A SEAL's Oath (SEALs of Chance Creek Book 1) (24 page)

“I could be,” she said, “but it would be easier if I didn’t feel I had to resist you all the time. Because you’ve forced me into this marriage, I can’t relax and simply enjoy you. I feel like we’re enemies.”

“We’re not enemies,” he told her.

“But if you can strong-arm me into a wedding, you can strong-arm me into anything. I can’t help wondering what else you might have up your sleeve.” She finally turned to face him.

Boone was uneasy. He still hadn’t told her about Montague and the consequences to Westfield if he failed to meet the goals Fulsom had set. He needed to warn Riley about what was coming.

Not now, though. Her mood was far too fragile. She reminded him of a doe at the edge of the woods, pausing to sniff the air for danger. One wrong word and she’d flee.

“We’ll have to compromise, like every husband and wife,” he said carefully. “I won’t keep you from your friends, though. I promise.”

“So you’ll let me spend my days at the manor?”

“Some of them—”

“But not my nights.” It was a statement, not a question.

Of course he expected her to share his bed. Didn’t she want that, too? His uneasiness grew. “I’ll want you with me,” he affirmed. He didn’t want to compromise on that.

“Then it won’t be the same. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I won’t meet up with Savannah in the kitchen.”

“No, you’ll meet up with me.”

“What good are you?” she said grumpily and pulled her hand away.

He smiled and took it back. “Let me show you.”

Riley didn’t mean
to respond when Boone kissed her. Her concerns were serious. She’d realized that even if her friends stayed through the filming of the television show, it wouldn’t be the same when she moved down to Boone’s community. Everyone else would live at the manor. She’d live in a tiny house. There probably wouldn’t be room to paint.

If only she didn’t feel so torn between them. Every time she talked to Boone he told her more about his intentions and some of his plans were fascinating. She’d long heard of the idea of closed-cycle gardening, but had never seen someone actually put the theory into practice. Boone and the Horsemen had made such careful arrangements. It touched her to think that the four rowdy boys she’d known had grown up into men who cared so much about the world.

She felt hesitant every time she engaged with Boone about his ideas, however, because she knew if she got too involved with them, she could easily lose her chance to paint. She’d wanted something different when she came here—a kind of artistic idyll in which she didn’t have to think or work so hard.

But Boone’s kisses made her tingle all over and Riley couldn’t help responding to him. The more his mouth moved over hers, the harder time she had remembering her grievances. What did she care where she lived as long as Boone would touch her the way he was doing now? His hands sliding over her skin felt so good.

“You’ve got too many clothes on,” Boone said.

“So do you.”

When his hands found the ties that bound up the back of her dress, Riley acquiesced with a look and Boone undid them. The more he fumbled, the more she wanted the dress gone. She got busy with the buttons of his shirt, and succeeded in almost unbuttoning all of them before Boone uttered an oath, gathered up her voluminous skirts and lifted her gown right up and over her head. He tossed it aside on the riverbank and took in her underthings.

“Our ancestors were sadists.”

Riley chuckled. “It’s all part of the fun.”

“You have a strange definition of fun.” But he got to work on her stays and chemise while Riley got the rest of his buttons undone and pushed the cotton shirt over his shoulders. His muscles were a work of art, each and every one of them bulging in high relief against his skin. Scars marred his chest and arms. Riley longed to know the history behind each one, but feared to hear Boone’s stories at the same time. It was difficult to think of all the times he must have been in danger.

Boone extricated her from her stays. Riley’s pulse beat double-time as he slid her chemise off and hooked his fingers under the band of the barely-there panties she wore underneath, the one non-Regency luxury she allowed herself. The skim of his finger as he pulled them down sent sensation thrilling through her veins. Riley wanted so much more from him. She tangled her hands in the waistband of his jeans, trying to undo the button and get them off. She couldn’t wait to feel him in her hands. Just knowing he’d be inside of her soon made her ache with longing.

“You’ve been holding back. I thought maybe you wanted to wait for our wedding night,” she teased him.

