Chapter 32
Ellie
“What’s got you smilin’ over there, darlin’?”
Turning in my seat, I shift from looking out at the country fields to the cowboy next to me, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on my thigh.
Griffin has taken to wearing his cowboy hat almost every day now that we’re free from the shackles of a high school dress code.
Nothing turns me on more than the look in his eye when I snatch it off his head and place it on my own before crawling into his lap.
Even if he’s not technically a bonafide cowboy (a.k.a.
, he’s never worked a ranch a day in his life), I hope he never stops wearing it.
I spend a lot of time in the passenger side of Griffin’s truck these days.
We do all the cliché things every teenage couple does–mini golf, movies, ice cream dates.
But our favorite thing to do lately is to flip a coin at every intersection–heads for right, tails for left–and take those directions until we find ourselves outside the city limits.
From there, we just drive. Drive, and talk, and laugh, and sing, and sometimes just sit in silence. The world feels so big when it’s just the two of us out in the middle of nowhere under the big Texas sky. I don’t know how I ever felt suffocated here.
“Not smiling at anything in particular,” I say, placing my hand over his and tracing soft circles with my thumb. “Just happy.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks, his own smile lighting up his tanned face. Griffin year-round is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen–but summer Griffin? He’s not just hot, he’s devastating.
His entire summer wardrobe apparently consists of nothing but muscle tees that show off his broad shoulders and toned muscles–not gym-bro huge, but the type of strong you get from manual labor, which is exactly what he’s been doing.
He, Jack, and David got jobs with the local contractor, helping demo old buildings and framing the new ones.
Any time not spent at work, we spend together. Usually it’s the four of us, Abby and Aaron joining sometimes. At least until Griffin decides he wants me to himself and kicks everyone out, or sweeps me off my feet, hollering over his shoulder that we’re leaving as we’re already halfway out the door.
Not that I’m complaining–about the alone time, or the muscle tees. I could spend every hour of the day with him (and looking at him) and never get enough.
“Well, what’s got you so happy, then?”
Scooting closer to him on the bench seat, I lay my head on his shoulder with a contented sigh.
“You.”
He places a gentle kiss on the top of my head, squeezing my thigh before threading his fingers through mine, holding both of our hands in my lap. Tilting my head up, I press a soft kiss to his jawline.
“Can we go home?” I whisper in his ear, goosebumps immediately raising on his neck. Smirking to myself, I kiss him again, this time lower on his neck, my free hand ghosting my fingers up his forearm.
“You’re killing me, Eleanor,” he says in a hoarse voice.
Laughing softly, I nip at his earlobe.
“Better drive fast, then.”
***
“So anyway, once they got the nails out everything was totally fine,” David says, finishing a story about how he managed to nailgun his pants and boxers to the roof he was working on and had no choice but to either get rescued by the fire department, or get stark naked in public.
Griffin and Jack roar with laughter, rolling on the basement floor. I try to twist my smirk into something much more sympathetic, but fail miserably.
“We go to a different work site for one afternoon and you manage to cause mayhem,” Jack says, finally catching his breath and shaking his head.
“Exactly, this is totally your fault,” David says, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “You know I need constant supervision.”
Griffin sits up, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Shit dude, I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.”
He climbs off the floor, picking me up out of the chair and settling me into his lap when he sits down.
I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him in to rest his head on my chest, stroking his hair absentmindedly.
I never thought I’d be a PDA girl, but I can’t seem to keep my hands off of him, no matter who we’re with.
Even at my house with my parents, there’s always some point of contact, albeit much more chaste.
“Should I be more affectionate in public?” Aaron asks with a slight frown, looking from Abby to us, then back to Abby. He and Abby joined us tonight, but Aaron sat on the couch while Abby took the other chair across the room.
“God, no,” Abby replies with a scoff. “If you try to touch me like that outside of the bedroom, I’m breaking up with you.”
“Okay, good,” he says, letting out a relieved sigh.
“No offense, of course,” Abby adds, waving her hand in our direction.
“None taken,” Griffin says with a wicked grin, one hand sliding up my thigh, playing with the threads of my cutoffs, his other arm snaking around my waist and holding me tighter.
“I do not need to hear about what goes on in either of your bedrooms,” Jack grumbles.
