43. Chapter 43
Chapter 43
I held Mallori’s hand as we made the two-and-a-half-hour drive to East Texas. We alternated between talking and listening to music, and I marveled at how easy she was to be with.
I was going to miss her so much when she left next week.
“You know,” she said, “you totally looked like a lumbersnack this morning.”
Laughing, I shook my head. “I’ll probably regret asking this, but what the fuck is a lumbersnack?”
“You were chopping those trees, and you looked totally edible.”
“Glad you appreciated the view, Bee.”
After taking care of Ms. Wallace, we met Woody, Tank, and Shark over at Cam and Shiloh’s house. They had lost a huge oak tree in their backyard, but luckily it hadn’t hit their house. We worked together to cut it up into firewood so Cam wouldn’t have to deal with it when he got home.
Turning on my blinker, I took a left down a dirt road that was dappled with light shining through the overhanging trees .
“Wow, this looks like a good place for a murder,” Mallori commented, rolling down her window and inhaling the fresh, woodsy scent.
I laughed. “There’s a lot of swamp land around here. I’m sure there are plenty of bodies in the water.” Shrugging, I added, “Well, not anymore. The gators would have gotten rid of any evidence.”
“Gators?” she gasped.
“Yep. My neighbor has a boat he lets me use, so we can go out on the water while we’re here, and maybe we’ll see some.”
Her eyebrows lowered with apprehension. “Is it safe?”
I nodded. “As long as you’re in a boat, you’re fine.”
“Can we go fishing?” she asked, her tone brightening.
“Sure. We’ll need to get you a Texas fishing license when we stop for groceries.”
I spotted Mel’s Bait and Tackle and pulled into the parking lot of the small store before heading inside. The floor was grimy from years of use, but the shop owner was friendly and called me by name when we walked inside.
“Hey, Mel. We need to get some provisions, and my girl needs a fishing license.”
The old man grinned with a smile that was missing a few teeth. He was wearing overalls and a plaid shirt with the sleeves ripped off.
“Well now, how about that?” Pushing over a pen and some paperwork, he said, “You just fill this out, pretty lady, and I’ll get you all set up. As long as you’re not some kind of criminal.”
“Well, I am, but I’ve never been caught,” Mallori quipped, and Mel cackled his delight.
Thirty minutes later we had two bags of groceries and a fishing license as we pulled into my driveway. Mallori gasped. “Oh my god. This is your cabin?”
Something inside me soared at her reaction. It really was a beautiful place. The walls were timber, a porch wrapping all the way around the perimeter. The house was built on stilts over the river to prevent flooding, and a set of wooden stairs led up to the door.
“Come on,” I said, unable to contain my excitement. Helping her out of the truck, I grabbed her hand and led her up the stairs.
When we got inside, Mallori’s eyes lit up as she looked around. “Hawk this is amazing.” She wandered around the room, looking at the paintings in rustic wood picture frames that adorned the walls.
“You like it?”
She turned to me, her aqua eyes sparkling. “I adore it.”
My cabin wasn’t fancy, but it was spacious and warm, and I loved being here. Mal seemed to like it too, and her delight made me so fucking happy.
“Those paintings are by a local artist, and they’re all of this river, Caddo Lake, and the surrounding bayous.”
Mallori studied one. “The detail is fantastic.”
“The real thing is even better,” I told her, taking her hand and leading her out the back door.
“Holy shit,” she breathed. The wide, dark river was below us, lined with Cypress trees that had Spanish moss hanging from the branches. It was an eerily gorgeous sight. “That’s it. I’m never leaving.”
Stepping up behind her, I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face in her neck.
If only, Little Bee. If only.
For the next three days, Mallori and I spent every single minute together, and as each day passed, the ache inside me intensified. For the first time in my life, I felt like I’d found someone I’d like to be with, but she was someone I couldn’t have.
I did my best to push those feelings down deep and tried to simply enjoy being with her. We spent a couple days out on Caddo Lake and caught lots of catfish that we fried and ate for dinner. We’d even seen a couple gators sunning themselves on a fallen log.
In the evenings, we sat on the porch overlooking the river, listening to tree frogs and crickets and counting the lightning bugs that flitted over the water.
Today we went to the nearby town of Jefferson. It was a small historic town with a cool-ass general store that we spent hours exploring. We ate some excellent barbecue and then bought cupcakes from a red double-decker bus and walked around the brick streets hand-in-hand. Like a real couple.
“I’m glad you let me bring clothes,” Mallori teased as we drove back to town that evening after getting ready for a night out. “Today would have been really awkward if I’d had to walk around naked.”
I smiled and lifted her hand to my lips for a kiss, holding it there for a long moment, inhaling the scent of her. “Wouldn’t have happened,” I informed her. “Your body is for my eyes only.”
But not for long , a niggling little voice whispered in my ear.
We had dinner at a nice restaurant housed in a historic old building with thirty-foot ceilings. The server told us it was a saloon back in the 1800 s. Mallori and I shared the same side of a booth, and I couldn’t stop touching her.
“You look so beautiful tonight,” I whispered in her ear. She was wearing a pretty red dress that showed off her tanned legs and left one shoulder bare. I kissed her there, and she tilted her face toward me.
“I don’t want to leave tomorrow,” she said, and I scooted her closer to me, my arm around her shoulders.
“I don’t either,” I admitted, closing my eyes against the stinging sensation in my eyes. Dammit, what is this feeling? I’d never been this drawn to another person in my life.
We were interrupted by the waiter bringing our ticket, and Mallori straightened out of my embrace. “I’m excited to see Coconut though. Blaire texted me a picture of her today. She was napping with Danica. It was so nice of her to offer to kitty-sit.”
Pulling out my wallet, I handed my card over to the server, and a few minutes later, he brought it back to me.
“You want to go listen to the band at that place we passed today?” I asked, and she nodded.
The club was nice, with brick interior walls and a huge mirrored bar along one wall. The band was good, playing a mixture of hard and soft rock that we knew all the words to.
I recognized the opening riff of “Feel like Making Love” by Bad Company and took Mal’s hand. “Madam, may I have this dance?”
She giggled and nodded, seeming a little surprised. On the dance floor, she curled her arms around my neck, and I banded mine around her waist, holding her so tightly you couldn’t have fit a hair between our bodies.
As we danced, rotating our hips together, I couldn’t stop looking at my Little Bee. Her face was bare of makeup, but she didn’t need any. Her natural glow was enhanced by the slight sunburn kissing her nose and cheeks from our time outdoors. She’d pulled her hair up on one side with a sparkly barrette, the rest of it falling down her back.
Mallori Fitz was absolutely the most stunning woman I’d ever seen.
“I’m going to miss you,” she whispered, and I tasted the sweetness of the wine she’d drank on her breath.
I kissed her softly, letting my tongue sweep through her lips. “I’ll miss you too, Bee.”
Her eyes glistened with tears. “I know we’ll see each other, but it won't be the same. We won’t be… us.”
My jaw tightened, and I tilted my forehead down to rest on hers. “I know.”
Unless you just stayed with me , I thought as our bodies moved to the sultry beat of the song.
Mallori and I had had sex every night and morning since we’d been at my cabin, but this… this night felt like so much more. When we’d gotten home from the club, I’d spread a blanket on the floor of the porch, and we were kissing like we’d never see each other again. I was on top of her, and she had her legs wrapped around my waist. My hands cupped her gorgeous face as I stared down into her eyes.
God, I think I’m falling for her.
As soon as I pushed deep inside her body, feeling her tightness and hearing her soft, sensual moan, I amended that statement.
God, I have totally fallen for her.