“Always has been,” I said instantly, remembering the first time I heard her sing along to the words, sitting beside me just like this as we drove up the ridge, destination set on a new bridge this time.
Everything about Augusta Belle drew me in, a tantalizing beauty meant to entice me into signing over my fucking soul.
She may have lanced me with her poison-tipped blade once, but not again. Not ever again.
EIGHT
Fallon—Eleven Years Before
She cuddled up against me, the little polka-dot triangles of her bathing suit top fuller than they had been last summer. The summer I’d found her swan-diving into the Whiskey River like some fearless mermaid, hell-bent on rebellion and stealin’ my soul on the way. From the second I’d laid eyes on her, something had fascinated me. And now that’d we’d spent nearly every day together for almost the last year, I could say it was her fearless bravery that drove me to her. Watching her like a rare bird when every other person in this town was trying to be the same.
“Which bridge this time?” I turned my truck toward the river.
She cocked her head to the side, sun glinting in a halo around the crown as she tucked her leg under herself and grinned. “Pine Bluff.”
“But that one’s the highest,” I protested weakly, knowing she’d already made up her mind.
“Listen, Fallon Gentry, no use riding shotgun your whole life. Sometimes you just have to jump.” Her eyes twinkled before she launched herself into my lap and pressed her honey-sweet lips to mine in a kiss.
I pushed a hand in her hair, the soft rocking of her hips against mine driving my control to the very edge of my sanity. “We’re almost there.”
“Don’t stop kissing me,” she begged, something new, exciting, heavy with the scent of adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream. In all the nights we’d spent together, slept together, we’d never done more than just kiss. Not because I didn’t want to; I wanted to be with her in every way a guy wants to be with his girlfriend. But I wasn’t willing to take anything from her she wasn’t a thousand percent ready to give.
And no matter how many times she tried to convince me she was ready, she wasn’t.
“I can’t see, crazy girl.” I caught glimpses of the dirt road, tree-lined and all but vacant at the height of heat on a June afternoon.
“Just keep going straight. I can see the reflection in the back window. I’ll let you know when to turn.”
My growl of frustration deepened when she rocked her hips harder against my aching body, strung tight and praying for every last thread of control.
“Augusta Belle…” I pleaded, unable to keep my eyes from slamming closed when the seam of her damp denim cutoffs made contact with my aching erection.
“Do you trust me?” She nipped at my earlobe, dainty fingertips crawling up my neck as she pushed against me, digging the core of her hot little body against every square inch of mine.
“Always.” The word came out desperate.
“I’m ready, Fallon,” she whispered. “I’m ready for us.”
I swallowed, brain hopping violently to a dozen various conclusions as one of my hands gripped the wheel, the other tightening on her round ass cheek through her shorts. My heart thundered like a thousand wild horses as I thought about sliding between her legs for the first time, touching her warm body, making love to every square inch of the woman who kept me awake at night.
“Turn!” she shrieked, pulling herself off my lap just before an old dump truck laid on its horn, careening sideways to avoid my little truck and lodging my heart fully into my throat.
“Fuck.” I pulled to the side of the road, hands white-knuckling the wheel.
“See? You can trust me,” she chirped, pushing her door open and climbing out into the haze of dust left in the truck’s wake.
“Trust you? I almost killed us a second ago.” I switched off the engine of my truck and crawled out on shaky legs, coming around the side of the cab to find Pine Bluff Bridge stretching off into the distance.
“Woulda been a good way to go though, right?”
“Augusta Belle, no. No, it wouldn’t be a good way to go. Why do you always talk about death as if it doesn’t matter?”
One shoulder lifted haphazardly. “Want me to drive the rest of the way? I can see your nerves are a little rattled…”
I glared at her, at a legitimate loss for words.
“Or…I could just jump here? It’s not that high up, although I haven’t really scoped the boulder situation.”
