Truly Madly Deeply: A Grumpy x Sunshine Romance (Forbidden Love Book 1)

When I returned to the inn, the first thing I did was throw doors and windows open, calling Cal’s name. She should have been back from her errands by now. I flung the duvet off the bed and tossed the closet doors open. Nada. I rummaged in my front pocket for my phone, and when I found it, I realized there was a note sitting on the nightstand, glowing under the buttery light of the lamp. Pocketing my phone, I advanced toward the note, ripping it from the wooden surface, my heart somersaulting, landing wrong, and breaking every fucking bone in its body.

Row,

Meet me at the back of the parking lot.

—Dot

I grabbed my key card and took the stairs two at a time, wondering if I was too late, if I had missed her. It was a fucked-up train of thought. I’d wait an entire lifetime and some change for Cal, no questions asked. Then why was I so worried she wouldn’t reciprocate it?

Because she is the loveliest, flightiest person you’ve ever met. Because Franco broke her, and now that you are gluing back the pieces, you see that some of them are missing. Shattered beyond repair.

Looping around the wooden stairway, I pounded the carpeted floor to the back of the inn, passing golden-framed pastel paintings, arched rooms, and striped wallpaper. Admittedly, it was a lovely inn. I could see why people loathed me for running it out of business with the monstrous hotel that was going to open in this town.

“See you later, Mr. Rogers,” I called out to the receptionist.

“Eat shit, asshole,” he greeted back.

Undeterred, I pushed the back door open, spilling out to the small parking lot. It was completely empty, save for a red, unfamiliar black Mustang. My pulse shallowed, and I growled in disappointment, eyes skimming the immaculate bushes surrounding the empty lot. I looked down to take out my phone when a horn blared in my vicinity. Cal’s head popped up from the driver’s seat of the Mustang. Her grin was so wide, you could have fit a banana horizontally into her mouth.

“Get in, pretty boy.” She blinked five, six, seven times. Fast enough to show me she was nervous.

I grinned, gliding her way while expertly flipping the key card between my fingers. “What are you wearing, Dot?”

“Not much, and it’s about to be taken off very soon.” She adjusted the horrid, yellow plaid jacket with one hand. “Now get in. I managed to rent this thing on an hourly basis and I really want to bring it back before the beginning of our shift.”

“Romantic.” I slid into the passenger seat, staring at her with what must have been the goofiest, stupidest smirk to ever grace my face. “I’ll ask again—what’re you wearing?”

She turned her whole body to face me, her plaid yellow skirt riding up her smooth thighs. “Recreating the first night we were together. Only…” She bit her lower lip. “Making it right. Making it good for you, this time. For both of us. We deserve it, don’t you think?”

I nodded slowly, my heart in my goddamn throat. “Yeah, Dot. We do.”

We spent the drive to Make-out Mountain discussing the fascinating subject of whatever the fuck. I wasn’t really paying attention, instead laser-focused on the fact that Dot had rented a sports car and slipped into the outfit she’d worn that night, down to the knee socks and Mary Janes, for a do-over. That meant something, didn’t it?

We weaved through a thick forest, uphill on a gravel path toward the top of the mountain. The car groaned in protest, too old and rusty for the journey. The windows were rolled down, the freezing cold barely registering from the adrenaline coursing through me. She parked at the exact same spot I had last time, turning off the car and leaning back in her seat. Her throat worked with a swallow, and she closed her eyes. I stared at her intently.

“What now?” she asked. I grinned. I had asked her exactly this question five years ago, after she’d asked me to drive up the mountain when I’d picked her up from that bonfire party. Back then, she hadn’t known it was a dream come true. That I had been shitting bricks, worried I’d somehow say the wrong thing, act the wrong way, and blow it.

So I answered her with the exact same words she’d used on me. “Now, we sit on the hood of your car and watch the view.”

We slipped out and rounded the car, hopping on the still-warm hood. Our pinkies knotted together as we stared at the Atlantic Ocean stretching like a tight canvas in a million shades of blue. I closed my eyes and breathed in the briny air, Dot’s voice drifting into my ears like a lullaby. “You’re right. I wasn’t drunk that night. But I knew it’d be the last time I’d see you in months, years even. And I panicked. Panicked that there would be no one else like you. Someone I’d be attracted to and feel safe enough around to let my guard down. I’d never been selfish before. It was a foreign feeling. I always put my parents’ feelings and Dylan’s wants and needs before my own…” She trailed off. “I just wanted to get rid of my virginity. To go to college not feeling even more of a loser than necessary. I made peace with being another notch on your freakishly long belt. I never thought you could have had feelings for me.”

