Chapter 29
JEREMIAH
Thirty-eight years.
Thirty-eight years I had wandered in the dark, lost and seeking. What is my purpose? I asked the church elders, and the church elders spewed bullshit. What is my purpose? I asked God, and God stayed silent. What is my purpose? I asked myself, and I answered fuck if I know.
Then Lennon Graves belted out the first lyric offkey.
And God said, let there be light, and there was light.
My world was illuminated.
And I knew.
I was put on this Earth to don a fuzzy green bullfrog costume and shake my ass like I was selling it so my girl could have the dubious honor of receiving more applause than her sociopath nemesis.
Not because it was the right thing to do. There was no honor here.
Not because justice required it. Their war would only escalate.
But because she wanted me to. That was enough.
This karaoke contest was without a doubt the stupidest thing I had ever been a part of. I didn’t care. It made no fucking sense, but I had never been more sure of anything down to the very marrow of my bones.
My purpose in this life and every other was to make Lennon Graves happy by any means necessary. And right now, that meant letting her call me a bullfrog and dancing my ass off.
The song was Joy to the World, and from the moment Lennon declared I was a bullfrog, our audience lost their damn minds.
Lennon sang, if you could call that noise singing, and I danced.
I gyrated my body. I waved my arms. I made a goddamn fool of myself.
It was…not good. None of this was good. Not Lennon’s singing, and definitely not my dancing.
She took one shocked, wide-eyed look at me and half-wheezed, half warbled the next line. That was the last time she looked at me for the rest of the song. Apparently my ass shaking ruined her concentration.
My friends had a front row seat to the whole thing.
The guests and ranch hands and some of the staff were there, too.
People I had worked hard to earn the respect of who might be having second thoughts about my leadership right about now.
There was shocked silence as Lennon’s truly terrible voice rang out, and then they erupted into hoots and hollers.
Seb stomped his feet in time to the music.
Put his thumb and index finger to his lips and let out a piercing whistle.
Mateo laughed so hard tears streamed down his face.
He had to push his glasses to the crown of his head to wipe his eyes.
Even Liam, grumpy son of a bitch that he was, clapped along with the music, his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
Holly sat there, mouth agape, like a woman turned to salt.
Later, she and I would talk. There were things that needed to be said. But right now, I had one job and that job was shaking my ass.
“Everybody!” Lennon hollered. She brought her arms up in a wide arc until her palms met in a loud clap over her head.
That got everyone on their feet, clapping and stomping to the final verse. She sang about spreading joy all over the world, to all the children and the animals, and my heart damn near burst out of my chest.
The audience went wild. When Lennon threw herself into my arms, my heart went wild right with the rest of them. Laughing, I spun her in a circle.
Joy. That was Lennon. She was joy to the world. She was joy to me.
My hand stayed on Lennon’s lower back as our friends surrounded us. I hooked my index finger into the beltloop of her cutoff denim shorts, my thumb gently rubbing her soft, bare skin above the waistband.
“Whimsy!” Mateo hollered, jabbing both his index fingers at my chest. “That’s what I’m talking about! Fucking awesome, man. And you.” He threw an arm around Lennon’s shoulders and smacked a kiss on her forehead, making her giggle. “Incredible. How did you convince him to do it?”
Her gaze slid to me, dark eyes full of wonder. “I really don’t know.”
Emma and Grace enveloped her in a hug. I stayed attached at her beltloop while they laughed and jumped up and down.
“Is Blair here?” Lennon asked when they separated.
“Oh, she’s here,” Emma said with an amused eyeroll. “The ranch kids usually keep to the back row where they mock us all relentlessly. They’re way too cool for karaoke.”
“You’re coming outside for the campfire, right?” Grace asked. “I want you to meet my fiancé. Alex is out there building the fire with some of the other ranch hands. But he saw your song and about died laughing.”
“I’d love—” I tugged at Lennon’s beltloop and let my eyes communicate everything I couldn’t say out loud in polite company when she sent me a look over her shoulder.
The tip of her tongue swiped along her lower lip and then she cleared her throat.
“We’ll be out right after we change into something less flammable. ”
Emma laughed. “We’ll save you a seat.”
I inched Lennon backward toward the exit. Everyone wanted to stop and talk to us. When we finally cleared the crowd, she paused on the first step of the staircase leading to our apartment and turned to me with her lower lip pushed out in a mock pout.
“No one said anything about my amazing singing.” Her voice shook as she struggled to hold back her giggle. “They were all too busy gawking over your dancing.”
I caged her in. Dipped my head to that tempting mouth and nipped her lip. “Honey, if you don’t get your ass upstairs, I’m going to put on another show for them right here and now.”
Her eyes heated like melted chocolate. She was the most decadent dessert, and I meant to indulge in her tonight.
She darted up the stairs with me right on her heels. It took me a beat longer than usual to unlock my door with her pressing distracting kisses to my neck and palming my hardening length.
We fell into the room in a tangle, tugging at clothes and fumbling with zippers.
She got hold of mine and unzipped the frog onesie down to my waist, then sank to her knees to bring it lower, her eyes locked on my tented boxers with a look that made my dick twitch eagerly.
But I had something else in mind, so I grabbed her under her armpits and hauled her to her feet.
“Not this time, honey. It’s my turn.”
My bedroom was twenty feet away but it was still too far. With my mouth on hers, I backed her up until the couch hit her knees, undoing her shorts as we went. She tumbled backwards onto the couch and I followed her down, sinking to my knees between her thighs.
I slid open the top button of my flannel and laid a kiss between her breasts. Her breath hitched. I kept going, unbuttoning and kissing her until I reached the knot. She watched me with half-mast eyes as I untied it and kissed her there, between her navel and her silky pink underwear.
Her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. She arched her hips so I could tug her underwear over her ass and down her legs.
I couldn’t breathe for beauty. I leaned back and pushed her thighs wider to gaze down at her.
“Jeremiah,” she said quietly. She reached one hand to me. Threaded her fingers softly through my hair. “You don’t have to.”
It felt like I did, though not in the way she meant. Have to, my body begged.
“My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Holy words that my lips whispered to a holy place, where she was abundantly wet.
And I drank.