All My Loving: A Butler, Vermont Novel Read online

  “And yet I did anyway.”

  “That’s very sweet of you.” He held her for a long time as she used a spatula to move the scrambled eggs around in the pan.

  “I made extra for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We also have those chocolate chip muffins your sister Charley made.”

  “That’s great, because I’m starving.”

  “You have to let go of me.”

  “Don’t want to.”

  “Don’t really want you to.”

  “Can I hold you some more after breakfast?”

  When she nodded, he let her go, but not before the simple contact with her had him right back to where he’d been when he left her last night—dying for more of her, and that, right there, was how he knew she was different from every other woman he’d met since he lost Naomi.

  Chapter Ten

  “We could never learn to be brave and patient

  if there was only joy in the world.”

  —Helen Keller

  Amanda had never been happier to see anyone than she was to see Landon when he came in the door looking tired and dirty and better than any man had a right to look. She’d had a rough night since he left, tossing, turning, worrying, reliving her own near miss until she finally gave up on sleep and got up to watch TV for a few hours.

  After breakfast, she did the dishes while he showered. He’d declined the coffee she’d offered him, because he said he needed to sleep at some point.

  When he emerged from the bathroom, she was sitting on the bed waiting for him. Her gaze traveled over his bare torso and landed on the massive bruise on his wrist that she hadn’t noticed earlier. “What happened to your arm?”

  “The dog wasn’t interested in being rescued.”

  “He bit you?”

  Landon stretched out on the bed next to her, propping his head on his uninjured arm. “It’s okay. He was scared.”

  Amanda took his other hand and ran her fingertips gently over the nasty bruise. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not too bad. I was wearing thick gloves that protected my skin.” He gave her hand a gentle tug. “Come here.”

  Amanda slid closer to him, sighing with relief when he tucked her in close to him. Despite his shower, a hint of smoke still lingered, mixed in with the appealing scents of body wash and shampoo. She tried not to focus overly much on the smoke.

  “I don’t want you to worry about me when I’m working.”

  “I’m kind of a hot mess since the fire, no pun intended.”

  Landon chuckled. “It’ll take a while for you to get past that.”

  “What if I never do? What if I can’t bear the thought of what you do for a living in light of what happened to me?”

  “You’ll be okay. The memories of that night will start to fade as you make new ones.”

  “Are you going to help me make new ones?” she asked in a teasing tone.

  “I’d love to.”

  His quick, serious reply threw her. “Landon…”

  “Shhh, get some sleep. I’m right here, and everything is okay.”

  Amanda took a deep breath and released it, trying to calm her fears and relax so she could get some badly needed rest. While he slept next to her, she dozed, dreaming of fire. She woke with a start when the phone rang.

  Groaning, Landon rolled over to pick up the bedside extension. “Abbott.” After a quiet second, he said, “Hey, Charl.” He listened for a second. “Yeah, we can do that. Tell Dad we’ll be there.” Another pause. “Yes, she’s here. Hang on.” He handed the phone to Amanda. “My sister Charley for you.”

  Amanda wondered why his sister was asking to talk to her. “Hello?”

  “Hi there. How’re you feeling?”

  “Much better, thanks.”

  “That’s great. I wanted to tell you the girls are all getting together at my house tonight. We’d love to have you join us, if you’d like to come.”

  “Oh, sure. That’d be fun.”

  “Great, put Landon back on, and I’ll tell him to bring you before his shift. One of the others will take you home after.”

  “Thanks for the invite.”

  “Of course. See you soon.”

  Amanda handed the phone to Landon. “She wants to talk to you.”

  He took the phone. “Yes, Charley, I’ll bring her. Yes! Shut up. I’m hanging up now.” The phone beeped when he ended the call. “Such a pain in my ass.”

  “What did she say?”

  “To make sure I get you there, as if I couldn’t do it without her saying that.”

  Amanda turned so she could see him and smiled at the scowl on his face. “I have a feeling you’ve given your sisters ample reason to be bossy with you.”

  “Maybe,” he conceded, returning her smile.

  “What did she say about your dad?”

  “He’s having an all-hands family meeting tomorrow at three and wanted to know if we can make it.”

  “What goes on at those meetings?”

  “Could be anything, knowing him. We all have a small stake in the business, so he keeps us in the loop.”

  “It’s cool that you’re all part of it.”

  “My grandfather wanted all eighteen of his grandchildren to be part of the business, even if most of us aren’t active in the running of it. Hunter, Will, Wade, Charley and Ella have bigger shares as managing partners with my dad, but the rest of us stay involved in a variety of ways. My contribution is the Christmas tree farm.”

  “Your family and the business fascinate me.”

  “We’re positively fascinating,” he said with a grin. “He asked if you could come, too. Hope it’s okay that I said you’d be there.”

