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“It’s a surprise.”
I stop, tugging on his arm when he keeps walking. He glances back at me. “I don’t like surprises.”
“Well, we’re going to help you grow today,” he answers with a laugh and I scowl at him. “You can give me that cute as shit look all you want, baby, but I’m not tellin’ you where I’m taking you.”
Arching a brow, I rip my hand from his and cross my arms over my chest.
“That’s the way you’re going to play it?” he asks and I nod. “All right, then.”
He shrugs before stepping forward and grabbing me behind the knees. I’m half-way over his shoulder by the time I realize what he’s doing and I hit his back with my fists.
“Put me down, you giant!”
He smacks my ass. “You gonna stop being a brat?”
“Yes,” I huff. As much as I don’t want to give in, I want to be carried out of the house like a child even less and he fucking knows it. He sets me back on my feet and takes my hand in his before leading me out of the house to his car.
As we pull away from the curb, I turn to him and smile. He glances over at me and laughs, shaking his head.
“No way, Darlin’. Don’t think you can be cute and get me to ruin the surprise.”
“You know, I’ve got my Taser. I could just torture it out of you,” I tease and his gaze flicks to my bag.
“Seems like not a very bright idea since I’m driving the car.”
“Fine. I’ll be patient.”
He grins. “See. Was that so hard?”
Rolling my eyes, I settle into my seat as he turns on the radio and reaches across the car to grab my hand. Truthfully, I don’t really care where we go since I just want to spend time with him but old habits are hard to break and I’m not exactly versed in letting other people run the show. It’s something to work on, I guess.
“Oh, I know where we’re going,” I say a few minutes later when we turn down the road to Lincoln’s house and he grins.
“Figured I owed you a redo for the weekend I messed up.”
I squeeze his hand. “You didn’t mess anything up.”
“You tased me for nothing then?” he asks, humor in his voice and I shrug.
“Okay, so maybe you messed up a little bit, but look,” I hold up our intertwined hands, “it all worked out.”
“Yes, it did. You know when I kissed you that night was the first time I realized I had real feelings for you.”
My gaze narrows and I laugh. “Oh! So, that’s why you freaked out.”
“Yep,” he answers. “Kissing you shocked me more than the Taser.”
I place my hand over my heart. “That might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“Don’t joke.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m serious. That Taser packs one hell of a punch and besides, kissing you kind of knocked the wind out of me, too.”
Our eyes meet across the car and he smiles before turning back to the road.
“Now I’ve got to know,” he muses as he pulls into his driveway. “Have you really been tased?”
“Yeah. My mom insisted that Theo and I experience it ourselves if we were going to carry them around to protect ourselves.”
