Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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CHAPTER TWO

Every Breath He Took

Millie

Present day...

WHAT I WAS about to do was ridiculous.

And possibly insane.

But there I was, about to do it.

It had been a week since I saw Logan at Chipotle.

I still had that bin of spinach and bag of shriveled carrots in my fridge and they were still the only things there. Except that bin of spinach was now not wilted but instead spoiled.

I should throw them out.

I didn’t throw them out.

I worked.

I got fast food (or ready-mades, though no salads).

I slept.

I watched TV.

And I thought about Logan.

I couldn’t get him out of my head. I even dreamed about him.

And these were not good dreams. They were dreams of him walking away. They were dreams of him shouting at me that I was a coward. That I’d thrown my life away. They were dreams where he was pushing a faceless little girl on a swing, smiling at a faceless woman who, even if faceless, I knew she was beautiful and she was definitely not me.

In other words, bad dreams.

Dreams that haunted me even when I was awake.

So now I was here and it was ridiculous, stupid, insane.

Dottie would be pissed if she knew I was here. Twenty years she’d been struggling to pull me out of Logan’s snare, a snare I was caught in even if he didn’t want me there and wasn’t even in my life.

She wanted me to move on. She’d even begged me to move on. At first she’d wanted me to go back to Logan (and she’d begged me to do that too). When she realized that wasn’t going to happen, she’d wanted me to go on a date, to go see a shrink, to go get a life, any life without Logan.

None of this had worked.

Now I couldn’t get him out of my head.

So I was there.

“Shit, damn, damn,” I whispered, looking at the façade of the roadhouse.

It was run-down, near to ramshackle. The paint peeling on the outside. The sign up top that said SCRUFF’S was barely discernable considering it was night and only the neon u and the apostrophe worked.

Strangely, Scruff’s looked much the same as it had twenty years ago when Logan and I used to come here all the time.

Except back then the c also worked, though it had flickered.

There were bikes outside, less of them now than back when this was Logan and my place because it was Chaos’s place, but it was still clearly a biker bar.

I just had no idea if one of those bikes was Logan’s.

I hoped one was.

And I was terrified of the same thing.

“You should go home,” I told myself.

I should.

But home was where I’d been nearly every night since I’d bought my house and moved in eleven years ago. It had changed since I’d renovated every inch of it (I had not done this myself—I’d paid people to do it—but it was all my vision).

I loved home. I never got sick of looking at what I’d created (or someone else had, obviously, through my vision).

But I was there nearly every night. And the only times I wasn’t were when I was at Dottie’s or babysitting a friend’s kid or at one of the events I’d planned.

The last, being my work, didn’t count.

Now I was not at home. I was back at Scruff’s. A place I hadn’t been in twenty years.

I was there because Logan might be in there.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“God, this is crazy,” I muttered, pushing open the car door and throwing out a leg.

I got out, slammed the door, and beeped the locks, keeping keys in hand and purse clamped securely under my arm.

I walked toward the building, worried about my car. I had a red Mazda CX-5 that was only a year old. I loved it. I hadn’t upgraded cars in five years, so it was my baby. And not only was this bar not the safest spot in Denver, it was located in a neighborhood that also wasn’t the safest in Denver.

I had to brave it. I was there. I was out of the car.

There was no going back.

Before I got to the door, a biker fell out of it, shouting behind him, “Fuck you too!” and I nearly turned back.

He stumbled the other way, so my path was clear.

I knew I should retreat.

I didn’t.

I went in.

When my eyes adjusted to the dim, I saw the inside hadn’t changed much either, except to get seedier. In fact, even the neon beer signs looked the same and on my second eye sweep after the quick, frantic one I did to see if Logan was there, I saw four of the plethora of them no longer worked at all. The vinyl on the barstools was worn, the furniture scattering the space was more mismatched. Even the felt on the pool table was more faded.

And there was no Logan.

Actually, there wasn’t much of anybody. It wasn’t vacant but back in the day the place was nearly always hopping. Logan and I would go on a Wednesday to find fun with the dozen people who were also there that we knew and partied with. Or we’d go on a Saturday and find mayhem with three dozen people we knew and partied with.

It was Chaos’s place. It was where the boys went when they wanted to tie one on, tag fresh meat to bang, find trouble, or if none was to be found, make it.

However, looking around, I didn’t see a member I knew from back in the day. I didn’t even see a Chaos patch on any jacket.

