by M. Mabie
“Wherever you want to go. Whatever you want to do,” he said, his breathing coming deeper and rushed as I dodged another kiss on the lips from him. “Dammit, Sunny. Just fucking kiss me.” His big hands found my ass and pulled me tighter against the stiffness in his jeans. I rocked, gaining only a fraction of the pressure I really wanted.
“Friday night. Pick me up at six.”
His brow bunched together as I rubbed against him even more. It was sexy as hell seeing the effect I had on him. The way his handsome face looked frustrated waiting on me to couple our lips. The bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed his patience. The muscular tick in his jaw.
“Don’t move,” I whispered against his mouth as I licked across his bottom lip. Teasing him. Tasting him and loving the thumping I felt pound through his chest into mine.
As far as tempting him went, my time was up. He’d hit a breaking point and couldn’t wait any longer. One of his hands found the back of my neck. He pressed my mouth to his, and I let him because I was confident he knew what he was doing.
The way she was grinding against me in my old fort, feet above the ground, hidden away from everyone, made me consider ripping her clothes off and giving her everything.
How lame would that have been? Waiting my whole life to get the girl I’d had my eye on, only to have my first fucking time with her in a dirty old tree house. That wasn’t good enough for me.
Regardless, my hand slipped up her shirt despite my brain screaming at me to slow down. A sweet sound came from her throat as I ran my hand over the fabric of her bra, and another when I pulled her breast from the cup and ran my thumb over her nipple.
Christ, she was better that I’d ever dreamed.
As I shared my attention between her mouth and her chest, I felt her hand wander between us and grip me through my jeans.
“Rhett, where did you learn to kiss like this?” she asked breathlessly.
It was hot in that fort to begin with in mid-June, but add to that the most beautiful girl I’d ever known saying my name into my mouth—well, it was all around record setting.
I’d shifted my focus to her neck and broke away long enough to answer. “I had a lot of time to kill waiting on you.”
She sighed and leaned her shoulder into me as she tried to work my button fly with one hand. “Time well spent,” she appreciatively noted.
It was time for me to cool us down before we set fire to the pile of old wood in that tree. She deserved better than some back pasture fuck in broad daylight, but hell if it didn’t feel good. Her hands on me, even through my clothes, almost annihilated my damn near crippled resolve.
“Hey, we should head back,” I said, but my mouth was a complete hypocrite and it kept washing over her hot skin. The way her neck smelled alone could have changed my mind, but I needed to be strong.
A boy would fuck a girl in a tree house. Rushed and out of control.
A man would take his time and make sure she was comfortable and taken care of completely. I was a man and looked forward to the latter, even if it wasn’t in the cards for that night.
“No,” she protested. “I like it up here.” Her voice was slow and there was a hum pulsing through us when she spoke.
“We can come back sometime, Sunshine. But if I don’t stop I’m going to make a mistake and it’s not worth the risk.”
She put up a good argument pressing against me like she was. Her hand moving over my cock, moving her mouth to my ear. “But, I want you.”
Unmerciful words, if I’d ever heard any.
I screwed my eyes shut tightly and reminded myself I hadn’t even taken her out on a date yet. If I wanted her to respect me, to see me as a man worth changing her mind about looking for anything serious with, then I needed to behave like I deserved it.
The truth was, later that night I’d relive our trip to the tree house in my mind and I’d envision the panting and pawing I knew we were going to miss out on that day.
“I want you too, but not here—like this. Not today. Not this time.” I leaned back as far as I could to gain much needed space. Otherwise, she was likely to change my mind. Very likely.
She released a disappointed breath and her kiss-swollen bottom lip pouted, but she relented. “All right.” She readjusted her bra and stepped off my lap.
It sucked, but sometimes the right thing sucks. I learned that lesson a long time ago. It was just ironic that I was the one slowing things down now, when she’d always been the one to gently remind me that we couldn’t be together back in the day.
I closed a window and she closed the others, making it much darker in the tree house. Then she got on her knees and stepped down to the first step on her way to the ground, not saying much.
I hoped I hadn’t upset her, but she’d given me a lot to think about with what she’d said. I found it very hard to believe no one else had ever sent her flowers or fought for her attention. Honestly, I was shocked there wasn’t more than one guy vying for her smiles.
Fools. They were all fools.
I’d show her what it was like to be treated the right way by a man who respected her body, her mind, and her heart.
It wasn’t easy climbing down a tree packing that much wood, but I managed. When my feet were on the ground after locking up the fort, I found her waiting by the tree still looking sort of put off.
My hand reached out to hers for our walk across the meadow and she took it, offering me a half smile.
I had to admit, I was at least mildly pleased that she was disappointed, but with that new power came responsibility. I didn’t want anyone to take advantage of her, especially not me. It wasn’t honorable to do what we almost did.
If things went well, and I prayed they did, I’d want to be able to look her father in the eye. Not that I wasn’t prepared to make her lose her mind with desire, but I wanted better for our first time.
Then, maybe some other time I’d bring her back and finish what we started in my fort, for old times’ sake. Besides, she’d be right—it wasn’t breaking any of the rules.
