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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ATLAS

I didn’t do festivals.

Besides the fact that Starlight Cove had three thousand of them a year, there was also all the shit you had to do at these fucking things.

Face painting. Bobbing for apples.

Corn mazes, eating contests, hayrides.

I’d decided to just swear off them entirely and save myself the irritation.

But the football team was hosting a fundraiser this year, which meant I didn’t have the option to skip it.

And, by extension, Sutton didn’t either.

I’d spent the week assuming my fuckup had been inviting her to move in with me, so I’d been putting as much space between us as possible.

It turned out my actual fuckup had been thinking that time away from her would somehow help.

Hopefully dull this attraction between us.

Well, I’d fucked myself, because being away from her had only accomplished the opposite.

My body somehow craved her even more now, as if it was making up for lost time.

I kept sneaking glances at her, which only pissed me off further.

Especially when I couldn’t seem to help myself.

“You look like you’re on your way to your own funeral.” Sutton gave me a brief once-over.

“It’s not instilling a lot of confidence in me that I’m going to enjoy myself tonight. You do remember attending was your stipulation, right?”

Better she think my foul mood was solely because of this festival and not because of how she turned me inside out simply by existing.

“Not by choice,” I grumbled.

“Well, I have the perfect idea to get that stick out of your ass.”

“I don’t have a stick up my ass.”

“No? Then you’re going to love a hayride.” She tugged me to a stop and gestured toward the trailer filled with hay bales, a huge grin on her face.

“Not happening,” I said, planting my feet and crossing my arms over my chest.

She tipped her head to the side.

“And here I thought you didn’t have a stick up your ass.”

“I don’t. I just don’t want to?—”

“Have any fun?”

“She’s right, Coach,” Mabel called from her perch in the back.

Her husband, George, sat in the driver’s seat of the tractor, looking for the entire world like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“And at a perfect time too. You get the whole trailer to yourselves!” She leaned toward us, cupping a hand around her mouth and whisper-shouted, “I won’t even charge you!”

“You hear that, big guy? Not just a hayride, a free hayride. How can you say no to that?”

I didn’t know if it was the sparkle in Sutton’s eyes, that sexy-as-fuck teasing smirk she shot my way, or how her hand felt in mine as she tugged me along, but I didn’t put up a fight.

“Let’s show the kids you can have some fun and that their moniker of Coach Asshole doesn’t quite fit,” she said.

I snapped my head toward her, blindly following wherever she led me.

“They call me Coach what ?”

Her low, sultry laugh made my dick twitch, a memory from that night in the hotel room slamming into me.

Her on her hands and knees, crawling toward me on the bed, her laugh sweeping over me as she tugged open the fly of my?—

“Off we go, Georgie.” Mabel’s words tugged me out of my memory, and I glanced around, realizing that while I’d been trapped in sexual Nirvana, Sutton had somehow managed to guide me on to the worst activity at the festival, bar none.

I hated these goddamn things.

Because A, they were fucking stupid.

B, I wasn’t a ten-year-old child.

And C, I was too goddamn big for something like this.

I took up three-quarters of the bale without even trying, which left Sutton plastered to my side just so she wouldn’t fall off—something I didn’t mind but definitely shouldn’t be enjoying as much as I was.

“This is such a treat!” Mabel said with a clap of her hands.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you at a festival, Atlas. What was it you called them? ‘A waste of time and city dollars’?”

I crossed my arms and shot her a scowl.

“I never said that.”

“I don’t know, it sure sounds like you.” Sutton bumped her shoulder into my arm, shooting me a smirk.

Mabel hummed in agreement.

“Oh, honey, the things I’ve heard this young man complain about would keep us talking for hours .”

“Is that your way of telling me he’s always been a grump?”

“Since he was just a boy,” Mabel confirmed with a nod.

“Some might think you two aren’t a good match because of that, but there’s no denying your chemistry. That kiss— whew !” She fanned herself and winked.

“I don’t think a soul alive could deny the attraction between you two lovebirds.”

Sutton shifted against me, no doubt recalling the kiss Mabel was referring to.

Not to mention everything that had happened after.

How Sutton had come against my tongue, then again on my cock, all before I’d settled as deep as I could and filled her up.

Fucking Christ.

I needed to stop that train of thought immediately.

My cock was already at half-mast, and the last thing I needed right now was to be sporting full wood while trapped on this godforsaken ride with Mabel as witness.

George took us throughout downtown.

And he drove this tractor about as well as he drove his car, which wasn’t saying much.

He steered us directly over a giant pothole, causing the entire back end to lurch and sending Sutton scrambling.