  “Of course. I know they’re waiting on me to get back to work to train the staff on our product line.”

  “That ought to be an interesting day in the history of the family business.” He glanced at her as he played with her hair. “Did you sleep?”

  “I did.”

  “Do you feel better?”

  “Sort of. I had weird dreams.”

  “What kind of dreams?”

  “I was chasing you through a fire, trying to rescue you.”

  “You won’t have to rescue me. I can take care of myself. I promise you don’t have to worry about me.”

  “And yet…”

  “It’s kinda nice that you worry about me. That means you like me.”

  “Of course I like you. Why would I be in your house and your bed if I didn’t like you?”

  “Just checking.”

  “I can’t believe you’re still wondering about that.”

  “So we’re on the same page?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Are we?”

  “If you want this, you and me, then yes, we’re on the same page.”

  “And that’s what you really want? When you could have anyone—”

  He pounced, kissing the words right off her lips, wiping her brain clear of any thought that wasn’t about more of him. “Any questions?” he asked much later.

  Amanda emerged from the kiss to realize her arms were around him and he was more or less on top of her. “Um, no. No questions.”

  “Good.”

  “No, wait. I do have one question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I told you how I want to shake things up.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s okay if you’d rather put this on pause until I figure things out.”

  “The fire at the inn taught me something, too.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “Right now is all there really is. We can make plans for the future, but my Gramps likes to say that plans have a way of making fools of us.”

  “I like that. It’s so true.”

  “I understand where you’re at and what I’m getting into. I want to help you get what you want, whatever that might turn out to be.”

  “You’re very sweet.”

  He scoffed at that dreaded word. “Nah.”


  “Yeah.”

  “No.” He kissed her again, softer this time, giving her tenderness rather than the heated passion of last night’s kisses. “All I know is that I’ve wanted you, desperately, from the first time I ever laid eyes on you.”

  “Because I blew your mind talking about sex toys the way others talk about Tupperware?”

  “No,” he said, grinning. “But that didn’t hurt anything. It was you. All you. You were so sexy and confident and pretty. So very pretty.”

  “I’m not confident, Landon. It may seem that way, but I’m really not.”

  “I say you are.”

  “I like the way I look to you.”

  “I like the way you look to me, too.” He waggled his brows, proving he really was too adorable for words. “I like you. I’ve never wanted to go all in with anyone before. Not like this. You aren’t going to let me down, are you?”

  “I’m going to try not to.”

  “Tell me what you want.” He dropped his head to her pillow, his hand on her face. “Tell me what you want so I can help you get it.”

  “I want adventure and meaningful work that I enjoy and love and good sex and babies and a real life.” The words were out of her mouth before she took even a second to decide whether she should say such things to this particular man.

  “Sweetheart, you’ve come to the right place for all of that.”

  “Have I?”

  “Absolutely.” He smoothed his thumb over her cheek as he seemed to devour her with his eyes. “I have a confession to make.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, automatically wary of the many sins Landon Abbott might potentially confess to her.

  “I read your notebook the other night.”

  Her mind raced as she tried to remember the things she’d written. “Oh, um, well…”

  “I saw that one of your goals is to have an orgasm with a man.”

  Amanda groaned and covered her face with her hands. “You did not see that.”

  “I did.” He tugged on her hand. “Come out and face the music.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t be silly. How can I help you achieve your goal if you won’t look at me?”

  “I’ll be moving out later today so I never have to look at you again.”

  Landon laughed and threw a heavy arm around her middle to keep her from getting out of the bed.

  Mortified, she tried to scoot out from under his arm, but he wasn’t having it. Instead, he held her tighter and kissed her cheek and neck. “How do you want it? Fingers? Tongue? Cock? You can have any or all of the above.”

  “I’m dying.”

  “How can the sex toy girl be embarrassed so easily?”

  “This is different. That’s work. This is...”

  “This is the real life you want so badly, so don’t die before we see to your goals.” His lips were persistent on her neck while he cupped her breast and teased her nipple.

  Another thought occurred to her that made her go tense all over.

  “What?”

  “This isn’t why you suddenly brought me flowers or wanted to go out with me last night, is it? Because you want to be the man who, you know…”

  “Makes you come?”

  “Landon!”

  “No,” he said, shaking with silent laughter. “I wanted to go out with you again long before I read your very interesting list of goals. I was trying to give you space to recover after the fire, but the whole time, I was waiting for you to feel better so I could do this.” He kissed her neck as he pinched her nipple between his fingers.

  She gasped in shock when she suddenly felt his lips on her bare nipple and realized that while she’d been hiding, he’d been lifting her shirt to gain access.

  She buried her hands in his hair, and he glanced up at her.

  “You’re back.”

  “Don’t look at me.”

  “But I love to look at you.” The tricky devil continued to move her T-shirt up until she moved to take it off. “Mmm, so pretty.” His heated gaze traveled over her bare breasts.

