Thirteen #3
Sunlight beams down on us, and I feel the crisp, mountain air bite at my skin. A soft breeze rolls over me as my eyes peel open and I soak in the sight before me. Annabeth entangled around me, her pink hair falling in ribbons across her flushed cheeks.
She slept in my sweater. It’s so big for her that it basically swallowed her curves, much to my disappointment.
Gentle snores escape her, and I let my eyes trail across the sleeping pixie.
Her eyelids flutter beneath her lashes, and her lip quivers slightly as she wriggles in my arms and nestles further into my chest.
We stayed up till near sunrise, drinking and dancing, stealing kisses through endless laughter.
She told me the story of how she moved here and that she’d always dreamed of teaching music.
I smile to myself as I picture this vibrant, pink-haired goddess in the middle of a full orchestral setting, marching to the beat of her own drum.
Wait, she doesn’t play the drums. Strumming to the strings of her own guitar – yep, that’s the one.
I glide my hand towards her chin, stroking her hair away from her face as she sleeps. She’s so close I can see her freckles dancing across her nose and the gold ring in her nostril glistening in the sunlight. She’s fucking adorable. How can someone be so sexy and so damn cute at the same time?
“Hey,” comes her groggy voice from where her face is buried into me.
“Good morning, Firefly.”
“I’m starving,” she groans.
“Oh good, me too.”
“What’s for brekkie?” she asks, her voice soft and laced with sleep.
“Hey, I thought we agreed that you were the breakfast maker in this relationship?” I tease.
“Relationship, hey?” she quips in return.
Fuck, too forward. Back up, Dallas, back up.
I start to stammer a reply, but she interrupts me with a hearty laugh, slapping my chest as she slips from my hold and sits up in the tray of my ute.
She lifts herself up and climbs out in one fluid, and oddly graceful, movement.
My knees hurt just watching my girl move – I have never felt so fucking old.
“I’m just messin’ with ya, cowboy,” she taunts. Way to give a man a heart-attack. Her brow cocks, and she sticks her tongue out at me before flitting off to sit on the table. Our table.
My mouth almost waters at the image that replays in my mind of her spread across that very spot for me last night, whimpering and completely at my mercy.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask.
“Let me see… I slept in the tray of a ute, drunk as a skunk, in someone else’s sweater, wrapped up in the arms of a hot cowboy. I reckon that about sums up a marvellous sleep, don’t you, Dallas Northlane?”
“Ouch, full names. And here I thought you thought my name was cowboy.”
She laughs, leaning down across the side of the bench to grab a fistful of dirt and proceeds to throw it at me.
“Dirt, Firefly? Really? Isn’t this childish behaviour beneath you?” I joke.
She frowns and retorts, “I’ll bloody show you beneath you.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth, her cheeks flush crimson and she begins stammering a redemption. I close the gap between us, pressing my palm to her cheek, the heat radiating through my skin.
“If you want to be beneath me, baby girl, all you’ve gotta do is ask.”
A deeper shade of red burns into her cheeks as she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. I know she’s embarrassed. I know I hit a nerve. But I can’t stop myself. Gently teasing this woman is fast becoming my new favourite pastime, and I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of it – of her.
“Nothing to add, Annabeth?”
I move closer, placing my hand against her flushed cheek and cupping her jaw in my palm, lifting her chin until our lips almost touch.
She reaches her hand to meet mine, her touch sending shivers straight to my dick.
Her skin is softer than I can explain, and all I can think about is having her hands wrapped around me again.
“No,” she whimpers.
“No, what?”
“No, cowboy.”
I nod in approval before crashing into her. My tongue slips between her teeth, meeting hers with enough pressure to draw a moan from her lips. She tastes like the whiskey we drank last night and… peppermint?
I pull myself away from her. “You taste like peppermint schnapps.”
“I had a breath mint when I got up,” she confesses.
I stare at her, puzzled. When the hell did that happen? Am I going blind?
“I didn’t want to be stinky,” she continues, stifling a laugh.
“Annabeth, I couldn’t give a single fuck if you have morning breath, or if you’re covered in cow shit. I think you’re beautiful, okay?”
She smiles so big I swear her cheeks are going to burst, and lunges towards me, gripping me in a hug that almost cracks a rib.
“I want to know you, but I don’t want you to ever feel like you need to hide around me, or be anybody but exactly who you are,” I tell her.
“You got it, cowboy,” she taunts.
I hold her in my arms, not wanting to let go, though it does give me time to consider my own morning breath situation. “Do you want to get some breakfast?”
“I’d love to,” she answers.
With her still in my embrace, I pick her up and carry her to my ute, knowing I will be holding onto the memory of our first night together beneath the stars, on our table, forever.