“Better than okay.” She sniffed once, and I wiped at a tear lingering on her cheek. “Just wish we wouldn’t have lost so much time.”
“Ah.” I smiled. “There you go with regrets again.” I unpretzled our bodies, threading our fingers, and heading back the way we’d come. “Best thing I learned over the last decade was livin’ in the moment is the only life worth livin’.” We reached my truck, and I helped her into the passenger side, giving her a peck on the lips when I could steal it. “I’m all about takin’ this, whatever this is between us, one day at a time. That all right with you, sunshine?”
Her grin split open before she tugged at the collar of my shirt, pulling me in and locking her ankles around my waist. “That sounds fantastic.”
I pushed my lips against hers, splitting the seam as our tongues worked together, hands spreading across bare skin as we ate up the sunshine pulsing between us. I slid my hands around her waist, hiking her farther up the front seat and following up after her, pulling the door closed behind me, locking my lips with hers again.
Her fingertips worked across my neck, slipping under my shirt and sending pulses of raw need throbbing between my legs.
“We need to get to Jackson.” I could hear the barely veiled restraint in my own voice.
“Let’s just camp out here.” Her tone lowered an octave, sweeter than honey.
“Christ, Augusta Belle.” I worked my hips between her damp thighs, grinding down on my back teeth as I thought about puppies and Grandma’s fried liver and any other damn thing I could manage, to keep myself reined in at this moment.
It’d been so fucking long.
All I could think about was what would happen if I hurt her.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered at my neck, her lips touching my skin.
“Fuck,” I breathed, everything inside of me wantin’ inside of her at that moment.
“Please.” She arched her hips, her hand drawing mine up to knead at the heavy flesh of her breast.
“Everything in me is sayin’ take you right now, Augusta Belle,” I murmured at her earlobe. “But trust me when I say you don’t know what you’re asking for.”
She pushed her nails into my skin, making me wince as she wiggled around underneath me, driving me a little more insane with every damn movement. “I’m ready.”
I laughed. “You act brave, sweet bird.” My nose danced across the angle of her jawline, her nipples sharpening beneath the triangles of her swimsuit. “Care to tell me why your heartbeat is flickering faster than a hummingbird’s wings at your throat?”
Perfect white teeth sank into the aroused flesh of her lips as the tiniest of moans breezed past.
I slammed my eyes closed, needing to erase the face she made when she was so turned on she was about to combust under my hands. “Sing louder, pretty bird.”
She swallowed, gaze flickering on mine when I dragged my aroused length along her seam. Soft shudders coursed through every muscle in her body before she clamped down on my shoulder, hips rocking in a silent rhythm to mine before I ducked my head, clasping my lips at the soft outline of one pert nipple and sucking.
Low, serrated gasps fell from her lips before she was moaning once, twice, a third time louder until I angled myself a little deeper, sucking her sweet, damp flesh into my mouth a little harder. She was shuddering and moaning and heaving desperate pants of air against my chest.
“Fuck, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Tiny little tears formed at the corners of her eyes before she loosened her fingertips on my shoulders and came back down to earth, eyes finally focusing on mine.
I didn’t know what she was thinking in that moment. I couldn’t even put a finger on exactly what I was thinkin’, but I felt it.
Whatever was passing between us was supercharged. Somethin’ words could only cheapen.
She was silky and sensual, smoky on the lips, warm on the tongue, smooth on the way down.
She was whiskey.
And I was hooked.
TWENTY-ONE
Fallon
“That was the longest ride of my life, almost literally.” She flopped onto the bed, backpack flying beside her.
