Chapter 8 #4
The laughter has left me loose and carefree. I smile from my very heart. “She’s pretty much my favorite person.”
One parenthesis curls itself around his smile. “Good. I like that she looks out for you.”
I blink.
Wait.
Looks out for me?
“Why do you say that? Do you think I can’t look out for myself?”
“Didn’t say that.” He leans in, and before I know what’s happening, he kisses me on the nose. I startle. It reminds me of the time a butterfly landed on my cheek. A light flutter of brilliance and then it was gone.
“Everyone needs somebody to have their back. Griffin’s got mine. I’m glad Margaret has yours.”
“Oh… Okay.”
He draws in a long breath and then winces. “Speaking of Griffin, I probably should get back to him soon.”
My heart squeezes so hard, the force travels through my hands. I only realize my grip has tightened on Beck’s when he squeezes back. I’m not ready for this to be over.
I’m also really worried that now that he’s gone on a Hell-Yes-It’s-a-Real-Date-Coffee-Date with me that featured interruptions, tears, a physical shutdown, and an intervention call from my sister, he might think twice about asking me out again.
But then, by some miracle, Beck squeezes my hand tighter and says, “I want to see you again.”
“You do?” I blurt.
He laughs. “Hell, yes, I do.”
And Hell-Yes-I-Do might have just replaced Hell-Yes-It’s-a-Real-Date-Coffee-Date as my favorite phrase.
“That’s what I was trying to say earlier. Right before your sister called. I want to see you again.” His brows lower, like he’s about to give me bad news. “But it’ll be a while before I can do it right. Like I said. With wine, and candlelight, and dinner.”
I shake my head. “Wine is gross. And my favorite meal of the day is brunch, so if there are rules about doing it right, we can break them.”
His low chuckle is so damn sexy.
“Okay.” He nods. “What do you think about coming to see me out at the farm? Maybe Tuesday afternoon?”
“I-I’d like that.”
“Yeah?” Amber sparkles. “Me too. I break for lunch around one. But we could make it a late brunch. Do you like omelets?”
“I love omelets.” Wow. Why can’t I catch my breath? “A-and I can bring something… Like a baked brie or some chocolate croissants.”
His brows climb. He’s still smiling, but now it doesn’t match his eyes. “Posh…Okay…You do realize I’m just a sweet potato farmer, right?” Beck tilts his head like he’s ninety-percent teasing.
And ten percent not.
I frown. Why ten percent not?
“I know you’re a sweet potato farmer,” I say, feeling dumb since I suspect I’m missing something, but I don’t know what.
He shakes his head. “I mean—don’t go to any trouble. I’m used to simple.”
“I—I didn’t mean that I’d actually make gooey, flaky French pastries. Because that would be an unqualified disaster,” I say quickly. “No, I meant picking up something yummy, like from Poupart’s Bakery or La Madeleine.”
A cough or a laugh or something in between gets caught in Beck’s throat. He’s biting down on his lips.
“Are you laughing at me?” I know I’ve made him laugh, but, so far, I haven’t felt like he’s laughed at me. But, right now, he looks uncomfortable, and I don’t think I said anything funny.
Beck shakes his head harder, chuckling through his words. “No, I’m just groaning inside picturing what you’ll think of my shabby little farmhouse.”
I stare at him for a second, trying to do what he’s doing. Picturing me in his home. A smile spreads across my face.
“The thought of being inside your house makes me happy.” But that thought made him groan, so then I frown again. “You don’t want me to see your house?”
Beck groans a second time, covers his face, and shakes his head. “Ignore me.”
I snort. “That’d be pretty hard to do. We’re lying down together.”
His smile flashes beneath his hand before he drops it. “Sorry. I just mean I’m being self-conscious.” He shrugs. “And making inferences that might not be based in reality.”
A little gasp escapes me. “I do that all the time! Are you sure you’re not autistic?”
Beck laughs, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe I just feel inferior.”
“To me?!” I squawk.
And, ohmygod, he blushes. I must touch it.
I lift my free hand to his face and let my fingertips just barely graze his cheek. Because I didn’t ask for permission, and touching someone’s face is pretty personal. Still, he was okay mashing his mouth against mine, so this is probably okay too.
When he closes his eyes and sighs, I know it’s okay.
The flush on his cheeks is warm, hot even. Against his golden skin, the color is like a sunset. Beneath my fingers, his face is softer than I thought it would be. His eyes are still closed and his breath deepens, so maybe this feels good to him.
