Chapter 27 #2
“You remember Betsy May? The lady who’s been ninety years old our whole lives?”
“I’m not talking to you right now,” I said, zeroing in on the shoulders of the steer.
“She patted my hind end once at a restaurant. Something like that might work.”
I gave all my concentration to swinging the rope above my head, working up a momentum and a rhythm that felt as natural as possible, with Jake Evans standing behind me, talking about the possibility of me frisking and spanking him.
“Or there was that one time—”
He broke off as I let go, and we both watched the rope fly. I held my breath, and to my utter disappointment, excitement, relief, and embarrassment, the rope missed the steer completely. It wasn’t even close. I was a fraud, and it showed.
“Any last words?” Jake said, his arms folded across his chest as he watched me.
“Before what?”
“Before you make me blush.”
We stared at each other, both of us attempting to hold back a smile.
Both of us failing. But somewhere between the rich brown of his eyes and me wracking my brain for an idea to put Jake in his place, a strange sadness filtered in the space between us.
On my end, it was full of aching and longing and attempting to catch all the sand from falling out of an hourglass.
Our summer was coming to an end, and I wasn’t ready.
My time with Jake had become a haven of sorts for me.
It didn’t feel fair that I had to leave.
But it was more than that. Now I was looking at Jake and wondering about all the things that could have been. That could be. But was he?
Dragging a hand through his hair, Jake cleared his throat, breaking the spell between us.
“Alright, Tuck. What’s it going to be? A sound frisking or a good spank? Or maybe something else?” he taunted with a smile as he buried his hands in his pockets and waited for me to make my move. Still with those sad eyes.
My move.
I wasn’t sure what kind of move I would try on Jake to make him blush. I had a feeling it would take a lot to get him to do so. Physical affection was easy for him. It wasn’t always for me, which was probably why this made it a great final exam for me. But I wasn’t one to go down without a fight.
And maybe there were two ways to play this game.
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and took a deep breath. Turning to Jake, I closed the distance between us, enjoying the slow smile appearing on his face as I approached.
I kept my eyes trained on his as I took the final step into his space. My hands settled lightly on his chest. The heat from his body warmed my hands. He hesitated only a moment before his arms wrapped casually around my waist.
“You ready for this?” I whispered, bold and unflinching, though my hands were shaking slightly.
His eyebrows raised a notch. “I don’t know. Am I?”
Before I could chicken out, I rose up on tiptoes and leaned forward, bypassing Jake’s lips until I neared his ear.
“You’re the best,” I whispered.
He started to pull back, but I grabbed his shoulders, keeping him there.
“Every one of your friends loves you to pieces.”
“Tuck,” he growled, but I pushed forward.
“You make everyone feel safe. People can be completely themselves around you, and you love them for it. And you have a knack for making everything fun.”
He tried to pull back once more, but I lightly swatted the back of his head. “Hey, this is my move; you have to stand here and take it.”
“Figures your move would be talking.” He breathed out an uncomfortable chuckle, and I brought my lips to his ear once more.
“As much as it pains me to admit this, I know you sometimes lose bets on purpose to make me feel better.”
“Just assume that if I ever lose, that’s the reason.” There was a smile in his voice, but he held his body stiff.
He was brushing off my words, but I wasn’t stopping until I said everything I was suddenly dying to tell him. Everything my friend needed to hear, even if he didn’t want to hear it.
“Growing up, you used to tell everyone you knew how awesome I was. I really wasn’t that great, but that didn’t matter. Jake Evans thought I was, and that made all the difference.” A warm heat stung the backs of my eyes, and I blinked it away.
He stepped back before I could stop him and shot me an exasperated look while a flush rose up his neck.
It could count. I could stop, but I wasn’t quite done.
Not yet. Truth rang from every word I spoke, and I wanted him to feel it.
He reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged closer to me once more.
“Sophie's eyes light up whenever you walk into a room. You don’t always see it, but I do. She completely adores you. When you’re not there, she talks about you all the time.
You’ve made her entire world so happy.” Jake stepped back, pulling his arm from my grasp as he turned away from me, his hand going to his eyes.
“You are horrible at this game, Tuck.” The words held no heat. They couldn’t when he was busy keeping tears at bay.
I grinned and gave a little bow before I wrapped my arms around his shoulders in a surprise attack, squeezing him before kissing his cheek soundly.
“I meant every word,” I said, brushing my hands together. “You talk a big game, but that was the easiest thing I’ve done all day.”
He attempted to stop me from going, but I skirted out of his reach, laughing. Needing some space, I began walking toward the next corral, where a lone steer was watching us. A real steer.
“You’re never going to get good practice with a cow that doesn’t move,” I called over my shoulder, graciously giving Jake a moment by himself. “I’m bringing this steer over, and you’re going to practice for real. I can’t have you embarrassing me tomorr—”
All of a sudden, a rope fell from the air above me, sliding past my head and shoulders before finding its mark at my waist. My movement was halted, and I turned in surprise to find Jake the Cowboy standing at the other end of the rope with a dangerous smile across his face.
“My turn.”
My breathing, which had been normal up to that point, skittered to a stop.
He drew the rope slowly toward him, cinching it firmly around my waist, and began pulling me toward him. He kept the rope taut in his grip and his eyes on me. His hair was tousled, his smile was mischievous, and my heart exploded with nerves.
“It figures that I’d have to show you how to do this right,” he said, a soft smile playing on his lips. The ruddiness from his cheeks, that had been there only a moment ago, was gone, replaced by a look in his eyes that gripped my heart and squeezed.
By the time I was standing in front of him, my body was one touch away from cardiac arrest.
His fingers found the waistband of my jeans and ever so slowly, drew me closer. Flames ignited inside of me, but we were in the middle of a battle, and so I tried desperately to hide the heat growing on my face, to no avail. He was on to me.
“Blushing already, Tuck? I haven’t even done anything to you yet.”
With my body now pressed against his and his arms currently wrapping themselves around my waist, I begged to differ.
We were laughing, and then we weren’t. We were smiling, and then…we weren’t. I felt his eyes everywhere. Behind his heated gaze, a touch of sadness still lingered. His lips were growing closer. And then I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Jake,” I whispered, his mouth a breath away. “What is this?”
A part of me died inside at breaking into this moment.
Whatever it was. Maybe I should have waited.
But I had been waiting. Nobody on earth had ever wanted to kiss somebody more than I wanted to kiss Jake right now.
But that was the problem. I wanted it too much to let it happen this way.
If I was going to move in a week without a boyfriend, I wanted to know.
There was still time to dial back the clock.
If he kissed me now, it was over for me.
Jake bit his lip and looked down at me. His eyes shone with a hint of humor, but mostly, they were just lit with something that had my toes curling.
Maybe I didn’t need to know. There was a fun sort of spontaneity in not knowing, in just acting and reacting without definition. We could figure it all out later.
But I wasn’t seventeen. I was a grown woman with a job waiting for me in Boise. And Jake had a daughter. He had set clear boundaries between us at the beginning of the summer. We needed to define this before it went any further. So I took a step backward and waited.
“You’re kind of nosy, you know that?” Jake said softly, his eyes brushing sweetly across my lips.
“If this really is some idiotic final exam from your subpar coaching, you'd better tell me now.”
“Subpar?” he said, affronted. His fingers gripped the belt loop of my jeans, pulling me against his body once more.
“Yeah,” I whispered, bracing myself for impact as he looked like he was about to ignore my question. And heaven help me, I was going to let him.
But before he could kiss me, the crunch of tires on gravel broke into our spell. We turned and saw the truck of the one person who had a special knack for ruining everything.