Horny as hell, but good.
I reach down and give myself a lazy, indulgent tug. Thinking about how pretty Billie looked last night on her knees, her eyes watering as she took me deeper, deeper still in her mouth, I grip myself tighter.
Yep, this is a dream.
Turning, I head for the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror beside the closet and stop, moving back a step. Do I look different?
Peering at my face in the mirror, it hits me that yeah, Idolook different. I’m just not sure how.
I touch my scruff, overgrown and in need of a good trim. Billie likes it a little longer, though, so I’m letting it grow out.
I think it’s my eyes that have changed. They’re not bloodshot anymore. Or is it those laugh lines on either side of my mouth that weren’t there a month ago?
I like ’em. I also like the way the crow’s-feet at the edges of my eyes have deepened.
Fuck me, I look happy, don’t I?
“Admirin’ the fine work God did before he sent you to walk among us mere mortals?”
Turning my head, I see Billie standing in the open door of the bathroom. She’s leaning a hip against the jamb, the John Deere shirt she’s wearing hanging off her shoulder.
“That’s my shirt, you brat.”
She bites her lip. “You’d better come take it off me, then.”
Her hair is gathered in a messy knot at the top of her head. Strands hang down the sides of her face and brush her neck.
She looks so pretty, so relaxed and content, that for a second I can’t breathe.
“You all right there, Ry?”
It’s the way she smirks. How she casually strides toward me, the tips of her breasts poking through my shirt, those whiskey eyes never leaving mine.
“No, I’m not all right.”
Her brows pinch together. “Talk to me.”
Really, it’s her fearlessness in the face of how clearly emotional I am right now. She tucks a hand onto my cheek, her fingertips brushing my ear, and looks up at me. All earnestness.
All willingness and heat and vulnerability.
“Promise me.” I have to clear my throat to keep going. “Whatever I say next, you ain’t gonna run.”
She slowly blinks, running her thumb over my lips. “I promise.”
“You’re a girl who keeps her promises.”
“Learned that from you. And my parents. And my brothers.”
I laugh, even as I know I’m about to cry. “And basically everyone else in Hart County.”
“Dad used to always tell us that ‘our word was our bond,’ and I’d be like, ‘Okay, but what the fuck does that actually mean?’” She’s smiling now too. “Now I get it. So talk to me, damn it.”
I put my hands on her hips and glide them inside my shirt. My pulse jumps when I discover she’s not wearing panties.
“I wanna be around to see you pull off your plans for the animal therapy program, because you’re gonna make it happen.” I search her eyes. “I wanna go for tractor rides with you every night of the week. And I wanna be that guy at your next race, the one who makes an ass of himself cheering so loud that people clear the area because they’re annoyed.”
“Can’t promise I won’t fall,” she says, lips twitching.