It feels good to me, so I let my fingertips trace over him.
The skin beneath his eyes is impossibly soft. Have I ever touched anyone here? Am I this soft?
I run the pad of my index finger over his sun-bleached brows and trace the smoothed-out creases at the corners of his eyes.
I refuse to think of them as crow’s feet, like his brother said. They are sunshine footprints. He got them from standing in the sun.
Maybe even from smiling in the sun.
God, he’s so beautiful.
I open my mouth and the words just tumble out. “It would be terrible if I made you feel inferior when you make me feel so…” I swallow against the sudden lump in my throat.
Beck peeks his eyes open, looking at me through heavy lids. “So what?”
“Good.” I trace my finger down the bridge of his nose. “Peaceful.” My finger glides over the end of his nose to the frenulum above his top lip. The skin there is so smooth he must’ve shaved this morning. “Gooey.”
He chuckles before kissing my exploring finger. “You make me feel gooey too.” The words sound deeper, like they’re coming from a place way down inside his chest.
Like close to his heart. I think it must be a good place.
I think I would like to lie on top of him and put my ear to that place.
But right now, I’ve reached his lips, and they are a world all their own. My finger slows down and I can’t take my eyes off the lazy way his lips nip softly against me with little micro-kisses.
God, how come touching his lips makes my breast swell? They feel so full and heavy.
“If we make each other feel good—” Wait. Is that my voice? Sounding like it’s coming from a place way down inside my chest?
Like close to my heart?
This new place that aches so sweetly?
“If we make each other feel good,” I try again. Because this is important. He needs to know it. “Then nothing about you or your house or your life could be inferior, right?”
“Hattie—” And then his arms are banded around me. He yanks me to him, and he’s kissing me again, and this time it’s so, so much greater than the first time. Harder. Hungrier. He presses his whole body against me, crushing his chest against my swollen breasts with delicious pressure.
My fingers tangle in his hair as I match his mouth, those lips that are a whole world. His willful and wild tongue a new solar system.
The kiss is both more than I’ve imagined and not enough. Not nearly enough. The urge to pull his head down and beg him to kiss my breasts with the same force is a shocking revelation.
But that is what I want. Right the hell now and—
Beck pulls away. “H-hang on… Oh God, Hattie, hang on—” His chest heaves against mine—which is heaving pretty hard too. Beck’s face is flushed, his eyes dark and hooded. “We can’t do this here.”
I suck in oxygen, but none of it hits my brain. “W-well, where can we do it?”
This close, his laughter is a flash of white and gold. His big, warm hand cups my cheek. “You… are… incredible.”
He surprises me by planting a kiss on my forehead before sitting up. Beck draws up his legs and hunches over them, elbows on his knees and head in his hands, catching his breath.
“Jesus Christ, Hattie,” he mutters softly, shaking his head.
“What?” I push up to sit beside him and that’s when I see the unmistakable bulge in his jeans. “Oh—Wow—Um—” I make a few more sounds that don’t bear repeating.
I know what it is. Of course, I know what it is. Porn exists for a reason. But I’ve never encountered one in person.
One that—could that really be true—might be for me?
Beck chuckles, his cheeks now a stunning shade of persimmon. He drags a hand down his face and gives me an embarrassed smile. “Yeah… Sorry about that.”
“Sorry?!” I yawp. “What? No! Don’t be sorry. I’m not.”
Laughter startles from him.
“I’m not joking,” I say earnestly. “I wanna touch it.”
I lift my hand to do just that, but Beck grabs my wrist, exploding with laughter. “Woman… goddamn—” he grinds out through the fit. He shakes his head, eyes glistening. “Hell, no.”
And then he brings the back of my eager hand to his lips and kisses it twice, still shaking his head. “No, baby. Not here.”
I tug my hand away. “Beck, I really like you, but you can’t call me baby,” I say, scrunching up my nose.
He winces. “Sorry. Sorry. You said that already. More than once.” He shakes his head again. “I promise, it won’t happen again.”
I blink at him a little stunned. “Thank you.” I think I first asked my dad to stop calling me baby when I was six. He’s never once apologized or promised not to do it again. He still does it. No matter how aggravated I get.
Beck holds out his hand for mine again, and I give it to him.
“Just gimme a minute and I’ll walk you back to your car.”
I frown. “A minute?”
“Um.” He presses his lips together and nods, not meeting my eyes. “To… compose myself.”
