“Guilty as charged.” I hold up my hands in mock defense.

“Wow, and here I figured you had a personal chef like my parents.” She uncurls from the sofa, revealing long, bare legs and a pair of short white shorts. “Need some help?”

I don’t, but I nod anyway.

There’s no sense in leaving her stranded with these teenage monsters.

I barely have time to contemplate how I’ll keep a lid on my urge to rip her shorts off as she follows me to the kitchen.