Page 16 of My Redneck Baby Daddy

Oh my God, I could drip brisket on his forearms and lick it off.

Oh my Lord…who am I?

I couldn’t stop staring at him. I stared at them approximately eighty percent of the time. And his hair was doing that thing where it stuck up in the back from the ball cap. There was also concrete dust worked into his knuckles that no amount of washing was ever going to fix, and my very tidy little house looked absurd with him standing in the middle of it.

"Try it now," he said.

Hopin up, I tore my eyes away and did as he asked. It swung shut and stayed.

"Huh," I said.

He grinned at me. "Four years, Teach. Way to long."

We ended up on the couch, and I don’t remember which one of us started it.

This was nothing like the overlook. I knew things now. I knew how he tilted his head, and I knew that he made a low sound when I put my hands in his hair, and I knew that if I pressed closer he would let me set the pace right up until he didn't. His hands settled on my waist, big enough that his thumbs met in the middle of me, and somewhere in there I ended up across his lap with my knees on either side of him.

His mouth moved to my jaw, then under it. I said something that was not a word.

And then he stopped.

His forehead came down against my collarbone, and he breathed out hard, and both of his hands went flat and still on my hips.

"Did I do something wrong?"

His head snapped up. "What?"

"You stopped."

"Rue." His voice had gravel all in it. "If I didn't stop, we wasn't stopping."

Oh.

"I don't want you to stop," I said.

"You, sure?"

"Yes."

He looked at me a long time, and I watched him hear the half second of air in front of that yes, because of course he did. He tucked a curl behind my ear and kissed my forehead.

"Not tonight."

I climbed off his lap and pulled my sweater straight, and I was touched and pissed the hell off in the exact same breath.

"Why do you keep deciding for me?"

That got his attention and he sat up kind of straight.

"I ain't deciding whether you sleep with me," he said. "I'm deciding whether I sleep with somebody who ain't sure. "

"Bobby Jo…"

"When you want me, I don't want your mama in your head." He said it s "I don't want your daddy in there. I don't want Regina in there, or this town, or your age, or the fact you ain't done it before."

His green eyes held mine.

"I just want you."