“I know,” I said, frowning at the view, our pinkies tightening around one another.

“I spent the entire five years apart from you and Dylan hating myself for how I treated both of you.” Her voice cracked like crème brûlée.

“There was no need for you to do that,” I growled, hating the idea that I had caused her so much pain, even if she had done the same to me. “We both love you to death, through thick or thin.”

“W-why?” I didn’t see her face but still knew she was blinking excessively.

“Because it’s impossible not to,” I admitted brokenly, tearing my gaze from the ocean and fixing it on her. I captured her chin between my fingers, tilting her face up to mine.

She pawed at my face, her long lashes fluttering as she took me in. “Do-over?”

I nodded. “Do-over.”

One of her palms slid down my neck, down my chest, and across my abs, settling on my erection, which was already throbbing. She unzipped my pants slowly, making my lungs sear with whatever oxygen was left in them. I opened my mouth to tell her something—fuck knew what, because I sure as hell didn’t—but Dot pressed her lips against mine, hungrily devouring my tongue, sucking it into her mouth with a sexy purr. She undid the first two buttons of my denim, slipping her hand inside, rubbing it against my hard ridge. She used the friction of my briefs to gather heat into her cold palm, and I bucked forward, chasing her touch as I grabbed the back of her head and kissed her with everything I fucking had in me. My hand slipped under her skirt, and I used my thumb to brush her clit through her panties, which were already drenched and ruined. My mouth dragged from her lips to the sensitive junction between her neck and jaw.

“I wanted to eat you out so badly,” I recalled, my dick jumping and jolting in her hot palm as she played with it inside my pants. Rubbing it, thumbing at the slit, milking it with her tight little fist. “I knew you’d be my favorite dessert before I even had my first taste.”

She clung to my neck with one hand, jerking me off with the other. The wind whipped and swirled, dancing around us, striking at our faces. Her thighs were freezing, and I wanted to cover her whole body with mine. Shield her from the cold.

“We should hurry about it.” Dot dropped down to her knees, tugging my dick out and covering it with her mouth. “We could get caught.” The mere idea of being caught with my cock shoved deep inside her mouth made my balls tighten with lust and pleasure. I threaded my fingers in her hair, pushing it off her face as she gurgled and sucked my cock happily, fisting its base and slipping her mouth down to suckle my balls, her tongue licking the seam between my ball sack and my ass. My fists tautened around her hair and I hissed, the desire unbearable. I knew I wasn’t going to last more than a couple minutes. This time, though, I was going to make her come until she couldn’t walk straight through April.

“Up, baby.” I pulled my dick out of her mouth an inch at a time, the cold biting into the wet flesh. “Already halfway coming,” I grunted. I flattened my hand over her stomach, pinning her down on the hood until her upper body lay there, and pushed my thigh between her legs. They fell open willingly, my upper knee pressing against her swollen clit. I could practically feel it pulsating against my leg through her underwear. She moaned, trying to rub herself against me.

“Row,” she begged. Brushing her panties to the side, I fisted my dick, guiding it to her opening. It was glistening and pink, dripping down the hood just for me. I realized she was coming, panting and convulsing before I had even entered her. I pressed home deeply and all at once, meeting zero resistance—all sleek and velvety folds, wet and ready to take me. Her walls instantly constricted around me, milking my dick. She tipped her head back, eyes closed, giving in to the moment as I thrusted into her, grabbing the backs of her knees and hoisting her left ankle over my opposite shoulder to increase the friction.

Our moans echoed over the cliff and, realizing there could be people nearby, I placed one hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. Somehow, this ended up turning both of us on even more. I was hard to the point of misery, my cock spasming inside her.

“Getting too fucking close now,” I grunted, leaning down and uncovering her mouth, pressing a dirty, wet kiss to her lips.

“Me too. I feel like you lit a match inside me and let the heat spread everywhere. I love this.”

I love you.

I kissed her again, pushing deeper into her. She cried out, breathlessly clawing my arms as the orgasm sprinted through her. Just in time, as my own climax was rippling through my body, making goose bumps run all over my skin. I poured my seed into her, clamping my jaw to stop myself from goddamn whimpering. This woman brought me to my fucking knees, and I wanted to stay there for eternity so I could eat her out. I stayed inside her even after we both stopped trembling, our foreheads pressed together, our hot breaths fanning over each other’s faces. I was out of breath and out of my depth and fuck, I had not signed up for this. It was supposed to be scratching a decade-long itch. Nothing more.