I look down again.
“Oh… Right.”
And if I thought I’d seen Beck’s full blush before, I stand corrected.
“Hattie—you—looking at it like that?” Beck shakes his head, fighting his smile. “Not helping.”
“Oh—” I whip my gaze away and put it on the pond. It’s lovely, of course, but I don’t like looking at it as much as I like looking at Beck, so I go back to that but keep my gaze trained on his blushing, smiling face.
I really like his face. I really like all of him.
“How about you?” Beck asks. “You feeling better?”
Yeah, I really like all of him.
I nod. “I’ll probably nap when I get home, but I’m good now.”
A moment later, Beck gets to his feet and reaches down a hand to me. Willing myself not to look at his crotch, I take it, and he pulls me up. And this is when I get further evidence that Beck is strong.
He snags the blanket and folds it up while I toss our paper cups and beignet basket in a nearby bin. Then Beck tucks the blanket under one arm and takes my hand with the other.
We head to the parking lot. For the first time this morning, we’re quiet, but neither one of us walks fast.
And I didn’t know that walking quietly through the park holding someone’s hand could be so nice.
I’m not ready for this Hell-Yes-It’s-A-Real-Date-Coffee-Date to end, and I hope the slow walk to my Jeep means he isn’t either.
“Can I call you tonight?” Beck asks as we approach the crosswalk to the parking lot.
“Hell, yes,” I say, and even though I don’t mean for it to be funny, he laughs. And I know he’s not laughing at me.
When I stop in front of the Jeep, he does a double take. “This is yours?”
“It belongs to my dad.”
While Beck looks at the Jeep, his lips disappear between his teeth and he nods a weird, slow nod.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He looks at me in confusion. “What’s what?”
“This?” I point to my face and then bite both of my lips and mimic his weird, slow nod.
Beck smothers a grin and shakes his head. “Just glad you’ve already seen my truck aaaand,” he stretches out the word, “we’ve already decided that neither one of us could be inferior.”
I think about his truck with the perfect shade of sweet potato orange on the driver’s side door. And the tailgate where he picked me up—like I said, he’s strong—and made me feel better that first time we met.
“I like your truck,” I announce.
“Thanks,” he mutters, dragging a hand through his hair. That persimmon blush is back.
Considering all the ways I embarrassed myself this morning, it’s kind of nice that I’m not alone—even though I don’t think there’s anything about Beck he should be embarrassed about.
But speaking of being embarrassed—
“We need to say goodbye. You aren’t allowed to watch me reverse from my parking spot.”
Beck wrinkles his forehead. “Wait—what?”
“You heard me.”
His curious grin returns. “You get nervous backing out?”
Beck does not need to know the extent to which I fear and loathe backing out.
“Sometimes,” I grind out.
He holds out his hand, palm up. “Want me to do it for you?”
His offer surprises me. And it’s tempting. So tempting.
But then I hear Alicia Milton telling Beck that I’m not independent, and I shake my head.
“I’ve got it.” I pop the lock, but before I can open the driver’s side door, Beck beats me to it. And like the gentleman he is, he offers his hand.
I don’t need help climbing into the Jeep, but I’m not stupid. I’m not missing a chance to hold Beck’s hand one more time before I go.
When I’m behind the wheel and buckled in, I expect Beck to close the door, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he steps closer, and I get another chance to take in the amber of his eyes up close.
He releases my hand and reaches up to the Jeep’s roof. He must grip the cargo rack because muscle and sexy man veins stand out like a pop-up storybook.
“I’m hoping for a goodbye kiss, but I’m not gonna let myself touch you while you give it.” He shakes his head. “I don’t trust myself.”
And out of all the lovely things he’s said to me today, this might be my favorite. Because thinking about how our other two kisses went, I believe him.
“Fair enough.” My voice squeaks just a little.
I lean in, and he sways toward me. Our lips meet. But I’m not gripping a cargo rack, so I grip his face instead. And again, it’s good.
It’s so good.
And it’s not long before Beck’s groan hums against my mouth. When he pulls away, he looks like it physically hurts, and I bet I’m wearing the same look.
Because it fucking does hurt.
He takes a deep breath and steps back. “Interruptions notwithstanding,” he says with a crooked grin, “Best date of my life.”
Then he shuts the door and, as I requested, he beats a path to the Farmers Market, leaving me to reverse in peace.
“Hell, yes,” I say.