“To hell with that.” Boone helped her free him from his clothes and when he stood in front of her, she couldn’t help but drop to her knees to worship him.

“Riley—” His voice was a strangled moan as she took him into her mouth, reveling in the feel of his hardness. Feeling the girth of him made her blood throb. Soon he’d push inside of her. She loved that sensation more than anything else. Feeling her body yield to him—

But not yet.

First she had to give him the attention he was due.

She took her time exploring him with her mouth, tasting him, testing the texture of his skin with her tongue. The muscles in Boone’s thighs flexed as he braced against her movements. He surrendered to her with his eyes closed, one hand tangled in her hair, guiding her head as she moved, caressing him and coaxing him to harden even more.

She could tell he was straining to stay in control, and she couldn’t help experimenting with a few flicks of her tongue to see if she could force him over the brink. He caught her up and raised her to stand, too, despite her protestations, covering her mouth with his to stem the tide of her words. Kicking his clothes into place to create a kind of bed for them, he laid her down gently, never breaking off their kiss. Once she lay on her back, it was his turn to conquer her with his mouth. He explored every inch of her body, brushing his lips over her skin. When he played with her breasts, Riley found herself panting with need, but when he moved lower to bring his mouth to her sensitive core, she didn’t think she could hold on much longer.

She whimpered and he was back at her side in an instant. “Tell me what you want.”

“You, inside of me.”

“Now?”

How could he tease her like this? “Right now!”

Boone chuckled. “You got it.” But he paused again. “Should I use a condom?”

She didn’t want him to, but prudence made her nod.

He dug one out of the pocket of his jeans and quickly sheathed himself.

When Boone straddled her, gave himself a few strokes in preparation and eased down to nudge against her, Riley moaned aloud. When he pushed inside an inch at a time, she thought she’d melt right into the ground.

Boone felt so good. She was content to let him make love to her, curious as to how he would set about it. As she’d hoped, he wasted no more time with foreplay. He pulled out and surged into her a second time, this time fast and hard, just the way she liked it. As his movements increased in tempo so did Riley’s pleasure until she could have sworn that her skin was glowing with the beauty of the shared act.

As he plunged inside of her, Riley held on, blessing the fates that had brought them together again. She might have gone through life never knowing this—bereft of Boone forever.

As Boone brought her to the precipice and pushed her over into a flood of heat and pulsing sensation, Riley realized that she didn’t want to give Boone up, no matter what. Boone came with her, grunting as he pulsed inside her again, wrapping his arms around her and surrounding her until he became her whole world. When he finally stopped and fell on top of her, breathing as hard as she was, Riley bore his weight gladly.

She couldn’t do without Boone.

Now she had to figure out how to get everything else she wanted, too.

“You’ve gone quiet
again,” Boone said as they lay on the banks of Pittance Creek and stared at the stars visible overhead between the trees that lined either side of the waterway.

“How do you feel about weddings?” Riley turned on her side. Boone loved the curve of her hip, the dip of her waist and the way her breasts spilled forward against the arm she was leaning on.

“If you’re talking about our wedding, I’m all for it.”

“I’m talking about one in particular, but not ours.”

“Whose?”

“Savannah’s cousin Andrea. She mentioned she’d like a Jane Austen wedding, and we thought it might be a good idea.”

Boone sat up cross-legged. “You want to hold her wedding here?”

“At the manor. The four of us could do a fantastic job, and we’d earn some money doing it, which wouldn’t hurt. In fact, we wondered if we should make a business out of it.”

“You’d turn Westfield into a wedding venue?”

“And a B&B. Down the line, when the show’s over.”

“I guess I don’t see any harm in that. Although it’s got to be sustainable.”

“Of course. You and the Horsemen could help us. We’d run everything off solar and wind power; that would be part of our schtick. A sustainable Jane Austen B&B and wedding venue.”

