“Yeah, I don’t do singing in front of big crowds,” he said in explanation.

“But you sang at that bar for open mic night,” I pestered.

“It’s more Cole’s thing than mine. I’m fine with playing the guitar.” He shot me a hot look. “Or I could sing just for you,” he suggested, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip before turning his attention back to the darkened road.

“Like that song you wrote, the one you sang at the dive bar?” I asked. I had always wanted to ask him about that song Wondering if I was right in who it was about.

“So you figured it out then?” he asked, smirking.

“Figured what out?” I was going to play dumb on this one. I wanted to hear him say it.

“That it was about you,” he admitted with a snort.

“I kind of guessed that. You know with the whole ice of your smile and my touch being toxic. I mean, who else could those flattering lyrics be about?” I teased.

“I wrote that from an angry place, Riley. I promise there has been other since then. Much nicer ones,” he said, sounding shy.

“I’d love to hear them sometime,” I replied with a sultry tone that surprised me. I watched with a keen sense of satisfaction as Garrett’s eyes widened and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed.

I hid my smile by looking out the window. I didn’t recognize the neighborhoods we were driving through. Bakersville wasn’t a large town but I could admit that I hadn’t made it a point to learn all of its nooks and crannies in my four years here.

The town slowly disappeared as we drove deeper into the countryside. After fifteen minutes or so the van took a turn onto a gravel drive before parking in an overgrown lot. Garrett pulled a couple of flashlights out of the glove compartment.

“Come on,” he said, sounding unusually excited. I got out of the van and waited as he pulled an old blanket and his guitar case off the back seat. Was he expecting us to hang out on a blanket outside in f**king December?

“Uh…” I began, ready to voice my very loud disapproval of this plan. Maybe he was trying to be romantic or something. I was going to tell him not to bother. That he could save his sentiments and take me somewhere warm.

Garrett gave me a wry look, as if reading my mind. “Don’t say anything. Just come on.” He held out his hand and I reluctantly grabbed it. He gave my arm a little shake. “I won’t let you freeze, Ri. Promise,” he vowed with a wink.

I grumbled under my breath as my teeth started to chatter but I followed him through an over grown field toward a row of trees. Garrett handed me a flashlight after turning his on. “You’ll want to watch where you’re walking. There are some holes along here,” he said, indicating the uneven ground.

I was all about some good old fashioned outdoor fun. I loved to hike and had spent most of last summer learning the trails in and around the Blue Ridge Mountains. But even I had my limits. And they definitely applied to traipsing through a field in the middle of the night in a short skirt in freezing temperatures.

But I followed Garrett knowing that come hell or high water I was ready to follow him anywhere. Crazy how a few months can change your mindset so completely.

“If I fall and break my ankle, your ass is carrying me out of here,” I whispered harshly.

“Why are you whispering? Are you afraid Big Foot will come and eat you?” Garrett joked and I swatted his arm.

We walked into the line of trees and come through in a clearing by a river. There was a fire pit off to the side surrounded by a ring of rocks and some chairs. There was a picnic table and a dock with a boat tied to it.

And most importantly there was a small cabin nestled back in the trees. Garrett pulled me toward the small building, stopping in front of the door. He reached out to rest the flat of his hand against the smooth wood, his head bowed.

I put my hand on his shoulder, not understanding the sudden change in his mood.

“Are you okay?” I asked him softly.

Garrett’s shoulders heaved and then he looked up at me. In the gleam of the flashlights I could see that his eyes were wet. “I haven’t been here since…they died,” he said in a rush and I understood that this place had belonged to his parents. And him taking me here meant something extremely important.

I opened my mouth and then shut it; I didn’t know quite what to say. Garrett squeezed my hand before dropping to dig his keys out of his pocket. Fumbling in the dark, he finally found the right one and put it into the lock. With a squeak he pushed the door open and we walked into the heart of his past.