This was a surprise. Chaos had been a fixture there in a way that there wasn’t a night when at least a couple of brothers were at Scruff’s.

This was also an excuse to leave.

I didn’t go.

I walked to the bar and slid onto a stool, doing this with my eyes still scanning the space like Logan could materialize out of thin air.

“Well, fuck me. Millie freakin’ Cross. Blast from the past and not a good one.”

I turned my head and stared in shock at Reb.

Reb had been a bartender back then. One I would have suspected would have been long gone by now.

This was because she’d been sleeping with Scruff’s son who was set to inherit the place since Scruff was on his deathbed. Though, Scruff had been on that deathbed the entire three years I’d gone there (two of which I’d drank with a fake ID, not that Reb or any of the other bartenders cared).

Wade, her man and the next in line to own the establishment, was rarely there (or rarely there working). He was usually there drinking or alternately out cheating on Reb or fighting or drying out in a jailhouse or on his bike wandering and leaving her behind to bitch about him and swear she was going to leave him.

Reb was tough. She was so unfriendly she was mean. And she didn’t take a lot of shit (except from Wade).

I was sure she’d get fed up and go.

But she wasn’t gone. She was behind the bar, looking as faded and worn as the rest of the joint, like she’d aged forty years in the last twenty.

I barely recognized her.

The life-is-shit-and-then-you-die look in her eyes was unforgettable, still there and even sharper, so I knew it was her.

“You’re like a mullet,” she stated, glaring at me from her side of the bar. “ ’Cept haven’t seen you in forever and I see too many a’ those every week. Though, you’re here so just sayin’, coulda used a longer forever when it comes to you.”

That wasn’t a warm welcome.

Reb wasn’t big on handing those out. She never had been.

But this was more than her usual nasty.

I decided to ignore it.

“Hey, Reb,” I greeted.

“Fuck off, Millie, and I mean that as in, you can get your ass off my stool and get the fuck outta my joint,” she replied.

I stared.

Way nastier than her usual nasty.

“Like,” she leaned in to me, “now.”

Because apparently I’d gone insane, I decided to ignore that too.

“Your stool? This is your place?” I asked.

She straightened and held my gaze like a threat as she stated, “Yeah. Was suckin’ the wrong dick. Wade didn’t own the place, don’t know what I was thinkin’, takin’ his shit. The old man might not’a gotten around real good but he still had a dick and any man’s got one of those, they like it sucked. Sucked my way to him changin’ his will. Now Wade’s gotta eat my pussy to get on my schedule to get his tips and actually work to get ’em. Like it better that way.”

I knew she was sharing all of this information to shock me and she succeeded.

I tried not to let it show and replied, “Well, good for you, Reb. Glad you got what you wanted.”

“Didn’t get it,” she returned. “Worked for it. Worked my ass off behind this bar for ten years. Sucked old man dick for two. Now it’s mine, shit hole that it is, so not exactly doin’ cartwheels ’cause it cost a fuckuva lot more than it’s worth.”

I couldn’t agree more.

I didn’t share that.

Instead, I asked, “Can I have a beer?”

“No.”

This time, I held her eyes and started softly, “Reb—”

She leaned in again.

“This here’s a biker bar, Millie,” she snapped. “Chaos quit comin’ years ago but it’s still a biker bar and there aren’t many people wanna show here but I’ll pour a drink for any a’ them, ’specially if they’re a biker ’cause that’s the way it is; that’s the way it’s always been. Who I will not pour a drink for is some up-her-own-ass bitch who don’t like bikers. I think you get I can use every dollar my boys spend on the rotgut that goes here. That don’t mean I’m willin’ to take yours.”

“Reb, what happened was a long time—”

“What happened was you told one of my kind,” she jabbed a thumb to her chest, “you’re too fuckin’ good for him. You’re too fuckin’ good for High, you’re two fuckin’ good to sit your ass on my stool. Now, Millie, not gonna say it again, get the fuck out.”

High.

That was right. I’d forgotten. Logan had become High when he’d officially become Chaos. The joke was his name had been shortened by his parents to the nickname Low. But he liked to smoke back then and not only cigarettes, so he’d become High.

I’d hated that name mostly because I really wasn’t that fond of how often he smoked pot. I’d hated that name enough I’d never used it.

I had to admit (just to myself) I still hated it.

“There are things that I—” I tried again.

“Don’t give a fuck.”

“I’m looking for Logan,” I blurted.

