“Yeah.”
I smile, lifting my hand to cup her face.
“It wouldn’t be forever,” I tell her. “Just while I’m playing.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“And then after that?”
“After that,” I murmur, brushing my thumb across her cheek, “I’d let you decide where we go next.”
“You wouldn’t want to come back to Rixton?”
I glance out to the valley again. Rixton sits below us like it always has. I’ve spent my whole life here, so in a way, it’s all I’ve ever known.
I shrug.
“I’ll go wherever you want to be.”
She studies me for a minute, her eyes searching mine.
“You know,” she says quietly. “Rixton feels more like home than anywhere I’ve ever been.”
“Yeah?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
The plates on the table are empty now, our dinner long finished. The host has already stopped by to check on us once, but no one seems in a hurry to push us out.
I pull her closer, sliding my hands around her waist.
“C’mere.”
Her arms loop around my neck as I lead her over to the couch, tugging her into my lap.
She laughs softly and settles against me.
“I’ve been waiting to do this all night,” I whisper before I lean down to kiss her.
It’s slow at first—the kind of kiss that makes everything around us fade away. But then she moans quietly against mymouth. The same sound she made earlier tonight, before we left. Hearing it again now makes my grip tighten around her waist.
She shifts in my lap, her fingers sliding into the back of my hair.
“Coop,” she murmurs.
God, I love it when she uses my nickname.
“Yeah?”
Her lips brush my jaw.
“I need you to touch me.”
For a second, I just look at her. “You sure?” I ask quietly.
She nods once.
Her breath catches when my hand slides along her thigh beneath her dress. She presses closer, kissing me again before I can say anything else.