We were met with a blast of stale, musty air. Garrett felt around on the wall until he found a light switch. He flicked it on, illuminating the darkness to reveal a space that looked as though it had been neglected for some time.

The old, worn furniture was covered with a thick layer of dust and grime. There were cobwebs everywhere. I coughed and then fell into a fit of sneezing.

“This place is worse than I thought,” Garrett said more to himself. He went and opened a few windows to try and air the place out. The rush of cold filled the room and I was shivering all over again.

Garrett caught sight of me with my arms wrapped around myself and cursed. “Shit, I shouldn’t have brought you here. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He sounded so dejected that I forced myself to unwrap my arms and unclench my legs so I could walk over to him.

“Well, why did you bring me here?” I asked him.

Garrett lifted his shoulders in a sad shrug. “I was thinking about this place the other day and how much I loved being here when I was younger. Mom and Dad bought it when I was ten and we spent a lot of weekends fishing, swimming, doing your typical family stuff.” He walked over to the fireplace and picked up a framed picture that was covered in so much filth that you couldn’t see the picture beneath the glass. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand and wiped at the frame, slowly revealing the picture of a family smiling together in this very room.

The man and woman were the same people in the picture at Garrett’s house. And the boy smiling a full, happy smile with a head full of unmanageable blond hair was a younger, more content version of the man who stood beside me.

Garrett placed the picture back on the mantle and braced a hand on the wood as he peered down into the cold and empty hearth. “After they died, I couldn’t come back here. So I closed it up. Tried to forget about it. I kept the electricity on for some reason even if I never planned to come here again.”

He stood up straight and backed away. “But lately, the memories have been harder to ignore.” Garrett looked over at me as though I were the reason he was facing some deeply hidden demons.

“And you wanted to bring me here?” I pressed; wanting him to acknowledge what I hoped was the reason behind our late night visit to his family’s cabin.

Garrett ran his hands through his hair and gripped his scalp. Then, looking at me, he moved his hands to cradle my face. “Yes. I wanted to bring you here,” he stated.

“Why?” I asked.

Garrett let out a noisy breath. “Because very few people know the real me. So many see me as the guitarist of Generation Rejects. The townie that throws the crazy parties. The stoner who f**ks around and likes to have a good time. But not you, Riley. Okay, maybe at first that’s what you saw.” I grimaced at this but Garrett ran his thumb along the bottom curve of my lip as if to stop my guilty thoughts.

“But now, you see me. And I want to give you every little piece of the person I am. Of the person I used to be. Because I love you, Riley Walker. And I want you so deep in my life that you can’t ever leave,” he said softly and I couldn’t stop the tears from falling freely. What the hell was it about Garrett that turned me into a pile of hormonal mush?

He kissed me tenderly. Not a sexual action, but one filled with love and devotion. And there wasn’t a girl on this planet that could resist the feel of his lips promising the world.

I opened my mouth to admit my own feelings. To bare my soul to the one person who should see it but Garrett pressed his thumb against my lips silencing me.

“You don’t need to say anything. Not right now. Right now, I need to be with you…here. Please,” he pleaded as if I could deny him anything right now.

I kept quiet and nodded my assent. Garrett leaned in kissed me again and then released me. Quietly, he went about building a fire in the dusty fireplace from wood that had been left from an earlier time. Once the fire was raging, he unrolled the thick blanket he had brought from his van and laid it out on the floor.

Sinking to his knees on the ground, he pulled me down beside him. I fell to my own knees and faced him in the flickering light of the fire. For the first time tonight I wasn’t freezing my ass off. I was warm and completely at peace.

Slowly, Garrett pushed my jacket off my shoulders. I wiggled out of the sleeves and tossed the coat onto the couch behind us. I cringed at my overzealousness. But I was totally ready to get na**d and sweaty with him. And here he was trying to be all sweet and romantic.

Garrett laughed. “My girl is a little over excited,” he teased and I flushed at his endearment. He called me his girl. Typically I balked at possessive titles. I was a modern woman after all. But somehow, being Garrett’s anything felt like the most wonderful thing in the world.