She yelped, her hands flying out as she tried to gain purchase and not fall off the tiny portion of the hay bale she occupied.

On reflex, I wrapped my arm around her, palming her hip as I tugged her into my side.

“Aww,” Mabel cooed, her eyes alight as she watched Sutton and me.

“I just knew you were a big teddy bear, Atlas.”

Sutton blew out a long sigh.

“All right. I’ll tell the kids at school they can’t call you Coach Asshole anymore.” She rested her hand on my stomach, low enough that my troublemaker dick perked up even more at her touch.

“At least, not all the time. But I’ll be honest, sometimes you really do deserve it.”

Mabel cackled.

“Right you are, Sutton. I was just tickled pink when I found out you two were an item! I was a little surprised at first, what with Atlas being the big mean one in town, and you being, well, not. But I can see it now. Very Brady and Luna. Have you met the sheriff and his wife?”

Sutton shook her head.

“Not yet.”

“I think you’d really get along with Luna. And the sheriff? Well, he’s kind of like this one.” Mabel hooked a thumb toward me.

“Grumpy and growly on the outside but protective and sweet when it comes to his woman.”

“Oh, I’m not—” She snapped her mouth shut when I squeezed her hip in warning, having no doubt she was about to slip and say she wasn’t mine.

And I had no fucking idea why the hell a true statement had uneasiness churning in my gut, but I shoved the feeling aside.

Bottled it up like every other confusing emotion I felt around this woman, which was turning out to be a whole fucking lot.

A gust of wind shook the trees as the leaves rattled, raining down around us, and Sutton shuddered beneath my arm.

I stared down at her with a frown, already shrugging out of my flannel.

“Where’s your coat?”

“In my car.”

“Why didn’t you grab it?”

She lifted a brow.

“Someone kidnapped me before I had the chance.”

“Put this on,” I said, already wrapping my shirt around her shoulders.

Hating how much I loved how she looked in my clothes.

“Well, isn’t that sweet? I bet he’s a doll behind closed doors, isn’t he?” Mabel asked.

“Oh, definitely,” Sutton said with a heavy dose of sarcasm Mabel didn’t seem to pick up.

“I just knew it! Tell me, what’s the most surprising thing he’s done?”

As soon as Sutton glanced up at me, a mischievous glint in her eye, I knew I was fucked.

“Well,” she said, leaning toward Mabel as if she was about to spill the juiciest gossip.

“Before I agreed to move in with him, he showed up outside my bedroom window, holding his phone over his head while it blasted ‘Pony’ by Ginuwine.”

“No!” Mabel gasped, her eyes wide and full of interest.

“Yes,” Sutton confirmed with a nod.

I shot her a scowl. “I don’t think that’s quite?—”

She pressed her finger against my lips, silencing me, her eyes sparkling.

“It was, pookie. There’s no reason to be embarrassed. I was the only one who saw your Magic Mike impression.” Turning back to Mabel, she said, “It was a little over the top, but I overlooked it. How could I not? When he rolls those hips like that…” Sutton fanned herself like the troublemaking instigator she was.

“You won’t tell anyone that, will you?”

“I would never,” Mabel promised, a hand to her chest. “Well, no more than just my dear, closest friends anyway.”

Yeah, her dear, closest friends who had a subscription to the Starlight Cove Gazette and who subscribed to her social media channels to get alerts anytime she went live.

Not to mention everyone in the book club, including my mom.

If small-town gossip were a sport, Mabel would take gold every fucking time.

“Well, we’re all friends in a small town, right?” Sutton shot me another evil grin, living up to every bit of her nickname.

“There was also the time he?—”

I squeezed her hip hard, stealing her words as I leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Careful, trouble. Or I’ll have to find another way to stop you from running that mouth of yours.”

I didn’t mean for my words to sound suggestive, but from the look she gave me as she rested her hand on my chest, there was no doubt they did.

Unable to help myself, I dropped my gaze to her lips, remembering how soft they were.

How she’d teased me, her teeth grazing my bottom lip, her tongue sliding against mine.

That tiny little moan she always breathed straight into my mouth when we kissed.

And fuck me, but I wanted that again.

Wanted to taste her.

Wanted to?—

“My goodness , things are sure heating up in here! I hope you two are finding some privacy even with Laurel around.” Mabel leaned forward, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“And that you’re getting use of your purchase, Sutton. Toys are always more fun when played with together!”

I snapped my head toward Sutton, who was working awfully hard to avoid my gaze.

That alone told me everything I needed to know.

At some point since she’d moved to town, she’d purchased a little something from Starlight Cove’s sex toy dealer.

And I desperately wanted to know what it was.