“Alrighty then,” she claps. “Now, tell me ladies, how did you feel when he first took out his three penises?”
CHAPTER 22
Walker
I’ve come to the conclusion that, when it comes to Tally Darling, I’m screwed. She is everywhere. In my shower. In my fields. In my goddamn dreams.
It’s pointless to fight these feelings, so I have to embrace them.
That’s why I walked into Penny’s bookstore tonight. That and because I can’t let Eli hit on her. Seeing him interested in her bothered me.Bothers me.Even now, as he says something that makes her laugh while I wait by the door to take her home.
All night I’ve watched her, a small smile curling her lips every time the damn alien dildo thing swayed. And then her loud laugh when it toppled over into the damn punch had me fucking grinning from ear to ear. Despite the fact that Babs pulled it out and then licked each head clean while staring down Eli and me. My whole body shudders again at the thought. I need to get out of here.
“Walker, are you ever going to reply to my text?” Rayna says, interrupting my attempt to overhear what the hell Eli is saying to make Tally smile.
I grunt as I turn to her. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
She pulls out her phone and pulls up the town chat that Tally showed me earlier. “Really, Walker, you’re going to pretend you haven’t seen any of these?”
“How did anyone even get my number?” The words slip out and she grins, knowing she has me.
Rosie snorts. “That’d be Eli.”
The man finally stops talking to give us his full attention. “I only gave it to Rayna while we were having lunch at the brewery. It’s not my fault that everyone else was listening when I gave it to her.”
“Over the microphone,” Rosie interrupts with a grin. “They all could hear because he gave it to her over the microphone,” she full explains, turning toward me.
Tally coughs out a laugh as I groan. “Can we go now?”
“Sure,” she says, before turning back to the group. “Thanks for tonight, ladies. I had the best time.”
As annoyed as I am about the phone number thing, seeing Tally smile has my lip itching to do the same. She seems much more at ease with her mother, and in general, since she arrived last week.. I’m not sure why I care so much, but I like that she’s becoming more comfortable in Hope Harbor.
The entire ride home I focus on the road ahead as Tally laughs with her mother over Eli’s antics. Thank fuck Gail came back with us. If I’d been alone with Tally in the enclosed space of my truck, there’s no telling what I might have done. Probably pulled over near the harbor and kissed her right beneath the crescent moon.
I shake my head and swipe a hand over my face, trying to clear these wistful thoughts from my mind as I pull the truck down the path near Gail’s cottage.
I haven’t had these types of thoughts in a long-ass time. When you suffer heartbreak after heartbreak, it’s easy to close off that part of your life. To stop dreaming. Hoping.
But Tally seems to be awakening a piece of me I thought Gina had buried years ago.
I’m on edge as I park outside the big house. It’s just the two of us now and I pause, not moving.
“Going inside?” Tally’s voice is raspy from laughing all night.
I swallow as I stare at her across the cab. She’s fucking gorgeous right now—her cheeks rosy, her eyes a little glassy from the wine. When the wind blows her golden hair in my direction, I catch another whiff of her sweet scent, and my cock awakens in my jeans.
Still, I don’t move and she goes to fill the silence. “Thanks for the ride.”
I nod, and the tension within the truck feels as though it becomes a living, breathing thing.
“Cowboy?”
“Hmm?”
“Keep staring at me like that, and a girl’s bound to get ideas.”
“Well, you shouldn’t.”