Her face twisted in a way that scared the absolute shit out of me as she moved closer to the bar, put her hand on it, and leaned deep.

“And I hope like fuck you don’t find him,” she hissed. “He moved on but before he found it in him to do that, you obliterated him.”

My heart constricted in a way I actually felt pain.

Excruciating pain.

“Christ, he was so into you, he was you,” Reb spat. “He lived for you. Every breath he took, it was for you. Then you sunk the blade in and slashed it straight through, gutting him. Honest to fuck, Pete, Tack, Arlo, Brick, Boz, none a’ us thought he’d survive. Ride off a cliff. Set himself swingin’ in the Compound. Get himself in a fight he knew he couldn’t win. He searched for it. It never came and you could smell the goddamned disappointment on him when he woke up to face another day without you in it. Every woman on this goddamned earth wants a man like that to feel like that about them and you had it and you fuckin’ tossed it away like it was garbage.”

I nearly fell off the barstool in my need to flee because I could take no more. The pain was so immense it was a wonder blood wasn’t oozing from every pore.

“Yeah, bitch,” she kept at me as she watched me move. “Get gone. Get the fuck gone. Don’t ever come back.” She lifted a hand and jabbed a finger at me. “And don’t you go lookin’ for High. He don’t need your shit in his life. Not again.”

I backed away two steps, unable to tear my eyes off her simply because I had no thoughts. It was actually a wonder I was moving.

All I could feel was the pain.

Eventually my body took flight and I got out of the bar. Into my car. I hit the button and reversed out of my spot without even looking to check if it was clear.

And I drove home.

It was late and even though I needed her, I wasn’t going to call Dottie again. I wasn’t going to call any of my other friends who knew about Logan and my inability to get over him. I wasn’t going to go home and burst into uncontrollable tears that felt like they’d choke me and keep crying until I hoped they would so it would finally be over.

I got into my house and flipped the switch illuminating the kitchen.

I locked the farm door behind me.

I walked to my marble countertop that was white with gray veins and dropped my purse on it.

And then I stood still and stared unseeing into the living room.

Reb was right. I knew it. I knew I’d destroyed Logan.

We’d met when I was eighteen, nine weeks after I graduated high school.

He’d asked me out within minutes of the first words we spoke to each other.

I’d slept with him on our first date.

Not because I was easy.

Because I knew he was everything.

And he was.

He was a dream come true. A fantasy come to life. Every clichéd hope of every girl on the planet walking, talking, touching, kissing.

Except, perhaps, rougher and owning his own bike.

He’d treated me like gold.

No, like a princess.

No, both.

I was precious. Beloved. Treasured.

He looked at me and every single time he did it, I knew he thought what he saw was so beautiful he couldn’t believe his luck.

The sex wasn’t great.

It was explosive.

And we slept entwined and woke the same way, like we needed to be connected to each other to recharge in the night so we could take on the day. Like without that, we wouldn’t be able to function.

To my parents’ dismay and his parents’ delight, we’d moved in with each other within six weeks of meeting.

We fought and every single time we did it, we ended it laughing like what we were fighting about was ridiculous because, mostly, it was.

We were together for three years that felt like fifty-three, all of them blissfully happy.

Then that time felt like three days the minute he walked away from me because I made him do it.

I looked around my kitchen with its marble countertops and butcher block island that had a vegetable sink. Its heavy, white ceramic farm sink under the window and white cupboards, the top ones with windows. Other cupboards specially designed for wine, cookbooks, spice racks. I took in the kitchen’s stainless steel appliances and six-burner, two-oven stove, the wine fridge.

Then I moved.

My boots struck against my hardwood floors that had been refinished four years ago and they still gleamed perfectly. I went to my living room with its multipaned windows at the front and on either side of the fireplace at the side.

I looked around the white walls and the brick of the fireplace (also painted white).

The sheers on the windows were white, too, and they were diaphanous. The furniture was slouchy and comfortable and all in soft taupe. The accents of toss pillows on couch, love seat, and cuddle chair as well as the vases spotted around surfaces were in muted pastels. The frames of pictures dotted on surfaces were all whitewashed or engraved mirror or intricate silver. And the pièce de résistance was a large circular peacock mirror over the fireplace.

The effect was cool and stylish, but not cold. Pretty and welcoming.

I walked down the hall with its walls filled with perfectly placed frames, all black with cream matting, holding black-and-white pictures of Dottie and her family. My parents. Grandparents. Cousins. Aunts and uncles. Friends.