“I do,” David says, wiggling his eyebrows. “The more detail, the better.”
I laugh loudly when Jack smacks him over the back of the head, scolding him to stop being a perv.
David hands Abby the Wii controller and turns on Mario Kart, while Jack and Aaron start a heated debate about the Rangers versus the Astros.
I don’t hear a word they say–I’m distracted by the way Griffin has been steadily moving his hand higher and higher up my leg, thumb now brushing my skin underneath the hem of my shorts.
In response, I press my ass against the bulge in his pants, which is slowly starting to strain against the fabric.
“Careful there, darlin’,” he murmurs, “Keep that up and David’s really gonna get a front row seat.”
“Not if we’re alone, he won’t,” I whisper in a teasing tone, swirling my hips at just the right angle to have him whispering “fuck” under his breath.
“Alright, everyone out,” Griffin says loudly, voice straining with the effort to sound positively not hot and bothered.
“Bro, we just started a game!” David yells in protest.
“Hey, you can save your dignity instead of getting your ass kicked again,” Abby says, standing and dropping the controller onto the seat. “I think our current record is forty five to eight, right?”
“Forty five to nine,” he grumbles under his breath, throwing his own controller to the other end of the couch.“C’mon crybaby,” Jack says, grabbing David by the collar and pulling him toward the stairs. “We can go practice at my house so you can make it forty five to ten.”
“I swear she’s cheating somehow,” he whines, voice fading as stomps up the stairs, Abby and Aaron following closely behind.
The second the door slams shut, Griffin has me thrown over his shoulder, bolting upstairs to his bedroom.
“Griffin, you’re going to drop me,” I say, giggling, then letting out a yelp when he smacks my ass.
“Like hell I will,” he says gruffly. “At least not before we make it to bed.”
Kicking his door open, he keeps his word as he sets me on the mattress, immediately climbing over me to pin me down with his hips.
“I think you get off on teasing me more than anything else,” he says against my lips, claiming my mouth in a heated kiss.
“I can’t help that it’s so fun,” I say between kisses. “You get so worked up so fast.”
“Because you’re the most stunning Goddamn thing I’ve ever seen,” he says, drawing a moan out of me as he grinds his rock-hard erection against the needy spot between my legs. “And I still can’t believe you’re mine.”
Pulling back to look into his chocolate eyes, wide with desire, I stroke one thumb across his cheek.
“I’ve always been yours,” I say seriously. “Always will be.”
“I love you so much, Eleanor,” he says, voice shaky. “I know we’re young, and you have so much you want to do, but you’re it for me. I will always be yours.”
Something about that stops my breathing, a twinge of anxiety stabbing in my chest. I do have so many things I want to see and accomplish before I settle down. I don’t want to be one of those girls who gets married right out of high school and never leaves her hometown.
He’s not asking you to, Ellie. Just enjoy this.
I fist his hair, bringing his mouth back to mine, trying to show how much I love him rather than saying it back. There will be time to think about futures and logistics later–for now, I want to enjoy the beautiful boy holding me like I’m the most precious thing in the world.
I flip us over so that I’m straddling him with my hands on his chest, looking down at him and marveling as his eyes go from sweet to smoldering.
He slides his hands up my ribs, silently asking permission to get rid of my tank top.
I lift my arms over my head to let him, and he groans when he realizes I’m not wearing a bra underneath.
“Dirty girl,” he says with a dark chuckle. “If I’d known what you had going on under that top, I would have kicked everyone else out hours ago.”
Leaning forward, I brush his ear with my lips and whisper, “Wait til you see what I’ve got going on underneath these shorts.”
Quick as lightning, I’m underneath him again as he makes quick work of yanking my shorts down my legs and tossing them across the room. His eyes rake over my naked body, and he lets out a low, slow groan.
“Fuck Eleanor, I’ll never get tired of this view,” he says before removing his own shirt and jeans, leaving nothing between us but the thin material of his boxers. I lock my legs behind his back, hips rising up to meet him with every stroke of his hard cock against my slit.
“You’re so wet already,” he moans, kissing and biting at my neck. “Look at the mess you’re making on my boxers. The way you respond to me makes me go fucking feral.”