No More Secrets: A Small Town Love Story (The Pierce Brothers Book 1) by Lucy Score Read Free Book Online Page B

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    T hey had been home for twenty minutes, and Carter had yet to hear the shower upstairs. She was probably unconscious in her room. Lettuce harvesting was one of those shit jobs that no one wanted to do because it was so back breaking. He felt a little tug of guilt. If his mother found out that he let Summer spend three hours cutting lettuce, he could kiss his ass good-bye.
    She had worked without complaint, and had done well. He kept waiting for her to admit exhaustion and defeat, but she soldiered on. He should have made her stop. The labor had hollowed her out. The work was hard, but it shouldn’t have hit her as hard as it did. This wasn’t just someone used to sitting at a desk all day. The exhaustion in those beautiful blues of hers came from something else.
    Guilt had him tossing a sock full of rice in the microwave. While it heated, Carter poured a glass of iced tea and dug out a bottle of over-the-counter pain relievers.
    He would just check on her and make sure she was okay, he thought as he took the stairs.
    Her door was open and he found her facedown on the bed. Her boots were on the floor just inside the door and he saw a crop of red blisters on both feet.
    “You okay?”
    The quilt muffled her reply. He took it as an invitation to come in.
    “Is it your back?”
    “Mm-hmm.” Summer turned her head to the side. “Every time I move it feels ... horrible. I don’t think I like lettuce anymore. It’s evil. Why can’t it grow taller so we don’t have to hunch over all day?”
    Carter smiled. He poured out two pills. “Here. Take these and then we’ll see what we can do.” He dropped the pills into her palm and handed her the iced tea.
    She eyed the tablets. “I don’t like to take drugs.”
    “They’re over-the-counter. Take them.”
    Summer raised up high enough to swallow the pills and collapsed back down on a groan. “Carter, I swear I’m not a wimp. I go to the gym, I work long hours, I take vitamins.”
    “Honey, no one said you were a wimp.”
    “You didn’t have to. I could see it in your judgmental face.”
    “I don’t have a judgmental face,” he said, slightly offended.
    “You frown a lot. Like you’re mad.”
    “I prefer to call it being intense. Can I take a look at your back? Maybe I can help.”
    “I don’t care if you rip my spine out and try to insert a new one,” Summer sighed into the pillow. “Anything has to be better than this.”
    She was probably in spasm. Carter eased onto the bed and tried not to think about other activities that would end with them both in the same bed. His fingers slid her shirt up to the bra strap. Rough fingers against the silk of her skin. He watched in fascination as goose bumps appeared on her skin.
    “I’m going to rub your back, okay? It should help the muscles relax.”
    “Okay.” Her reply sounded slightly breathless, but he couldn’t tell if it was nerves or the fact that she was suffocating herself with bedding.
    Carter gently worked his thumbs into the exposed flesh of her lower back. After a few minutes of twisting his arms this way and that it was clear the angle wasn’t working. He tried to think of a polite way to keep some distance between them, but in the end there was only one answer.
    “Summer, are you okay if I uh —” He wasn’t about to say, “straddle you.”
    “Whatever you have to do. Please.”
    He swung a leg over her to straddle her legs. Carter felt her stiffen under him and tried to force himself to think of anything else but what he was doing.
    His thumbs traced down her spine to the very top of her jeans. He applied the slightest bit of pressure and the moan that came out of her mouth had him hard in half a second.
    He took a steadying breath and continued to probe the muscles. “Does it hurt here?” Now he was the one who sounded like he was halfway through a marathon.
    “It’s a little lower.” Her tone was shy.
    Carter dipped his thumbs into the waistband of