And I desperately wanted to know what it was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SUTTON
I didn’t knowhow sitting on a hay bale in a trailer being pulled by a tractor could manage to turn me on, but there was no denying it had.
Or, maybe,possibly, my body’s reaction had been thanks to the mountain of a man sitting next to me, enough heat pouring off him to power the whole town. But that hadn’t been what lit me up from the inside out. Nope.
Instead, that honor had gone to the way he’d looked at me, as if he was fighting this pull too. And those words he’d whispered, the soft brush of his beard against my ear, had awokenallmy good parts. Not to mention his massive hand cupping my hip, holding me to him protectively. Possessively.
And then there’d been the tiny detail hovering in the back of my mind that this festival was an event. Apublicevent.
Which meant kissing was fair game.
I didn’t have to be a genius to know that would be a colossally bad idea. My brain was already on the fritz simply from swimming in his flannel, his warm, woodsy scent something I couldn’t escape.
Worse, I didn’twantto.
“How long are you going to pretend to know where you’re going?” Atlas asked as I led us through the corn maze.
His low, grumbly voice wasn’t doing anything to assuage my not-so-newfound interest in him. And, great, just the sound of it had memories slamming into me, the filthy things he’d whispered in that same voice when he’d been inside me repeating on a loop.
C’mon, trouble. Show me how much you’ve missed my cock so I can slide so fucking deep and fill you up.
That reminder had me tripping over what appeared to be air but was most definitely a giant tree limb or something sticking out of the earth. Atlas reached out, quick as a whip, and steadied me. He stared down at me, his hands on my hips, his thumbs tucked under my shirt and brushing against my bare stomach. Even without his saying a word, I knew what was going through his mind. Every single thing that had been repeating in mine.
And that only stoked this fire between us even hotter.
I cleared my throat and stepped away, needing space from him. Not that it did me any good. “I do know where we’re going. It’s this way.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, his tone dry, but he followed anyway.
“Oh, like you know the way,” I tossed over my shoulder.
“It’s kind of part of the gig, trouble. This is the football team’s fundraiser. Who do you think set this up?”
“You’re telling me you willingly got involved in a town festival?”
“Again, not willingly.”
I hummed, glancing over at this big, grouchy man who wore his grumpiness like armor. But in the short time I’d known him, I’d seen cracks in that facade… He liked to pretend a big game, but he actually cared. About a lot of things—this town, his players…me and my daughter.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I feel like the coach who happens to be a former pro football player could probably call the shots and say he wasn’t going to do it if he thought it was stupid.”
He grunted but otherwise didn’t respond.
“And I actually heard a rumor at school yesterday. Some of the teachers were whispering about a certain someone who anonymously matches the football team’s fundraising efforts and donates the same amount to every other sport, for the boys’ andthe girls’ teams,plusall other extracurriculars.” I turned toward him, studying his face. That tight clench of his jaw, the harsh furrow of his brow. Oh, he absolutely hated this. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“What are you getting at, trouble?”
I shrugged. “Just that it’s an awfully sweet thing for someone to do. And I’m not really sure why that certain someone would rather demand anonymity for something like that and instead prefer being called The Big Mean One and Coach Asshole. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
“Well, hypothetically speaking, that person might value his privacy and not want the entire town in his business.”
Glancing over at him, I raised my brows. “Then you must really hate how much attention our little relationship is getting.”
“If I were, it would only be because I’d rather keep you all to myself.”
