Chapter One

Only one woman could make Chase Montgomery consider getting na**d and horizontal in a choir loft. From the moment Addison Duval stepped out of her custom-painted hot pink Corvette and onto the steps of the Decadence Creek Township Baptist Church, he could think of little else.

The woman had the gravitational pull of the sun and was just as hot.

And just as lethal.

He made it through the wedding and as far as the reception without submitting to the urge to pin her up against the nearest wall, to feel those curves pressed against him, to take that mouth.

Once, those full, pouty lips had begged him for everything he wanted to do to her.

Because he was a man, he’d wanted to take her up on her offer. Because he was ten years her senior and a f**king masochist, he’d refused.

Chase stood at the bar with three of Addison’s four older brothers while the fourth made the rounds with his new wife. Dinner was over, liquor was flowing, and dancing was in full swing.

“My sister’s back in town,” Jake, the oldest Duval brother, said, nodding to Addison across the dance floor.

Chase raised a brow at his friend. “I saw that,” he said, thinking, a couple hours ago.

The doors of the Duvals’ repurposed barn sat open, allowing in the late May breeze. A crap-ton of lights and white fluffy shit hung from the rafters. Despite the couple’s insistence that they wanted a casual affair, Mrs. Duval had brought in every white flower in the tri-state area, contracted some five-star Louisville catering service, and hired all the staff from out of town so the locals could attend the Decadence Creek event of the year.

“I wish she’d stick around for awhile,” Kaleb Duval grumbled. “Get mom off our backs.”

Alex, Kaleb’s twin, grinned. “She just wants us to ‘Find nice girls who can have my grandbabies,’” he said in a said in a falsetto imitation of his mom.

Chase peeled his eyes off Addison’s fuckme heels—he couldn’t be sure from this distance, but he would bet they were red. Red fuckme heels and miles of leg.

He clenched his hands, itching to touch. To strip her down to nothing but those shoes and explore every inch of her. And when his hands were satisfied, he’d start over again. With his mouth. With his tongue.

If the men around him knew the thoughts he was having about their baby sister, they’d pulverize him. Only reason he was still standing here tonight was that he’d never acted on his fantasies—a feat that felt more than a little superhuman tonight.

Addison’s laughter floated on the breeze and her face lit up with a smile. Shit. Red heels and legs he could resist, but that smile—

He was toast.

“God, that’d be great,” Jake said. “If Addy stuck around she’d inevitably start dating someone completely inappropriate.”

Kaleb laughed. “Like a Buddhist monk under a vow of celibacy.”

“Or an ‘adult cinema’ producer who likes to tell mom about Addy’s ‘untapped potential,’” Alex chimed in.

Or me, Chase thought.

“Mom would be so preoccupied we might get some peace,” Jake said.

Chase dragged his attention from Addison and looked at her brothers. “She’s not a kid anymore,” he pointed out, wishing the words felt more like the truth. Twenty-three was still way too young in his mind. “Shouldn’t much matter who she’s dating these days.”

The men burst into laughter, as if Chase had just cracked a genius one-liner.

“It will always matter to our father,” Jake said.

“I’m sure,” Chase muttered.

Addison’s father, Richard Duval, was Chase’s boss. Five years ago, Richard had given an ex-con a chance when he’d hired Chase to hone and build custom world-class muscle cars and sell them at a tidy profit. When you owed your life to your boss and had your dream job, it’d be one dumbass move to give it all up for a piece of ass.

Only Addison wasn’t just a piece of ass. Never had been. Not to Chase.

“How nice that Addison made it back for the wedding,” Emily Wright said, joining Chase and the brothers at the bar.

“Real nice,” Chase muttered, taking in Addison’s legs, her just-soft-enough thighs.

“Didn’t your mama teach you it’s not polite to escort one lady to a wedding and make eyes at another?” Emily asked him.

“Make eyes at who?” Jake punched Chase in the arm. “That’s my baby sister. Stop staring.”

