Chapter Thirty-Five
Reid
Since he now owed me one, I didn’t feel bad about commandeering my cousin’s distillery for the morning to carry out my plans. Because while I wanted to show Hazel how much I wanted to spend time with her on an actual date, it was also mid-February in the mountains of Colorado, so it was cold as fuck outside. And it provided the privacy I wanted with her from prying eyes.
There were too many people in Sage Springs and Butterfly Ridge that would start spreading things through the rumor mill if they saw me suddenly becoming affectionate in public with my best friend’s little sister.
I wasn’t trying to hide her. I just didn’t want to share her. I wanted to greedily soak up all her lingering looks and savor all her suggestive touches without the prying eyes of others diluting the way she made me feel.
“I’m going to run to the store. I’ll be back in an hour, and I expect you to be ready and waiting for me.”
“Aren’t you suddenly bossy?” she teased, pushing up to her tiptoes and ghosting her lips along the edge of my jaw.
The wind whipping behind the building of the bar had her shivering and burrowing further into my chest as I held her next to the back door, reluctant to let her out of my sight or my arms.
She’d blushed through the story of how she’d torn her dress last night, but it was too cold to send her home wearing it anyway. I’d pulled out a pair of flannel pants that were huge on her and rolled them at the waist before I covered her up with one of my hoodies that hung down to her knees. Long socks and a pair of much too large slides had been used to cover her delicate feet instead of the high heels I was carrying. Every part of me resisted saying goodbye to her so soon. Even if it was only for a short time.
“You haven’t seen bossy yet,” I growled, turning to nip at her cheek before I bent my knees and placed a lingering kiss on her cold lips. Now that I had unlimited access to her lips, I hadn’t been able to resist kissing her all morning as I fed her breakfast and tucked her into my bed to sketch on my tablet while I rushed through a quick shower.
“I’m gonna call the cops for trespassing,” Hudson’s voice boomed through the small speaker on the camera mounted in the eaves above the door. “Quit trying to seduce my sister underneath my fucking camera.”
Hazel and I both thrust our middle fingers in its direction as we deepened the kiss, finally separating with a laugh and agreeing to part for long enough to get ready.
Climbing off the bike behind the warehouse on the edge of the ridge, I quickly unbuckled the strap on Hazel’s helmet and then pulled mine off, gently setting them on the ground next to my bike before I pulled her into my arms and kissed her breathless.
The entire ride to the distillery had been an exercise in restraint as her fingertips traced maddening patterns on my stomach underneath my jacket. I still didn’t know where she’d stashed her gloves, but I was enjoying her touch too much to stop her while I navigated my bike over the roads that’d thankfully had been deiced since yesterday.
“You’re a naughty girl, Hazel,” I groaned against her lips.
“You don’t call me kitten for nothing,” she whispered while nipping at my lip. Then she reached down to grab what was now her helmet. She did indeed make a warm little backpack companion, and I couldn’t imagine riding with anyone else.
“Killing me,” I groaned under my breath, pulling the food I’d brought with me from the storage on the side of my bike and following her down the packed snow-covered path to the back door.
She bounced in place while I unlocked the door, rushing into the warm building and stripping off her coat as I followed behind, finding a place underneath the windows overlooking the woods at the back of the building to set up our picnic.
“Brought me back to the scene of the crime?” she teased, wrapping her arms around me from behind and laying her cheek against my back. For a woman who’d been resistant to get within a few feet of me only weeks ago, she hadn’t had any trouble transitioning into being able to touch me now. And her continued affection had me falling even harder for her, because last night I had thought my questionable decision making would drive her away for good.
But she’d chosen to give me another chance, and I wouldn’t squander it, because she deserved a man who wasn’t afraid to show her how much of a treasure she was.
“If I remember correctly, you seemed to enjoy your time here quite a lot.”
“For someone who refused to play just the tip with me this morning, you don’t seem to be doing a very good job of keeping my mind off it. Because you just set up a romantic picnic in the same spot where we played just the finger tip. ”
“Shut up and sit down so I can hand-feed you grapes like the goddess you are,” I growled. Spinning around, I pulled her giggling form into my arms. I dipped her back, pressing my lips to the hollow of her throat, and my chest warmed at the way she clung to me just as tightly as I held her.
“And you told me no one threw their panties at you in this building. ”
Laying her against the blanket and propping myself onto my side next to her, I whispered words in her ear that would have had her scurrying away from me even a few days ago. “Let me romance you like you deserve right now. You can take off your panties and throw them at me all you want once I get you in my bed later.”
“Promises, promises,” she sighed, leaning over to dot a kiss on my nose before she sat up, reaching for the bowl of grapes and holding them in front of my face. “Now, feed me, since you won’t fuck me.”
If I thought Hazel was shy before, I clearly hadn’t been paying attention very well.
We spent the morning and well into the afternoon flirting and talking and kissing in the darkened warehouse until I knew we needed to go because Colette was coming to lead a few last tours and tastings while Jay was still in Wyoming.
While I knew her cousin wouldn’t judge us for sneaking off somewhere secluded and quiet for some alone time, I also didn’t want to share my time with Hazel.
She was finally showing me a whole new side of her personality that I was becoming hopelessly addicted to. The introverted, blushing, sometimes rambling adorable person she'd always shown me before was still very much there in her personality, but there was this new confidence in the way she interacted with me that was undeniably sexy.
And while I’d managed to resist her last night, and then again, this morning; I was now fighting the urge to rip off her panties before she could throw them at me.
But getting caught frantically deflowering her on a blanket on a concrete floor wasn’t how I’d imagined being with her the first time. I wanted to unwrap her like a present and kiss every inch of her skin before I slipped inside her.
“You ready to go home?” I whispered into her neck, enjoying the way she pressed herself back into my chest while she rested between my thighs with my hands idly tracing the skin on her stomach.
“You ready to fuck me?” she asked, turning her head to the side to look back at me. “Now that you’ve shown me how much of a secret romantic you are, I’m having trouble resisting you.”
“The feeling is entirely mutual.” My lips traced the soft skin on the side of her neck suggestively as my fingertips dipped below the waistband of her pants. I wanted to take things further, but the beep of the alarm system chiming at the front of the building had me pulling her up and quickly shoving the remnants of our picnic back into my bag.
“Fuck, Colette is here to do the afternoon tours.”
“Trying to hide me?” she asked, but I could tell she was just teasing me.
“No, just really don’t want to fucking share you.”
Hazel laughed, helping me clean up and scurrying toward the back door as her cousin’s voice echoed back to our hidden corner.
“You don’t have to run off on my account!”
“Sorry, Coley. Talk later. Gotta go violate my boyfriend now!” Hazel giggled, yanking the front of my jacket toward her to steal a kiss before she darted out the back door toward my awaiting bike.
Colette peeked her head around the partial wall that concealed our hiding spot as I pulled the door back open.
"So, you must not have fucked up too badly," she laughed, swinging a bar towel at her side, clearly a hidden threat to start snapping me with it like she had yesterday.
"Oh, I did," I chuckled, still a little unbelieving that Hazel had actually come after me last night. "But I'm working on fixing it."
"Good. She deserves someone who won't give up on her. And I guess if you're serious about finally growing up, you do too. "
Smiling, I grabbed the rest of our gear. "Aw, that was almost sincere, Col."
"But don't fuck it up. Because I know every trail on this mountain where no one would think to look for a body."
She laughed as I nodded and escaped out the back door, eager to get back home with her cousin. Because now that I'd given Hazel what she deserved in a date, I wanted to end the night inside her, showing her exactly how she should be worshiped by a man.