CHAPTER 39
Walker
The crackle of the fire dancing in the restaurant’s large hearth is the only sound aside from our spoons hitting the bowl.
When we’d first arrived, the dinner crowd was already long gone so I promised the waitress she’d get a nice tip if she asked the kitchen to stay open for just a bit longer—and if she gave us a seat by the fire.
The temperature had dropped considerably from when we first arrived at the town hall.
The sun in the springtime is like that; it brings a warmth during the day but the night chills considerably after it sets.
I’ve always loved a fireplace. Though I never had one until I moved to the farm.
The first thing I did when I moved onto the farm and Peter told me the fireplace wasn’t working was clean it out so we could light it.
We spent that night with a bourbon in hand, the fire crackling in front of us, and he’d told me all of his dreams for the farm.
The smell alone now is like a beautiful memory come to life.
“Favorite color?” Tally asks me to a roll of my eyes. She’s been asking weird questions since we sat down. I think she’s nervous and I kind of like it, the idea that she may want this as much as I do.
“Favorite color?”
“Actually, let me guess. Blue like the sky.”
I shake my head.
“Brown like the dirt.”
“Black like my soul,” I tease.
Tally rolls her eyes. “Black isn’t a color.”
“It’s also not my favorite.” I lean forward, my focus on her eyes. “It’s yellow. Well, actually, not exactly yellow. Maybe more of a marigold. An amber of sorts.”
“Like sunflowers?”
“No, Tally.” My voice is a rough whisper as I reach across the table for her hand. “It’s the exact shade of your eyes when I sink inside you.”
Tally’s mouth opens but no words come out.
I drop her hand and, using my thumb, push her chin up to close her mouth.
Then I slide my thumb across her bottom lip.
“Second favorite color would definitely be peach. Like these lips. I have an unhealthy obsession with your mouth.” I take a bite of my ice cream and play her game. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Well, any answer I give now is going to seem juvenile since you had to go and be all …” She waves a hand in my direction.
My brows lift in question, and my smirk grows.
She shrugs and I have to wonder if she’s ever been out on a real date before.
“Favorite flower?” she grinds out.
“Wildflowers.”
Another eye roll. “Cute.”
“I’m being serious. They’ve always been my favorite.
Wild, unconfined, bursting with color. You never know quite what you’ll find in a wildflower field.
They’re sturdy, they come back year after year, and they don’t need too much, just sunlight and open land.
Plus, they can take over an entire field.
It’s why I picked the cottages facing the wildflower meadows to work on first.”
Tally licks her lips until finally, after another breath, she asks, “Aren’t you going to ask me mine?”
I shake my head. “A man who’s interested in you shouldn’t have to ask you these things, Tally.
Your favorite color is whatever makes you feel pretty that day.
Some days you love yellow, but it also hurts because the color reminds you of your father.
Most days you prefer bright pink. Even if it’s just the strap of your bra, you’ve got pink somewhere on you. ”
“You have an unfair advantage. You saw my underwear today.”
I don’t smile. I don’t want to flirt. I want Tally to know that this is about more than sex.
“You wear bright colors because you think that without them, you’ll go unnoticed.
It’s a way to be loud without making a sound.
But Tally, in every room, no matter what you’re wearing or what you’re saying, you have my attention.
So, yes, I saw your underwear today and I’ll see them again on my bedroom floor within the hour, but I know the color of everything you have worn since the day you arrived because you have owned my attention since the first moment I saw you. ”
She glances down at her unfinished dessert. “Can we get the check?”
We barely make it to my truck before she’s trying to push me up against it, though I throw her hands away.
“You told me what you wanted, and I’m going to give it to you,” I explain.
She blinks up at me with lust-filled eyes. “Right. Well, what I want is your dick inside me within the next three minutes or I’m going to explode.”
“No.” I reach around and unlock the door.
Then I lean in close and press a gentle kiss to the spot right below her ear.
“What you want is to be taken on a date, wooed, driven home, and then kissed on the porch.” I nip at her neck again.
“I know you, Tally. Even if tonight is our first date, I know you.”
I say the last words slowly, making sure to enunciate each one, and the little puffs of air from my lips being so close to her ear has her breaking out in shivers.
My fingers toy with the pink bra strap right beneath the stitching on her pretty dress.
“And yet I can’t get enough of you. I want to know every thought that goes through your pretty head.
Want to hear your every desire.” I press my lips to her cheek and then nod to the open door of the car. “But I can’t do that until you get in.”
Tally’s quiet for the ride home. I’m in my head, too. And as much as I tell her I’m trying to give her what she wants, I’m also doing this for me. I’m doing this for the boy who never felt he could go after something just for him. Who put everyone else first.
