She goes still, her gaze sharpening with caution. “You bought me a car?”
“Not bought. We already had the car. I transferred it into your name since nobody else uses it.”
Not true but given her hesitation, I’m comfortable with the small lie. If she’s this reluctant to accept when she thinks it’s just surplus to requirements, I imagine she’d be horrified to find out that I spent a few hours this morning phoning around dealerships to find the perfect one.
“I can’t accept—”
“You can. Honestly, it’s really easy.” I lean over to tickle her until she squirms in the seat. “All you do is nothing, and the car is yours.”
Her attention returns to the bracelet, her fingers brushing across the surface of the gemstones, tipping the one way and another, each movement making them sparkle.
“I’m not buying you,” I say, trying to waylay the panic seeding in her eyes. “You’re already mine, remember? This is just… I know I’m not the easiest—”
Rosa launches herself at me, arms around my neck, crawling into my lap and planting kisses across my neck, my chest, my face. Anywhere she can find.
“Thank you,” she says, panting as she sits back a little, hands resting on my chest where my shirt somehow unbuttoned itself without me noticing. “These are…” She flings her hands into the air. “I don’t know. Wonderful. Probably words that are a lot better than that, but I can’t think of them just yet.”
She hugs me again, my face crushed against her chest until the underwire in her bra is marking my chin.
“And fuck being the easiest. I much prefer the most complicated, red flag waving, difficult, demanding side you have to offer. You don’t want me getting bored, do you? Because that’s all easy ever gets you.”
She gradually untangles herself, clambering back into the driver’s seat and pulling across her belt. She checks the controls, touching all the shiny knobs and buttons, caressing the leather padding of the steering wheel, waving at someone she knows when they do a double take and laughing.
On her face is a smile of pure joy that I would gift a dozen cars to see. It sparks the same level of joy in my heart.
“I thought you were going to turn it down,” I admit, shy in the face of her enthusiasm.
“Yeah, good one. Could you imagine Finley’s face if I told her I turned down acar?That girl nearly tore me a new one for not taking you up on your first offer to move in. She’d kill me.”
Her expression is close to adoration as she glances across at me. “And no doing your shirt up,” she chides, smacking my hand away. “God knows you spent enough time getting your body to look that fabulous. The least you can do is flaunt it every moment we’re together.”
The unexpected compliment takes me so much by surprise that I burst out laughing.
“Better strap yourself in, buddy.” Her smile is beatific. “Let’s take her for a proper ride.”
She drives us all around the city, then the low-speed restrictions get on her nerves, and she drives away from the centre, into the hills, winding along the two-lane blacktop high above the city, the only pedestrians ready to cast their reprimanding glances our way belonging to the grazing sheep.
We’re passing over a cattle grid that seems determined to shake my teeth out of my jaw when she finally slows, pulling into the next rest area and parking with the nose of the car just metres from the edge.
I think she’s going to get out to look at the view, but the only thing Rosa has eyes for is me. She unbuckles herself from her seatbelt and clambers over to crawl into my lap.
My arms circle her waist while I stare into her eyes. The joyful smile is worth the cost of a thousand cars, her lingering gaze setting my pulse racing faster than the ride to get here.
“Thank you very much for my presents,” she says, plunging her hands into the still-unbuttoned shirt, warming them against my back. “I’m very grateful.”
Her lips press against mine, tongue reaching out to tease mine, then retreating.
“You don’t have to—”
She clamps her mouth over mine again to stifle the words. When she draws back, she takes my chin in her fingers, holding me steady. “Please don’t say the things I think you’re about to say. I like you. I like you alotand that’s separate from you showering me with presents. The least you can do, is allow me to express my appreciation physically without having you think everything I do is transactional.”
A blush crawls up from my neckline, a tiny dusting of shame to rouge my cheeks. “I really didn’t mean that. I’m just worried that you’ll think you need to do something, and you don’t.” I rest my head as far back as I can, enjoying the changing colour in her eyes as they catch the last dying rays of sun.
She leans into me, her lower body grinding gently against mine as she moves her hand from my chin, rubbing her thumb over my lower lip instead.
“Okay. Then we understand each other. You can buy me anything you want, and I can fuck you any way I want and neither of those things need to be connected at all, except by our mutual appreciation of each other’s assets.”
The words capture my attention. “Assets, eh?” I lower my hands from her waist, caressing the sculpted mounds of her arse. “I wouldn’t mind exploring your assets.”
