The word reverberated in my head, bouncing around and growing until it filled every nook and crevice. When everything started moving again, it did so at an elevated pace. My heart rate soared, and I felt a little dizzy.
This close, I realized I’d been mistaken. She wasn’t a girl. She was all woman. I tried hard to keep my gaze on her shoulder length, silvery blonde hair, huge, clear blue eyes, and rosy lips. I failed spectacularly. She was wearing a wide-necked, purple T-shirt and my eyes were drawn down the long column of her throat to large, full breasts that I immediately knew would spill from my hands. My eyes continued to her white shorts that showcased her nipped in waist and luscious, rounded hips, all the way down her endless legs to the most adorable, purple painted toes I’d ever seen.
We’d be having a talk about those shorts, I thought darkly. While I enjoyed the assets they so clearly highlighted, I didn’t want any other men looking at what was mine.
She was several inches taller than her mother and her face was longer, but otherwise, they looked very much alike. Movement in my peripheral vision snapped me out of my inappropriate perusal of my teenage niece’s body. My eyes whipped up and I only hoped that neither Stanley or Bunny had noticed me ogling Magnolia. I turned back to them, trying to avoid the matching mixture of lust and shock in her eyes.
Mine.
No.
Seventeen, Harrison. Still in high school. Can’t be traveling the world if you’re locked in a jail cell, man.
Luckily, the couple was gazing at Magnolia fondly and it didn’t seem like they had noticed my reaction. I shifted my bag strategically in front of me, hiding the physical evidence of said reaction.
“This is my daughter, Magnolia,” Bunny introduced.
“Maggie,” she corrected softly. Her voice was husky and it washed over me, hardening my cock even more. “It’s nice to meet you, Harrison. Stanley has told us a lot about you.”
I forced an easy smile. “I’m sure none of it is true,” I joked. She smiled and my breath caught.
Mine.
Fuck. My shoulders slumped, I had to stop that.
“Come into the kitchen,” Bunny suggested as she waved to a door behind her. “We were about to sit down to a special dinner. I’m so glad you could be here to join us! We’re celebrating Magnolia’s”—“Maggie” her daughter interrupted to scold her—“birthday today, even though it’s not until tomorrow. With the rehearsal dinner and everything, Stanley very smartly suggested making tonight about our girl. You only turn eighteen once!” She fluttered over to Maggie and kissed her cheek, then flitted through the door she’d indicated.
“Happy Birthday,” I murmured, keeping my eyes averted as I followed Bunny. It was no use, I couldn’t keep from admiring Maggie’s spectacular ass. Tomorrow. She would be eighteen tomorrow. Midnight. Eighteen. My body started to burn as images of our naked bodies passionately entwined filled my mind. Those legs wrapped around me as I pumped my hips, burying myself inside her over and over. Making her mine.
I shook my head, trying to dispel the fantasies, but they wouldn’t go away completely. Neither would one other thought.
At midnight, she’s mine.
Chapter 2
Maggie
Oh.
My.
Hotness.
When I’d started down the stairs at my mom’s yell, I’d been excited to meet my soon-to-be step-dad’s brother. It had been just Mom and me for so long, but not anymore. Her marriage to Stanley meant we had a family. Having family meant my mom had other people she could depend on when I left home, although, I wasn’t sure how much help my new uncle was going to be since he spent so much time traveling the world. The lucky jerk. I’d never even managed to make it to Miami and it was only a couple of hours away from the small town where I’d been raised.
My best friend, Lilah, and I had always talked about taking off to see the world after graduation. But, she had moved to New York when we were fourteen so her mom could undergo cancer treatments. We still dreamed about it from time to time, but I think we’d also accepted that it would never be more than that. I was envious of this guy who’d seen the world.
All thoughts of Lilah, my mom, Stanley, and travel were wiped from my brain the moment I laid eyes on Harrison Butler. My heart started pounding in my chest. My stomach felt like a swarm of butterflies had taken flight inside it. And my panties? I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that they’d spontaneously combusted at the sight of him. But in my defense, I hadn’t been prepared for the reality of him, not when I’d been thinking of him as my uncle.
At six foot two, with a lean frame and sinewy muscles, he seemed to vibrate with an inner energy. His hair was as dark as the sky at midnight, and long enough that there was a hint of curl to it. His whiskey-brown eyes were surrounded by thick lashes that any woman would kill to have. His skin was golden brown, probably from spending lots of time outside. The only lines in his face were from laughter, and judging by the looks of them, he laughed a lot.
He was male, all male, and nothing like the boys at school. For the first time in my life, I responded like a woman. I’d never desired any of the boys at my school, but I’d read and heard enough to know that was exactly what I was feeling for Harrison. I wanted him. Badly.
If the heated look in his light brown eyes for the brief moment they’d met mine was any indication, he wanted me right back. As I followed everyone into the kitchen, my cheeks heated as I remembered how he’d yanked his bag in front of his body after his gaze had scanned mine—like he’d been trying to hide something. Only he wasn’t going to be able to hide it from me forever because I fully intended to use the next couple of weeks to their full advantage.
I chuckled under my breath as I sat down, thinking about how much I’d argued against the idea of having my new uncle stay with me while Mom and Stanley went on their honeymoon. I’d been so pissed off that they thought I needed a babysitter after all the years I’d taken care of my mom, but Stanley refused to hear any of it. Not even when my mom tried explaining to him that I’d be eighteen by then and fine on my own.
“What’s so funny, Magnolia?” my mom asked as she set the lasagna on the table.
“Oh, I was just thinking how funny it is, the way things turn out sometimes.” As in, it was a lucky thing Stanley was a bit of a stick in the mud, or else I wouldn’t have Harrison all to myself soon. Which was quite ironic when you thought about it because the odds were high that he’d throw a fit when he found out about Harrison and me.
Harrison and me. Yeah, I might have been ju
mping the gun a bit picturing us as a couple already, but I couldn’t find it in myself to care. It didn’t matter to me that he was thirty to my soon-to-be eighteen. Or that I wasn’t even out of high school yet for another few months, and he was a renowned photo-journalist for a fancy magazine. Or even that he was the brother of the man my mom was going to marry this weekend. The only thing I cared about was the bone-deep knowledge that this man was meant to be mine.
She dropped a kiss on the top of my head as she placed a basket of garlic bread on the table before sitting down with us. “How so, my flower girl?”
I looked across the table, my eyes locking with Harrison’s while my mom dished food out onto everyone’s plates. “Just think about it. Harrison’s a world traveler, but he’s going to stay here with me in this sleepy town while you and Stanley head off on your honeymoon adventure. It’s like they’re trading places.”
“There’s nothing wrong with this sleepy town,” Stanley grumbled.
“Of course not, honey bear,” my mom cooed across the table at him. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be excited about our trip to Italy, now does it?”
“How can I not be when you’re so delighted by it?”
“Only because you’re taking me on my dream trip.”
The way he looked at my mom had my eyes filling with tears. When I’d first met Stanley, I’d been worried that he was all wrong for her. He was ultra conservative and my mom was such a free spirit. But there wasn’t a doubt in my mind about them as a couple anymore because he showed her—and me—how very much he loved her.
I was sniffling a little when I felt something brush softly against my leg. A quick glance under the table had my head jerking up to stare across it at Harrison because it had been his foot I’d found there. His eyes were filled with concern... and was that anger I saw, too?
“Why’re you crying, Maggie?” His voice was a low rasp that sent goosebumps along my skin.
“Happy tears,” I hiccupped, waving him off, even as my heart raced at the look he was sending my way.