My trembling hands began to unbutton his shirt. I tried to slow myself. You know, take my time. But I found that I was practically tearing the buttons off in my haste to get him out of his clothing. Garrett couldn’t stop laughing as I pulled his belt off in one rambunctious tug.

“You really can’t let me take control of anything, can you?” he asked and I wondered if that bothered him. Garrett grabbed my face and kissed me soundly. “And I love you for it. I wouldn’t have you any other way,” he responded firmly, grabbing the hem of overly girly blue blouse and pulled it up over my head.

We were still on our knees facing each other. Garret only in his jeans, me in my bra and skirt. And suddenly my haste to get na**d faded and I just wanted to spend an eternity staring at this man who had somehow, someway become the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

“You are so f**king gorgeous, Riley.” He traced the line of my collarbone, his finger dipping into the crevice between my breasts, unleashing a wave of chills over my skin.

“I’m scared as hell you’ll wake up tomorrow and realize you can do a lot better than me. That you and me, we’re too different and this can never work.” Garrett bent low and replaced his finger in the valley between my br**sts with his mouth, suckling the skin and eliciting a throaty moan from my throat.

“Please don’t wake up thinking that. Because you and me could be something wonderful. I swear to God I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you,” he said into my skin as he kissed a line up chest and up the side of my neck until he sucked my earlobe between his teeth, making me gasp.

“You don’t need to prove anything to me, Garrett,” I rasped, finding it hard to talk. Hard to breathe. Hard to think. All I could do was feel his lips on my skin. His fingers now removing my bra from my body in a single fluid motion.

“I already know we’re something incredible. And I need you in my life, Garrett. I can’t imagine my existence without you,” I said with such conviction it made Garrett pull back and look me in the eye, as if waiting for me to shout just kidding!

“You really mean that?” he asked, sounding so vulnerable it made my heart ache. I wasn’t quite ready to declare my love for him but I could share with him how intense my feelings were.

“Yes, I mean it. You and me, on paper we’re all wrong. But that’s okay, because the reality is we just work. I don’t know why. But we do. And I want to take this road with you, wherever it leads us,” I said, smiling through the blubbering mess of tears that were wreaking havoc on my face.

Garrett’s face lit up and then he kissed me. And he was through with being soft and gentle. Because this time when he touched me, he was all desire and heat and an overpowering need to consume.

He laid me down on the blanket, our skin hot from the pounding lust between us and the fire raging a few feet away. He pulled my skirt down over my h*ps and I lifted myself up so he could slide it down my legs. His hands slid their way back up until the held my h*ps and his lips worked a trail to my aching breasts.

He took one nipple in his mouth and arched up to meet him, a loud cry echoing from my lips at the feel of his lips around the sensitive bud. As he worked my flesh, I made short work of the rest of his clothing.

When he was completely na**d, I felt him press his hard length between my legs. A thin strip of fabric the only thing separating us. And I was ready for that barrier to take a hike.

“Take my panties off,” I breathed into Garrett’s mouth. When he didn’t move quickly enough for my liking I growled against his lips. “Now!”

Garrett chuckled and immediately complied. Hooking his fingers around the waistband he gave them a vicious yank, tearing them away from body.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” I purred in satisfaction, watching as he threw the scrap of ruined fabric into the fire. Garrett resumed kissing me and I turned into a liquid puddle as his fingers found my wet center. Stroking, touching, loving every sensitive inch of me.

Thrusting a finger deep inside me, we both groaned in absolute delight at the feel of it. “I love it when you touch me,” I whispered, needing to validate all the ways he blew my mind.

Garrett pulled his finger from my body and began to make wet circles around my throbbing clit. I moaned low and deep as he pushed two fingers inside me again. “I love touching you, baby,” he whispered back, watching me as I rode the cresting wave he was unleashing on my body.