Nothing would.
And nothing did.
He’d said small town, and I wasn’t completely ignorant of what that meant. Still, I was surprised at the blink-and-miss-it downtown with its cheerful holiday candles and angels still hanging off lampposts and the colorful strands of lights around shop windows and stretching high over the streets.
Asher pointed out the Dairy Queen, where he’d worked a few months one summer, then his high school. He even pointed out the trailer park where Jamie lived. He might have only been rambling to keep my mind off what I was about to do. It didn’t work.
With my heart rate at near emergency levels and head spinning as it was, I probably should’ve had him drive.
The GPS directed me through turn after turn, but Asher did as well. He was so adorable. I hated that his excitement kept getting tempered by my own fears, but I didn’t know how to change it. Once this first meeting with his parents was over, I hoped I’d be normal again.
“Here.” Asher pointed at a modest house with a porch spanning the front a second before the GPS said we had arrived.Every single window was lit from within, and wreaths of red, green, white, and gold hung from several on the main level with a huge version on the front door.
“Momma doesn’t take down Christmas until the end of the month. She says it’s too much trouble to leave it up for only a minute.”
I pulled onto the driveway and parked behind a newer-model truck. “Is here good?”
Asher had been focused on the front of the house but glanced out the windshield for a split second. “Yeah, as long as you’re not blocking Nathan’s Jetta.”
Along with a shit ton I didn’t remember, Asher had reminded me of his siblings during our three-hour trip. Nathan was his only full blood brother, both sharing the same parentage even if their father had never married their mother. His stepsister Stacia was sixteen, same as Nathan.
“Stacia doesn’t have a car?”
“Oh no. No one wants her on the road. But Nathan bought that himself. We all have to buy our own cars.”
“What? Really?”
“Shoot yeah. With six kids, you think my parents can afford to pay for collegeandbuy us cars?” He laughed and shook his head. “No millionaires in this house.”
I glanced at my silk button-down and Tom Ford trousers. “I should’ve worn something else.”
“You’ll be fine.” Asher turned and reached for me. He smiled brightly, but there was a nervous twitch to it. “You ready? It’s gonna be crazy for, like, five minutes, and then it’s over.”
With a burst of energy, probably hysteria induced, I struck like lightning, grabbing a fistful of his hair and crashing my mouth on his. The kiss was savage and desperate. Asher moaned and slid his hand onto my leg for a squeeze.
When the intensity faded, I nudged his nose once, licked over the lips I’d abused one final time, and swallowed his taste.
“Okay, I’m ready,” I whispered.
“Me too. Let’s fuck.”
I chuckled and let go of him.
“You laugh, but I’m gonna need more of that.” Asher pushed on his erection and tugged his hoodie lower.
The distraction had been just the thing I needed to get out of the Range Rover, but no sooner had I opened the back to get our bags than the front door sprang open, spilling light, high-pitched screams and a yelling woman onto the lawn.
“May, no hands! No hands!”
A young girl with cotton-white hair darted toward us, her hands high and reaching.
“Whoa there.” Asher grabbed the girl’s wrists right before she latched onto me with whatever was caked all over them.
“Excellent save,” a very pretty woman, who could only be Asher’s mother, said breathlessly as she jogged to us. “Hey, sweetie.” She kissed Asher’s cheek and took control of his younger sister.
“We were right in the middle of making cookies.”
Ahh, so it was dough all over the girl’s hands.