I moved past the guestroom and guest bath into the extra bedroom that was a junk room. I flipped on the light, which set the ceiling fan to giving the room a gentle breeze it did not need in September.

I went right to the closet, slid the door open, and struggled through the wrapping paper, luggage, boxes, then hefted out the plastic crates that were stacked in the corner.

Four of them.

I wanted the bottom one.

I got to it and pulled it into the room. I fell to my behind on the floor and flipped down the latches on the sides of the crate, lifting the top away.

In there were albums, three of which I’d happily, but painstakingly, filled with photos.

One album for each year.

The rest of the crate was filled with those envelopes pictures came in with the front holding the film.

And last, there were loose photos tossed in in a frenzy to hide painful memories.

In the beginning, I’d pulled that crate out often.

But it had been years since I’d opened that box.

I grabbed an album, put it on my lap and opened it randomly.

My throat closed against the burn consuming my insides as I stared down at a photo of me standing by Logan, who was sitting on his bike.

We were outside Ride, the auto supply store with attached custom build garage that Chaos owned.

Logan was off to do something, I didn’t remember what. I was saying good-bye to the man I loved, who I would see again within hours. He had one of his hands on the bike grip, the other on my hip. I was facing him but looking over my shoulder at Naomi, the wife of one of Logan’s Chaos brothers.

My hair was long, down to my waist and unencumbered, like Logan liked it. Unrestrained and wild. A way I hadn’t worn it in years.

Logan had on sunglasses that made him look cool and badass, jeans, a tee, and his Chaos cut.

We were close, like we were always close whenever we were together, touching, like we were always touching, and smiling.

Like we were always smiling.

The picture below that was of us stretched out on a couch in the common room of the Chaos Compound. I was mostly on top of Logan, partly tucked into the back of the couch. I had a hand on his chest and my head thrown back, the picture captured my profile and I was laughing.

Logan was on his back, head to the armrest, arm wrapped around my waist, holding me to him even though he didn’t need to since I was lying on top of him. He was looking right at the camera, also laughing.

On the opposite page there was a picture of us at Scruff’s. I had my booty up on the edge of the pool table (something I did a lot to be goofy because being goofy made Logan smile, but something that annoyed the hell out of Reb). Logan was leaning over the table with cue in hand, lined up ready to take a shot.

But his head was tilted back, his eyes were on me and mine were on him.

We weren’t smiling. I was saying something to him and I had his full attention.

Like I always had his full attention.

I pressed my hands on the pages, palms flat, like I could soak in those times, like I could be thrown back years to relive them, like I could absorb the feelings I’d had back then of being safe and loved and living the life that was just right for me.

It didn’t work.

I turned the page.

Then I turned another page.

And another.

I did it reliving memories I’d relived countless times. They were burned in my brain in a way they were always there, even when I wasn’t calling them up. They were scars that tormented me in a way that changed the course of my life.

It wasn’t simply that I was in a rut.

My life had been interrupted and I’d never restarted it.

Since Logan Judd, I had not had a boyfriend.

I had not had a lover.

Not in twenty years.

He was it for me and those pictures showed why.

I met my perfect man at age eighteen and I had him for three years.

Then I sent him away.

Could I right those wrongs?

Should I?

You obliterated him.

I had.

And I’d done the same to myself.

Every woman on this goddamned earth wants a man like that to feel like that about them and you had it and you fuckin’ tossed it away like it was garbage.

I hadn’t tossed him away.

Reb didn’t know.

She’d never know.

But I hadn’t done that.

I’d never do that.

Not to Logan.

Every breath he took, it was for you.

I turned the page and went still.

On the two pages before me were six pictures taken at what was known among the biker world as Wild Bill’s Field.

What it was was a biker rally that happened on Bill McIntosh’s farm every year.

I remembered those rallies, all three of them I went to.

The pictures on the page were from the second one.

Top left, Logan sitting on a log, me on a blanket in front of him on the ground between his legs. He was bent forward, arms around me, chin on my shoulder, the firelight was illuminating our faces as we laughed toward someone that, if memory serves, was Boz being his usual lovable idiot.

Center left picture, same, except my head was turned and tipped back and Logan’s chin was off my shoulder and he was looking down at me.

Bottom left, my hand was up and curled around Logan’s forearm and my head was still tipped back.

But Logan wasn’t looking at me.

He was kissing me.

I shut the book.

The Field.

Wild Bill’s biker rally.