When we were almost to the ATV and she was still quiet, I knew I had to explain. I knew what rejection felt like, and that was in no way what I was aiming for.
“I’m not sure what’s going on in your head right now, but I want you to know why I stopped us.” My feet quit moving and when I paused, her eyes met mine.
The sun was starting to sink behind the trees and her blond hair looked like wavy golden silk. I stepped closer to her and brushed it off her sun-kissed, freckled shoulder.
“Sunny, I don’t want some fling. I don’t want a taste of something only to have it gone before I had a chance to hang on to it with both hands. The first time I have you underneath me, I don’t want to be thinking about anything but you. Shit, I don’t know if that old fort could handle what I want to do to you.”
That made her blush and her pretty smile returned to her face where it belonged.
“I don’t know how guys in your past treated you—not well enough, if you’re here with me, though. I don’t think they knew what they had, but I do and I’m not in any hurry. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to rush this.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Any of it.”
Her posture relaxed and we started walking again. She swung our hands as we made it the last few yards to the four-wheeler.
“Are you a virgin?” she asked, making sure to keep her voice measured. The way she said it was sensitive, but I about lost my shit choking with laughter.
“No,” I answered and waited as she mounted the back of the ATV. “Not even a little, but thanks for asking.”
“I didn’t think you were or anything. I mean, you certainly seem to know what you’re doing. I was just curious.”
“Are you?” I asked.
She laughed outright and it echoed off the hill. “Not even a little.” She laughed more, then added, “I mean I’m not a slut or anything, but when you date for as long as I have…”
I shook my head and h
eld up a hand to stop her right there. I wasn’t nearly as interested in her sexual history as I was about who she’d dated and why it hadn’t worked out. She was far from an old maid, but where we came from most people paired off in their early twenties.
I wasn’t naive; she hadn’t been waiting around for me—no matter how cool that notion was.
It had to be something else. Right? Was it the relationship thing? Maybe she liked being single.
As we took off across the tall grass I went slowly so we could still talk. “Any serious boyfriends? Any jealous exes I should know about?” I asked to test the waters.
“No. Nothing like that. There were a few guys I dated for a couple months, but nothing serious. My mom says I’m too picky. What about you?”
She was picky? That was interesting because so far we’d hung out on my porch, where she sat in an ass-full of wet cushion. She’d shown up to do manual labor—for free. Ate my mother’s meatloaf like it was her last supper. Then called me. We hadn’t exactly had a typical start, at least not compared to relationships in my past.
“No jealous exes for me either. I had a few girlfriends in college, but I didn’t have enough time between school, work, and running. It was hard to juggle a girlfriend into the mix. Most of the ones I met just wanted to stay out late and drink, which wasn’t really my thing. I dated another runner, a girl on the ladies’ track team, for a little while, which was less stressful, but she was just as busy as I was. So it didn’t work out.” I turned my head to the other side so I could see better as we rounded a bank of trees. She followed me to listen.
“Besides, when I told her I was coming back home after school to farm, you could almost see the color drain from her face.” I laughed thinking about how Natalie reacted. She couldn’t understand that I loved living out in the middle of nowhere. No Wal-Mart. No mall. No Applebee’s—which was funny because that’s where the conversation, and ultimately our breakup, took place.
I loved traveling and seeing the world, but my home was in Wynne. That’s just the way it was for me. Being close to my family was important. I’d dreamed of running our farm all my life. Maybe if I’d met someone who was worth changing my plans for, then I would have. But, as fun as my college years were, and as many girls as I’d had purely just fun with, there had been no game changers come along.
I supposed if I was questioning why she was still single, I’d have to reexamine my own relationship status. Sometimes, in those days, I just liked being single and that was okay, too. Like what she’d said to that guy at the bar—she wasn’t looking for anything serious.
However, the more time I spent with her—the more I learned about the real Sunny—the more I wanted her all to myself, and that feeling was no joking matter.
It was serious.
Every touch only stoked my need for the next. At the end of every kiss, I was already mapping out my way to the following one. Every smile became a challenge. I wanted more. Better. Sooner.
“I totally get that. Wynne—good or bad—is my home, too.” That was comforting to hear.
I drove around the side of the big barn as we approached my parents’ farm. Driving through the gravel, my mom came out waving, so I drove closer to the house than I’d planned.
Sunny’s hold on me weakened.
“Where’ve you been? I called you,” she said, relieved.
“We went out checking fences,” I answered as my mother noticed who was on the back of my four-wheeler. I saw the curiosity in her casual expression, but she smiled.
“Hi, Sunny. How are you, sweetie?”
“I’m fine. Thanks for the dinner last night. It was delicious.”
She stood on the stoop to the back door of the big old farmhouse and waved the dish rag she’d carried out with her. “No trouble. Glad you liked it. Anyway, Rhett, the Smiths have some hogs out. Your dad’s down there, but you might want to hightail it and see if you can help.”
“Shit,” I said. “How long ago did they get out?”
“Just about an hour ago?”
Hogs. Sometimes it was easy to get them back in, other times it could take hours. It was a messy job, but they were our closest neighbors and that’s just what you did.
