A wistful smile touched her lips. "Yeah." She turned her head to look at me, and our eyes met. "I like who I am, Luke. I'm not sorry that people have a problem with it. I'm also not fragile. I can change my own tire, fight my own battles, and still look like a girl while I do it. I don't have to pick sides. I don't need to fit into a box. The only person I have to be true to is myself."
I turned just enough to push the hair away from her face. "The first time I saw you - well, I guess second - all I could think was that you were going to shake this town up. I couldn't figure you out, and I kinda liked that."
"You thought I was some damsel in distress," she teased.
"No," I promised. "I was just trying to figure out how to get a woman like you to notice a man like me. That tire was heavy, too."
She giggled, turning to push her face into my chest. "I noticed. And those pretty green eyes of yours. Yeah, I recognized them."
"And didn't say a thing." My palm found the side of her face, gently convincing her to look at me again. "I have a feeling you've got a lot of secrets locked in that head of yours."
"Why?"
"Your name," I said, listing the first thing that came to mind. "You said you changed it, but never told me why."
"Oh." She rolled back to look at the stars again, making me turn even more so I could keep looking at her. "Yeah," she breathed. "Mom got sick of me when I was about twelve. She dumped me on Gran and disappeared. I haven't seen her since. So, when I turned eighteen, I changed my last name to Gran's. I'd been using it as a stage name, so I just made it legal."
"Violet's your real name?" I asked, grunting when I realized how stupid that was. "I mean, before you changed it."
"Violet Dawn Higgs," she said. "Mom thought it sounded fancy. What about you, Luke? You have a middle name?"
"Matthew," I said. "And yes, I know how unoriginal it is. Take a wild guess what my little brother's name is? John Mark."
She groaned playfully. "That's kinda bad."
"Really bad," I agreed.
She lifted her arm, curling it under her head like a pillow, but she was watching me instead of the stars. "What do you want, Luke? What's your big dream, because I get the impression that feeding someone else's cows isn't it."
I huffed once, aware that she'd just turned the tables. "It's not that impressive."
"I'm still curious."
"I want to be a good dad. I wanna make sure Faith has the chance to go to college and blaze her own trail. I wanna ride my horses every so often. I'm a pretty simple guy, and I've got simple dreams."
"What did you want?" she asked. "Before you had Faith."
I blew that off. "I was a kid."
She lifted her other arm to toy with the hair over my ear. "I'm just curious."
"I wanted to play football, get a scholarship, and go to college. Figured I'd get a degree and move somewhere things happen. Never really thought about more than the college parties, though. Instead, I never even got my diploma. Only got my GED a couple of years ago when I tried to get another job. Didn't get it, so here I am, feeding someone else's cows."
"And promising to cut my hay," she teased.
I rolled over her. "Honey, that probably doesn't sound like you meant it to."
She just lifted a brow. "You sure about that?"
Then she lifted her head, pressing her mouth against mine. I kissed back, pushing her to the ground again, and her lips parted. Her hand found the back of my head, pulling me in, and I knew I wasn't in control of this. Violet took what she wanted, and if that was me, I sure as shit wasn't going to stop her.
Her tongue taunted mine, daring me to keep up. When her back arched, I grabbed her waist, holding her against me. I could feel her breasts crushed against my chest, her fingers tangling in my hair, and when she moaned, I thought I was done for. My kisses moved lower, teasing her collar bones, then the valley between her breasts, but I was trying to keep this respectable.
Until her hands pulled at the fabric of my shirt. She tugged, trying to free the hem from my jeans, so I decided to help her out. Reaching over my head, I grabbed a handful and tugged. Her hands immediately found my skin, teasing my abs on one side, the other pulling me back toward her. I gave in, bending to kiss her stomach.
There was only an inch of skin visible where her shirt had ridden up, but that was enough. I flicked my tongue over the colors of her tattoo, letting my hands ease her shirt higher. I took my time about it, letting her decide how far was enough, but she didn't stop me. Violet simply arched her body to take a little more, thrusting her breasts toward the sky.
"You're killing me," I breathed, backing away before I did something stupid.