Every biker from every club in the entire state of Colorado went to that rally every year. It was mayhem, bikes, tents, campers, RVs, sleeping bags, bonfires, a makeshift stage set up for local and not-so-local bands who played loud and deep into the night.

It was bring what you want or hit Wild Bill’s kitchen that he set up in a massive tent at the edge of the makeshift campgrounds. He bragged that the proceeds sent him to Miami for Christmas and supported him throughout the year, except we all knew we hit his field just after he harvested the hay or corn he always grew in it, which was the way he really made his living.

First weekend of October.

Which was two and a half weeks away.

Every breath he took, it was for you.

You obliterated him.

I needed to right that wrong.

He needed to know.

And I was the only one who could tell him.

It was good now. It was safe. He was alive and well, ordering burritos and raising kids and not a fugitive from the law or worse.

And he needed to know.

So I was going to find him.

Then I was going to tell him.

On a blanket by a lake, twenty-three years earlier...

He was on me and in me.

He was done.

So was I.

Logan Judd had just given me my first orgasm.

And it was crazy-great.

We were on our date.

He’d picked me up on his bike.

I had been right. My parents had freaked.

But they did what they always did. They trusted me and didn’t make a big deal of it.

They didn’t like me hanging with Kellie either. She was considered a hood. Her dad had taken off when she was a little kid and never came back. Now her mom and stepdad partied more than Kellie did and didn’t mind it when Kellie had all her many friends over (this was because, I suspected, Kellie, Justine, and I cleaned up afterward and they didn’t have much worth anything to break).

But anyway, I got excellent grades. I was going to college in a few weeks. I’d gotten into a good one. University of Denver. This meant I was going to stay close to home, something my sister didn’t do (she went to Purdue), so this was something my parents liked. I did my chores. I got along with my big sister. We were thick as thieves and I missed her like crazy since she’d gone to Indiana. I loved my family and showed it. I’d never been one of those bitchy, pain-in-the-ass kids who got in their parents’ faces all the time.

Even so, I was a bit of a rebel. I drank and it was illegal. Kellie and Justine and I’d go joyriding. I’d lost my virginity at age seventeen (but it was to my boyfriend of two years, who had broken up with me in his first few months at University of Colorado).

I wasn’t disrespectful. I loved my family.

I was just... me.

And the me I was wasn’t stupid and totally irresponsible.

And the me I was put me on the back of Logan Judd’s bike.

He’d driven us into the mountains and I’d loved the ride. Dad had a friend who had a bike, Dottie and I had been out on it and we’d both loved it.

This was better.

A whole lot better.

Riding wrapped around Logan.

The best.

He’d pulled off the highway and drove to a lake. We’d gotten off the bike and he hefted a backpack out of one of his saddlebags, a blanket out of the other. He’d then taken my hand and walked us down a trail that led to the lake. The sun was just getting ready to set, so we had plenty of light to see the beauty around us and I saw it.

But I felt the beauty of walking with Logan, his fingers around mine, the backpack slung over one of his shoulders, the blanket tucked under his arm, knowing this was already the best date ever and feeling in my heart it was only going to get better.

I’d been right.

He moved us to the edge of the lake and threw out the blanket. We got on it and he pulled stuff from the backpack.

It was nothing fancy. He had four bottles of beer in there. Homemade sandwiches (turkey and Swiss). Bags of chips (that were a bit crushed). A package of Oreos (similarly crushed).

But sitting by a beautiful lake up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with Logan, eating and watching the sun set, it was the most delicious meal I’d ever had.

We’d talked.

From our conversation on the steps of Kellie’s deck, he knew my full name, my age, that I had a sister, what high school I’d gone to, that I was heading to DU for the fall semester, and that Kellie and Justine were my best friends. I’d learned his full name, that he was three years older than me, he was a recruit for a motorcycle club called Chaos, and he was close with his parents and younger sister, even if he’d left them in Durango, where he’d grown up.

On the blanket, we’d talked more and it was cool because it was like a rite of passage. The first real grown-up conversation I’d ever had.

I wasn’t some eighteen-year-old just-ex-high-schooler that he’d met.

I wasn’t a girl.

I was a woman.

A woman he liked.

We talked about the work he did at Ride, the garage and shop that was owned by the motorcycle club he belonged to. We talked about how, when he was finished being a recruit and he was a full member, he’d get a bigger cut of the money made there. We talked about his brothers and how he liked them. We talked about his brothers’ “old ladies,” or the wives and girlfriends, and which of them he liked... or didn’t.