You helped.
Sunny wouldn’t want to slop around in pig shit, and I wouldn’t expect her to. “Can you drive Sunny down to the cabin shed? That’s where her car is.” I knew my mom wouldn’t mind.
“Yeah, just a minute.”
Got off the ATV and Sunny followed me as my mom ran in for her keys or whatever she went back in for. Didn’t matter. I was glad to have a quick second before I needed to head down the road.
“This might take a while, or I’d take you back myself. If the weather holds out for this week, I’ll be pretty busy, but I’ll try to call. Message me whenever you want. I’ll see you Friday?”
The look in her eyes mirrored how I was feeling. It was Sunday, and Friday was a long way off, but it would be worth it. I’d work my ass off this week to make sure I was caught up for the weekend.
I kissed her like it wasn’t new, like I’d kissed her goodbye a hundred times. She kissed me back much the same, but it felt so normal that it pushed a thrill right through me.
My mom came out as our lips parted. “I’ll call you later,” I said and started the four-wheeler again.
“Okay, be careful,” Sunny said. Only my mom told me to be careful. That only added to the high I was already feeling.
I revved the engine like I hadn’t all day and tore out of my parents’ drive. The four-wheeler fishtailed as I pulled out on the road before I kicked it in the ass and made my way to the Smiths’.
Rhett spun out and got the ATV sideways. I wasn’t sure if he was showing off or just in a hurry, but I was kind of impressed with how well he handled it. He was good at handling things, including me.
Nevertheless, he’d been really careful when I’d been on the four-wheeler with him the whole day. I couldn’t deny it was sexy watching him rip through the gears and tear down the gravel road. His ass didn’t even touch the seat as he flew down the dusty lane.
“You’re parked at the west shed by the cabin then?” Marcia, his mom, asked breaking my line of thought.
“Yeah, I appreciate the ride.”
“It’s no trouble, Sunny. I’m glad we’ll get a few minutes. I haven’t talked to you in a long time.” She spoke as she walked to her Explorer. Mrs. Caraway was a beautician, just like my mom, but she worked out of her house. She had always been sweet to me, so I knew better than to be worried, but I was still sort of nervous.
Things were changing.
“How’s your grandma? The radio station?” she asked as she pulled around and out of the drive.
“She’s good. The station is fine, too. Same as always.”
As we rode over the hills, it felt like the few miles’ drive was taking forever, and I didn’t know what to say so I just looked out the window.
When we came to a stop next to my car, she turned off the ignition and turned a little in her seat to talk to me. My instincts said, “Get the fuck out of here,” but I didn’t, knowing it would only look rude.
“So you and Rhett seem to be hitting it off,” she said.
I wasn’t going to lie to her, there was no point in it, but I was damn near thirty and her son was a college graduate living on his own. So even if it wasn’t exactly her business, I wanted to be on her good side. It was all very new so there wasn’t much to say anyway.
“We’ve been having a good time,” I said.
“That’s what I’m worried about, Sunny.” She folded her hands on her lap. “Everyone knows how much he cared about you when y’all were younger.”
“I remember,” I said, hoping to lead her to her point.
“Well, it’s just he might have stronger feelings for you than you do for him, is all. I know you two are having a good time, but he already catches so much hell from everyone.”
I hated when people teased him. Always had,
but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Besides, I didn’t give two shits what they said about me.
However, I could appreciate a mother looking out for her son. I really could. And she wasn’t being mean or shitty with me, but she was wandering into a place where she was overthinking things.
Right? We hadn’t even been on our first date yet, and that still wasn’t for another five damn days.
God, I hated that Sunday and Friday were so far apart.
“I think it’s sweet you’re thinking about him, but you don’t know what he’s thinking—and honestly, neither do I,” I cautiously admitted, not wanting to offend her.
Of course, from what he’d told me I knew he was interested in seeing me again. He had a way of making me feel special, but I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. Rhett was a good guy, I’m sure he treated all women respectfully. Even though that was kind of frustrating when I’d wanted him to get a little disrespectful with me earlier.
“Oh, I know. I do know that,” she repeated, appearing to tread lightly. “But, well, Sunny, you just haven’t been one to have a boyfriend or anything.”
I took a long breath. Did she assume I’d flirt the pants off her boy then drop him for the next guy? That wasn’t really the image I wanted around town.
“Listen, Mrs. Caraway…”
She smiled and interrupted. “Marcia.”
I returned her genuine grin with one of my own. “…Marcia, I’m not sure what’s going on. I don’t think he is either. But he’s not thirteen, and I’m not eighteen anymore. We’re just getting to know each other. So far, I like him a lot. I think he’s starting to like me too. Me. Not just the cheerleader on the radio he thought he liked so much when we were kids. Me.”
I’d kept my voice tamed, although I felt defensive inside. I wasn’t sure if it was for Rhett, who was a grown-ass man and could take care of himself, or for me, a grown-ass woman who had never had some gossipy, dramatic love affair that the whole town had to whisper about.
Either way, I continued since I had her attention. “But we’re both single and not rushing into anything. We haven’t even been out on a date yet.”