Chase rubbed his bicep but didn’t bother taking his eyes off Addison. Addy. Sweet, young, smart, and so-fucking-sexy Addy.

As if sensing him, Addison turned and their eyes locked.

Her hair, the color of dark, rich honey, fell past her shoulders in fat curls, brushing over her bare skin. Her black dress hugged her curves and ended just low enough that her ass didn’t show, just high enough to make Chase have to work real hard not to think about the next few inches north.

In the two years since she’d picked up and left for Paris, Chase hadn’t forgotten her, hadn’t forgiven her, and hadn’t stopped wanting her.

Fuck, but he wasn’t prepared for this.

He pushed away from the wall. He needed some air.

He wove through the crowd, beer in hand. Before he realized what he’d done, he found himself five yards from Addison.

Gravitational pull of the sun, he reminded himself.

He stood rooted in place, unwilling to take a step closer, unable to take a step back.

She caught sight of him and treated him to a grin, the kind that changed her whole face and lit up the room like a thousand-watt bulb.

He wanted to kiss her so damn badly, his mouth went dry.

She smiled and gave a little wave.

Chase didn’t wave back but nodded toward the exit.

If you’re going to burn, might as well go down smiling.

Chapter Two

A shiver rushed up Addy’s spine as Chase strode out the wide open barn doors. She’d been planning to avoid him—drop in, celebrate the sudden and unexpected marriage of her best friend to her brother, fly out tomorrow night. Avoid scandal at all costs.

But Chase’s hot eyes? That knowing grin? How could she say no?

Biting her lip, she turned to her best friend.

“It’s my wedding, and I say you should go after him,” the bride ordered with a smile, adjusting her veil.

Addison swallowed. “Stace, that might be a mistake.”

Stacey arched a dark brow. “Better loved and lost, they say.”

Those were dangerous thoughts, and last time she’d explored them, she’d ended up alone. In Paris.

This can’t happen, Addison.

Two years later and the memory of his words still caused an ache in her chest, a knot in the pit of her stomach.

She followed Chase out the back of the barn and toward the creek.

She caught sight of him just as his broad shoulders disappeared over the hill.

When she reached the crest, Chase was sitting on the river bank. His black dress shirt pulled across his shoulders as he rested his thick forearms on his knees and stared into the rushing water.

Quietly, she made her way to his side and lowered herself beside him. She stretched out her bare legs, and the clay earth, cool in contrast to the hot, humid air, sent a chill through her.

“Welcome home,” Chase said, not looking at her.

“Don’t tell me it’s good to have me back,” she said. “Not if you don’t mean it.”

Chase turned to her. His eyes were hot and something like anguish colored his features. “I don’t know if it’s good or not.” He looked away and focused on the water as if looking at her was too difficult. “So, Stacey and Harrison. Crazy, huh?”

Addy frowned and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “A whirlwind romance, I guess.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Good for them,” he said softly.

Since he wouldn’t look at her, she studied his profile. He scratched at the stubble of his short beard. Chase was masculinity personified, the kind of rough-and-tumble sexy that made a girl’s ovaries take up pole dancing and aerobic strip tease classes.

In Paris, the men were sexy of their own right but also pretty comfortable with their feminine side. Addison had missed the über males from home—the ones that hung around her older brothers and worked with her daddy’s race horses and muscle cars.

She tucked an errant curl behind her ear and wished for a hair tie. She’d forgotten how heavy her hair felt in the southern Indiana humidity. Yet, she’d missed the heaviness of the air, the way it made her feel grounded, part of the earth.

“Thanks for taking care of the ’Vette while I was gone,” she said, thinking, safe topics only. She shouldn’t have followed him out here. She’d come home with a simple goal of avoiding scandal and slipping away before Chase could ask questions. How did she think a private chat by the water would get her there?

Chase looked at her, brow raised. “I thought you’d have preferred if I torched the thing.”