We also talked about how I was kind of worried that Justine was partying too much and getting blasted out of her mind when she did. We talked about the fact that I was worried about this because she’d screwed up on her SATs, refused to take them again, and she’d had a really bad couple of semesters, so her GPA was shot. Then, when the first two colleges she applied to didn’t take her, she’d quit applying. And I’d told him I thought she was lost and freaked about her future and instead of finding her way, she was getting drunk a lot.

“One thing I know, darlin’,” he’d said gently when we were talking about Justine. “You ain’t ever gonna change a person. Stand by their side or be at their back. But do not push change or expect it. Just be there for them while they sort their shit out. But do it knowin’ you might have to cut ties if their shit starts leakin’ and becomin’ yours.”

Thus I’d learned on our date that Logan Judd was wise.

Conversation had while eating changed into conversation had while cuddling and talking and staring at the moon on the water.

Cuddling had gone from just talking to talking with some kissing.

My first kiss from Logan Judd had been a revelation. It, too, was my first adult kiss. No fumbling around. No inexperience. No desperation. None of that feel you’d get from a guy like he knew he was lucky he managed to get his mouth on you and the second he did, he was thinking about what else he could get.

Logan knew what he was doing. Logan took his time doing it. Logan liked what he was getting and Logan knew how to guide me to giving that back.

It was dreamy from beginning to end.

And then the talking stopped and it was just kissing until it turned into Logan making love to me on that blanket by a lake in the Rocky Mountains.

It was slow and sweet and exploratory until it got faster and more urgent and finished on totally explosive.

It was not only my first orgasm.

It was also the first time a man had made love to me.

And I lay under him, feeling his weight, smelling his hair, my body sluggish in a way I liked, at the same time I was crazy-giddy like the night before, except in a quieter way I liked better. All this because I was connected to Logan, feeling complete when I didn’t know I was incomplete and it was crazy, totally nutso, but I knew it to be true.

I was complete with Logan.

And I also knew it was no longer that I could fall in love with Logan Judd.

It was that I’d started doing it at his first “hey.”

No, when I first saw him walk into Kellie’s house.

And I was still doing it and knew I’d keep doing it until the deed was done.

Which, with the rate I was going, would take another date.

This, for some reason, didn’t freak me.

No.

It should. It should freak me. It should feel wrong.

But it only felt right—oh so right...

I... could not... wait.

He pulled his face from out of my neck and I instantly missed his heavy breaths there.

But when his eyes caught mine in the moonlight, I suddenly declared, “I’m not easy. You’re my second. And if you think I am and this isn’t about the fact that we’re good together... if you’ve missed what’s going on with us... if you take this, what just happened, and don’t call again... all I can say is... your loss, Logan Judd.”

I said this and I did it with attitude.

But I also did it completely terrified by the very idea that he might not call again.

He grinned and his body started shaking on mine.

“That it?” he asked, his words also shaking with humor.

“Yes,” I answered, deciding from his amusement not to be freaked that I’d just blurted all that out.

“Just sayin’, already got our second date scoped out,” he replied.

I relaxed under him and did it biting back a whoop of glee.

“And the third,” he continued.

I slid my hand up his spine.

“All the way to the sixth,” he kept going. “And then it’s your turn to decide what we do, so best start thinkin’, Millie, ’cause that’s gonna happen next week.”

Man, oh man, he had our first six dates planned.

He was going to call me again.

And again.

And again.

And this made me unbelievably happy.

“I like you.”

God, still blurting!

The grin he was still wearing got bigger.

“That’s good seein’ as you just let me have you as in all a’ you. I liked it a fuckuva lot but even if you hadn’t given me that, I also liked shootin’ the shit with you so think it’s safe to say I like you too.”

I turned my head to the side, suddenly scared at how relieved I was that he liked all he’d gotten from me and wanted more.

“Millie,” he called.

“Hmm?” I asked the tall grass at the side of the blanket.

“Beautiful, look at me.”

At the “beautiful,” my fingers clenched into his skin and my eyes went to his.

“No bullshit, baby,” he whispered the second he got my gaze. “I am absolutely, one hundred percent not missin’ what’s goin’ on.”

It was then I suddenly wanted to cry because I’d just been made love to, had my first orgasm, and was still connected to a man I liked a lot, a lot, a lot in a way I knew I was falling in love.