Tally is it for me. And I know she feels the same.
I want this to be the best first date ever so it’s also her last first date.
I’m not sure when it happened, or what I’ll do with myself if she leaves, but I’ve fallen for this woman.
So hard that it sometimes feels impossible to walk out the door in the morning and start my day without her next to me.
“You going to get out of the car?” The soft lilt of her voice coaxes me back to the present. I’d hardly even registered that I’d parked.
She reaches for the handle and I growl. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
I make my way over to her side. She’s smiling when I open the door and hold out my hand to her.
“I had a really nice time tonight,” she tells me.
I swallow my nerves and lead her toward the porch. “Me, too.”
When she takes the first step, she grips the banister and then laughs as it wobbles beneath her hand. Glancing up at the sky, she shakes her head. “I know, you’ll get around to it.”
I frown. “Hmm?”
“My father.” She sighs. “He always had projects.”
She shakes the wooden structure again, showing me it’s loose, and then points to the rocking chair in the corner of the porch.
“I wouldn’t sit in that chair, either. Pretty sure the back leg wobbles under too much weight.”
It feels as though she’s only talking to fill the silence, and I smile as we step up to the front door, happy that we are both feeling whatever this is building between us.
My hand goes to her cheek, and I stroke her smooth skin with my thumb. Fuck, she’s beautiful.
“Hi,” she whispers nervously.
I swipe my thumb across her lips and lick my own. “Hi, Wildflower.”
I take a step closer, and the moment I lean in, her lips lift into a smile. Our mouths touch and it’s gentle at first, like a first kiss despite the fact that we’ve done this countless times now. She moans as my tongue slips into her mouth before gripping me tighter until the kiss turns ravenous.
“Need you,” she mutters.
“Not nearly as much as I need you.” I lean down and scoop her up, carrying her back down the steps.
“Where are we going?” she asks on a laugh.
“The cottage. I don’t want to risk anyone interrupting us. Tonight is all about you.”
“It’s about us,” she says, and then she’s kissing my jaw, my neck.
By the time I kick open the door to the cottage, we’re both impatient.
I stalk toward the bedroom but slow the moment we get to the bed.
Gently, I place her feet on the ground. Then I kneel in front of her, easing her pink boots off her feet.
I press my lips to the inside of her ankle before staring up at her.
“In case you didn’t know, I’m crazy about you, Tally.”
Tally’s eyes are warm as she reaches down to stroke my face. “Oh, Cowboy. I’m a bit obsessed with you, too.”
I suck in a surprised breath. “Thought we weren’t supposed to share our feelings.”
She rolls her thumb across my lip. “Nah, we weren’t supposed to catch feelings. Though I thought you’d noticed I don’t always play by the rules.” She pauses before pushing on. “I don’t know what this is, or what we’re doing, but I don’t want to stop.”
I nip at the side of her thumb. “Good, because I don’t plan on letting you go.”
I undress quickly, but I take my time with her.
I start with the bottom buttons on her dress.
I swear she buys dresses with buttons just to fuck with me.
Though I can’t deny I love taking my time with her.
Love the way her breath hitches as my hands get close to her pussy.
And the way she trembles as I make my way to her breasts until her dress finally falls open and I’m the one with my heart in my throat.
“You’re so fucking beautiful, Tal. I could stare at you for the rest of my life and still not get enough.”
“Walker.” Her voice is a soft rasp.
I start at her thighs, taking my time to pepper every part of her body with kisses until I’m straddling her, my cock heavy and aching to be inside her.
I hold myself above her, not sure if there are words to express the way I feel as I hover right between this moment and the next. Knowing that I’ll be chasing this feeling for the rest of my life.
I almost tell her. Almost whisper the words that don’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling. Love. The word is trivial in comparison to this, to the way this woman has healed me, the way my heart settles when she’s near. How all the darkness makes sense to me now that she’s shown me the light.
“Walker.” My siren calls to me, and since I don’t have the words, I dip my mouth to hers and slide inside her.
We rock back and forth slowly as I make love to this woman, pushing her hands up above her head, linking our fingers, and staring into the eyes that have become my home.
I kiss down her neck as I roll my hips, never once pulling out fully, keeping our bodies as connected as our souls.
She shatters around me without warning, and as she comes apart in my arms, crying out my name, I revel in the feel of her and hold myself back.
I make love to her for hours, keeping myself right at the edge.
I fuck her from every angle, softly, gently, then roughly as I tug on her hair from behind and bite down on her neck.
Devouring every ounce of her pleasure, I don’t stop until she’s crying out and begging for me to empty inside her. Only then do I give her the last of me.