It was the first time he’d seen Riley get excited about the topic of sustainability, and he could finally see a way to pull the women into his community. If they took charge of running the manor sustainably, they would likely get interested in what his men were doing at Base Camp. He could assign Jericho and Clay to help Savannah and Nora get used to the equipment, and maybe speed along the romances that seemed possible to bloom between them.

“I like it,” Boone said.

“There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Savannah’s cousin wants to be married in two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” Boone chuckled. “That doesn’t give you much time.”

“We can do it. The question is, will you let us?”

“Sure.” He didn’t see why not. In fact, it seemed like a good idea, because it had occurred to Boone they might have a problem he hadn’t foreseen. Fulsom was eccentric, but not in a Jane Austen way. He wouldn’t want period characters traipsing around his television show, and Boone didn’t know how to persuade him it would be a good thing. That meant he’d need to get Riley out of her Regency clothes by June first. He’d promised her a Regency wedding, but maybe she’d be satisfied with throwing one for Savannah’s cousin, instead.

He knelt down, ready to talk it over with her, just as Riley surged up onto her knees and flung her arms around his neck.

“Thank you! I knew you’d be reasonable! You won’t regret it, I swear!”

Boone decided to put off the rest of the conversation until another day.

“He said yes?”
Avery grabbed Riley’s hands and jumped up and down like a child.

“We can have the wedding here?” Savannah said, coming to join them in the front hall.

“And run the B&B?” Nora added, standing up from the sofa in the parlor.

Riley nodded. Boone had come up with as many suggestions as she had for how to bring their B&B and wedding venue in line with his sustainable community over the next few months. “He’s going to draw up plans for increased solar and wind energy production and help us get the manor all wired up. As long as we run our ideas by him to figure out how to make them compatible with Base Camp, it’s okay. We can have the wedding before filming starts and run the B&B after it ends.”

“That’s amazing! Now we can stay here indefinitely!” Avery couldn’t keep still. “I want to shout it to the rooftops!”

“How about you, Nora? Are you on board?” Riley held her breath while she waited for her friend’s answer.

“It isn’t teaching, but it’s a start,” Nora said. “I really don’t want to go back to Baltimore, but I have to do something useful.”

“You’ll have to do a lot of useful things if we’re going to host weddings.”

“How did you get Boone to agree to let us do this?” Savannah asked.

“And how much rent will we have to pay now that we’re going to run a business on his property?” Nora chimed in.

“We didn’t settle that, but I know he’ll be fair.” She felt a glow she’d missed ever since Boone had left Chance Creek all those years ago. After making love a second time, they’d thrown themselves into planning how the B&B could work. For the first time since they were teens, they were working together rather than getting in each other’s way. Their ideas had tripped over each other, they came so fast, and the more they talked, the more excited she’d become—both about the B&B, and about making it sustainable.

Until now, sustainability had been a theory, too complicated for her to carry out in her own life. With Boone, she saw how she could master it, and that excited her. She would participate in one of the most important conversations of her time, not just read about it as a bystander.

Savannah smiled. “Riley Eaton, you seduced that cowboy, didn’t you?”

“It was kind of mutual,” she said.

“You’re really sleeping with Boone?” Avery bounced again. “That’s awesome!”

Even Nora looked amused. “I thought you two might be getting serious.”

“Are you going to marry him? Can we throw your wedding, too?” Avery said.

“Don’t get ahead of yourselves.” But Riley couldn’t help bite her lip, her secret nearly bursting out. Her upcoming marriage didn’t seem like a farce anymore. She’d learned tonight that Boone was someone she could dream with—and that their dreams weren’t so far apart after all.

“Are you engaged?” Savannah grabbed her hand and frowned when she saw Riley’s ring finger was still bare.

Riley didn’t know what to say. She was almost ready to tell them… but not quite.

She held up her hand and displayed her bare finger. “You’ll be the first to know when there’s a ring on it,” she promised. “Is there anything left from dinner? I’m starving.”

“Midnight snack!” Avery whooped and dashed toward the kitchen.

“We need to find her a man next,” Nora said.

“What’s Walker like?” Savannah asked Riley.

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