  Her impulse was to cover herself, but he anticipated that, pinning her arms over her head. “Is this okay?” He bent his head to lick and suck her other nipple.

  “Yeah,” she said on a gasp. She’d done this with other guys. Of course she had. So why was it so different when he did it? Why did it feel like every nerve ending in her body was attached to the nipple he was soothing with his tongue and warm, gentle pulls of his lips?

  He kept it up, moving from one side to the other and back again, until she was about to come from that alone.

  She pressed against him, trying to find relief for the pressure building between her legs.

  He glanced up at her as her nipples tingled from the attention he’d given them. “Shall we continue toward your goal?”

  Amanda looked at his handsome face and took only a second to think about it before she nodded. She was still embarrassed that he’d seen her list, but what did that matter when Landon Abbott seemed determined to make one of her most pressing goals come true?

  “How do you want it?” He kissed a path to her belly button and dipped his tongue into the hollow indent.

  She’d had no idea until then that her belly button could be an erogenous zone. “I, uh…”

  “Do you need me to review the choices for you again?”

  “No.” She didn’t need to hear that suggestive list again.

  “So what’s your choice?”

  “This must be what it feels like to make a deal with the devil.”

  His big smile indicated that he took that as a compliment. He would.

  “How would you like your devil to serve you, my sweet?”

  “Surprise me.”

  “You really are walking on the wild side, I see. All righty, then. Close your eyes and focus only on what you feel. Nothing else but that.” He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her pajama pants and quickly removed them and her panties. “And keep your hands up there and out of my way.”

  A full-body blast of heat overtook her as he used his broad shoulders to part her legs. As she tried to imagine what she must look like, naked and spread open before him… No, don’t think about that, just… Oh God… Without giving her time to ease into whatever was about to happen here, he sent his tongue on a fact-finding mission that had her gasping and writhing and on the verge of explosive release faster than she’d ever gotten there before.

  The man was clearly gifted if he could make that happen in a matter of seconds.

  However, with his face buried between her legs, the last thing she wanted to think about was how he’d learned to…

  Holy hell.

  His fingers slid into her, curving up to find a spot deep inside that rendered her speechless.

  “Ung.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I, uh…”

  He sucked on her clit as he bent his fingers, and Amanda achieved one of her life goals with a screaming, full-body orgasm that made every other one she’d ever had seem like a warmup for him, so she’d be ready when Landon Abbott came along to show her what she’d been missing.

  “Check that box.” He sounded awfully pleased with himself, and really, why shouldn’t he be if he was capable of that? “How about another just to prove that one wasn’t a fluke?”

  Before she could catch up to him, he’d gone back for more.

  Holy shit. Be careful what you wish for, she thought as she held on for dear life to his headboard as he took her on an even wilder ride.

  “How we doing?” he asked as she panted her way through the aftermath of her second man-made orgasm.

  “Uh, well…”

  Landon laughed at her babbling incoherence. “I’ll take that as a thumbs-up?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hold that thought.” While she tried to catch her breath, he went into the bathroom. She heard water running, and when he returned, he was completely naked and holding a foil packet. �
��More?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow as he stood next to the bed, fully confident and fully erect.

  Amanda nodded. Maybe it was too soon and too much and too everything, but whatever. In her post-near-death-experience life, she was determined to live to the fullest, and having sex with Landon Abbott would definitely be worth any risk that might be involved.

  “How’s the ankle?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “And the rest of you?”

  “Feeling good and hopefully about to be even better.”

  “You know it,” he said with a wolfish grin as he rolled on the condom and rejoined her on the bed. “Is this too much too soon?”

  She loved that he was having the same thought. “Absolutely.”

  Her emphatic reply seemed to take him aback. “We don’t have to…”

  “I know.” She reached for him, and he came to her, wrapping his sexy body around her. “Before the fire, I would’ve said not yet. Now I know better. I know how fast things can change, and I want to experience everything right now.”

  “Everything?” he asked, raising a rakish brow.

  “Everything.”

  “That’s a rather broad mandate.”

  The dirty way he said that made her giggle. “I’ve been such a fool up to now, taking the safe and expected path. I want to color outside the lines, have adventures and take some chances.”

  “And having sex with me does some of those things?”

  “It does all of those things. You’re an adventure worth taking a chance on.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “Now, are you just going to talk, or are you going to help me color outside the lines?”

  “Coloring outside the lines is my middle name, baby.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Our plans never turn out as tasty as reality.”

  —Ram Dass

  Landon couldn’t believe his good luck. Not only did he have sexy, beautiful Amanda naked in his bed, but she was looking for adventure. He loved a good adventure and was happy to oblige, even if a nagging doubt in the back of his mind had him wondering if he was taking advantage of her by indulging this particular request.