The sound of a roaring engine purred from our left, signaling an approaching vehicle. Dot reached between her thighs, sticky from our cum, to rearrange her panties along her slit. She pushed down her skirt, reaching to tuck my half-mast dick back into my pants and button them. I watched her through heavy-lidded eyes, mesmerized.

“Please forgive me.” She cleared her throat, her big blue gaze clinging to my face.

“Already did, silly.” My eyes raked along her body to make sure she was all right.

“No, not only for what I did.” She shook her head. “But for what I might do in the future. I have the tendency to reject happiness whenever it finds me. A self-defense mechanism, I suppose. I don’t trust myself with a good thing, Row. And you? You are the best thing out there.”

Later that day, I hurled two garbage bags into the trash can outside Descartes.

I played the conversation with Tate in my head. His little speech hadn’t made my balls shake as he’d expected, but he had a point—I needed to decide what I wanted to do before wrapping shit up here. I was running out of time and keeping the entire town hanging in the air. Either I told him to fuck off or I signed the deal.

The alleyway was frosted over; a thin layer of ice covered the ground. A stack of cardboard was piled up against a fire hydrant. The sound of the heavy metal door of the back of the restaurant clicked shut. I groaned. I had locked myself out.

I began making my way around the pavement to the front entrance, my boots crunching the ice, when an arm wrapped around my neck from behind, yanking me backward.

My back slammed against a burly chest. I sank my fingers into the arms cutting off my oxygen supply, trying to pry them open, when a dark figure appeared before me. A tall, built person wearing black head-to-toe and a balaclava. The person behind me tied my wrists with zip ties, and the man in front of me grabbed my jaw, holding me in place before swinging his fist back with a sucker punch.

The metallic taste of blood exploded in my mouth. I spat a lump of it in the man’s face, a wry laugh leaving my lips. “You’re fucking with the wrong person if you think a little manhandling is going to change my mind one way or the other.”

The man in front of me reached for my neck, squeezing, fingers shaking. I instantly became lightheaded as the person behind me kept digging their knee into my lower back, while the other kicked me as hard as they could. “I’m selling, all right. And the ugly-ass mall and hotel are going to be a constant reminder that I screwed you over. Even if you kill me now, my family will go through with the deal.” This was true. My days of being bullied were over. By my father. By Fuckface. I was the master of my own universe.

A set of knuckles landed directly in my eye socket. I stumbled back, making the person behind me fall flat on their ass. “You better change that mind of yours. Otherwise, both your arms will be broken and you can kiss your chef career goodbye,” he warned, voice shaky and foreign to my ears.

Someone had hired him, I realized. He wasn’t anyone from town.

“Tempted to finish you right here, right now,” the man in front of me growled, balling the collar of my shirt and yanking me forward, slamming my back against the brick wall. The other attacker stumbled to the front, bringing his knee up to kick my face. Finally, I had an in. I turned sideways so I could use my cuffed hands, seizing his knee and twisting it to one side. The cracking sound it made told me I had broken something. The scream that followed confirmed my suspicion.

I kicked the first attacker in the face, leaving a nice imprint of my boot on his balaclava. Blood began filling the dark material.

“Shit!” the second attacker crouched over, nearly toppling to the ground. “Fuck, he broke my…” The fabric of his pants clung to his thigh as blood spread around it too. “Fuck this shit, dude. I’m outta here.”

The two spun around, running toward the street. I chased them down, ready to kill someone. It wasn’t the pain that slowed me down. It was the blood trickling from my forehead. It scorched my eyes and made it impossible to see anything.

Actually, it wasn’t even that either. My abs burned. When I looked down, I saw a dark stain spreading over my white chef jacket. Blood.

Fuck. They’d knifed me. The adrenaline flowing through my veins dulled the pain. Slipping on my own blood and slowing down to a limp, I rounded the corner after them. My cuffed wrists didn’t help my speed. I inched closer, close enough to kick down one of the attackers. An Acura juddered to a halt in front of me. The back door flew open, and the two stuffed each other inside. The car bolted, speeding through a red light, zigzagging across the street. I squinted to catch the license plate, but my vision was punctuated with milky white dots, blurring by the second.

Which was just as well because my body decided now was a great time to pass the fuck out.

“Chef! You okay?” Taylor’s voice was urgent behind me. The sound of his sneakers hitting the pavement rang through the street. “Shit! Stay awake. I’m calling an ambulance.”

Before I went under, there was another voice.

Familiar. Soft. Ethereal.

“Row. Oh my God, Row!”

I collapsed into arms that smelled of green apples and white musk and everything that was beautiful and right in this world, and even though I couldn’t see her, I could feel her.

She sobbed into my neck, cradling my face.

“If you die, I’m going to kill you.”