His eyes snapped toward me, a deep frown on his face—the most intense I’d seen him when he wasn’t inside me. “No.”
“Sorry,” I said. “That—it came out wrong?—”
“I did want to fuck you,” he said, reaching for me now, gripping my hand. “Jesus, Noelle…I wanna fuck you right fuckin’ now. You have no idea how hard it is to sit next to you and listen to you talk and laugh with my family andnotpull you into a coat closet and have my way with you.”
I blinked at him. My brain short-circuited somewhere aroundcoat closet.
“You’re gonna have to stop saying stuff like that if you want me to have any kind of rational thought tonight,” I muttered, heart racing.
He didn’t let go of my hand. “I don’t want you thinkin’ rationally. I want you thinkin’ about what it felt like to ride me until you forgot your name.”
“Jesus Christ, Beau.”
“I’m serious.” His thumb stroked across my knuckles. “I don’t want you to think this was fate. I don’t want you to think this was the town. I don’t want you to think this was anything exceptme—wantingyou. Every minute since the second I laid eyes on you.”
I felt like I was going to combust. Right there on the porch. Explode into a thousand tiny, horny, terrified pieces.
“Okay,” I said finally. “But what if it is fate?”
He blinked. That caught him off guard.
“What if wearestuck together?” I continued. “What if this is all just…some supernatural small-town soulmate spell and I never had a chance to make the choice?”
Beau was quiet for a long moment before he said, “Then we make the choice now.”
I looked up at him.
“You wanna go?” he asked. “I’ll drive you. Right now. Back to Mabel’s, back to Austin, wherever you wanna be. No tricks. No guilt. No magic.”
My chest twisted. “You’d really do that?”
He nodded. “I’d hate every second of it. But yeah. I’d do it.”
I stared at him, this stupid, stubborn, tender-hearted man, and felt the last of my defenses start to crumble.
“Or,” I said quietly. “I stay another week…at least until my car is ready, right? I don’t have to be back in Austin for that panel until like…two weeks from now. Maybe I could stay that long.”
Beau didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe for a second. “You sure?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m curious.”
His fingers tightened around mine. “Curious is good.”
“I mean, I still think your family might be running some kind of fertility cult?—”
“They’re not,” he said quickly.
“—but I also think your niece is cute, and your sister-in-law makes the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever tasted, and you have a way of looking at me that makes my knees go soft.”
He grinned. It was slow, crooked, and deeply self-satisfied. “Yeah?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“I already have. It’s awful up there.”
That made me laugh, which made him lean in, which made my heart skip. “You really want me to stay?” I asked.
Beau's voice dropped to match mine. “More than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