She swallowed hard. The car had been a high school graduation gift from her father. Everyone in town had smiled and commented on how it matched her personality. She’d hated it. What the hell did she need with a hot pink Corvette? “You always did understand me better than anyone else.”

“Maybe no one else understood you because you ran off to Paris before they had a chance.”

She winced.

“When are you leaving?”

The question took her by surprise. His voice was gruff, like each syllable had been dragged through the gravel at the bottom of the rocky creek bed then resurfaced, desperate for air. The sound made something ragged break loose in her chest, reminding her she couldn’t keep living her life the way she had been, running from everything and never to anything, wandering through life while her heart stayed in Decadence Creek.

She looked at her hands, realized she’d been wringing them in her lap. “I go back to Paris tomorrow night,” she said, stamping down the dread that rose when she thought of the monotony ahead of her. Photocopies. Answering phones. Arranging lunches. Not exactly the high profile fashion career she let the people of Decadence Creek imagine. “The job calls and there’s a show coming up.”

Chase kept his eyes on the river and gave a sharp nod. “Sounds like you’ve gotten everything you ever wanted.”

Not everything. “Right.”

He speared his fingers into his thick, tousled dark hair. “The way you left...”

She bit her lip.

“Real shitty,” he said, “leaving like that.”

She nodded.

“That night—” He swallowed hard as if the words were a large dose of bitter medicine. “—I had no idea you’d be gone the next day.”

Me either. “It’s complicated,” she whispered.

His jaw worked for a moment, like he was testing out words and tossing them out as unsatisfactory. “You could have told me.”

And have him talk her out of it? “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” A breeze blew off the water and she hugged herself against the chill, rubbing her arms. She was stupid to follow him out here. Stupid to think he would understand she had once needed him, more than anyone, to accept her when she’d offered herself. Even—especially—if she’d only been offering one night.

She pushed herself off the ground and turned toward the barn.

She had taken two steps when his hand on her wrist stopped her. His hot, work-roughened fingers skimmed over her skin as they traced an invisible path to her shoulder. Her breath caught as he turned her.

He cupped her chin in his hands and lowered his head until his mouth waited inches above hers. He froze above her for a moment. Their eyes locked as their breath mingled.

She tried to read him, see the thoughts he hid behind eyes the color of dark chocolate. Then his gaze dropped to her lips and she stopped breathing.

“Goodbye, Chase,” she said, but he didn’t release her and she didn’t try to move.

“You do know the word,” he said softly, but then his lips were on hers. One hand slid into her hair and the other pulled her body against the solid plains of his chest.

Instinctively, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt as she opened under him. She rubbed her tongue against his, tasted him and waves of pleasure and lust—and something bigger, scarier—echoed out from her core and settled as an aching need between her thighs.

He was the one to break the kiss. She wouldn’t have. She would have kissed him all night on the banks of the creek, would have let him take her body and soul right there in the open of her daddy’s land.

Then she would have hated herself for her impulsiveness, and Chase would suffer the consequences.

He broke the kiss and pulled back, shaking his head and breathing hard.

She grabbed his tie, tugged him closer before the heat of his body could leave hers. “I—” She struggled to steady her breathing, to find words when there were none.

She released him and took a step back. “Nothing’s really changed though, has it?”

He didn’t answer, and she walked away.

Chapter Three

Music from the reception floated across the breeze and she followed it, steering clear of the walkway that lead the way from the creek to the barn in favor of the thick carpet of grass.

Her heels sank into the soft earth and she slid them off, looping the straps over a finger.

Cool and dewy, the grass slid between her toes as she inhaled the scents of her childhood. Her daddy’s prize horses in one direction, the rushing creek in the other. She closed her eyes and she was a kid again. A kid who wanted to escape this little town, a kid who was always in a hurry to grow up but had no idea what the real world was really like. No idea how lonely she would be away from home.