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His hands slide under the waistband of my bikini and over my ass as he lets out a soft groan. He kisses my neck before he pulls his head back and looks me in the eye.
“Not here. I want our first time to be perfect and this is not the right place or the right time. Not that I don’t want to take you upstairs and destroy you. Just not tonight.”
“I can see your boner from here!” Julia shouts at Adam.
He shakes his head as he puts me back down on the creek bed and something definitely slithers over my foot. I kick my foot hard and end up kicking a large stone.
“Ouch!” I cry.
I can feel I’ve cracked my toenail and the searing pain is enough to make my eyes water.
“What happened?”
“I kicked a rock. Fuck!”
I swim quickly toward the edge of the creek and scramble out of the water. I plop down on the damp grass and try to look at my toe under the dim moonlight. It’s too dark out here and my foot is covered in too much mud and grass to see whether I’m bleeding. Adam scrambles up the incline and scoops me up into his arms.
“Let’s go clean it up.”
“Put me down. I can walk.”
“Fine.”
As soon as my foot touches the ground, a sharp pain slices through my toe and I hold in my scream, but I can’t hold back my grimace. I may have broken it. He reaches for me to pick me up again and I push him away.
“You’re not carrying me. The house is like a quarter mile away. It’s too far. I can walk.”
He turns his back to me and looks over his shoulder. “Hop on my back. I’ll be your horsey.”
“In case you couldn’t tell, I’m trying not to make several comments about riding you,” I say as I climb onto his back.
“In case you couldn’t tell, I’m trying really hard not to ride you,” he replies.
I try to keep my grip on his neck a bit loose so I don’t choke him as he carries me all the way to the house and into the downstairs bathroom. He sets me down on the countertop and kneels down to look at my foot.
“You’re too dirty,” he mutters.
“That’s what he said.”
He shakes his head at my bad joke as he lets go of my foot. “Take a shower then I’ll wrap it up for you.”
“All my stuff is upstairs.”
“Stay right here. I’ll be right back.”
A few minutes later he returns with my makeup bag and some fresh pajamas and panties.
He sets them on the countertop and stares at me for a moment before he turns to leave. “I’ll be right outside. Just holler if you need anything.”
He’s about to shut the door when I call out to him. “Wait!”
He pops his head in and raises his eyebrows questioningly. “Did I forget something?”
“Can you stay in here with me? In case I need some help. I don’t have Life Alert.”
One side of his mouth pulls up in a devilish half-smile. “Of course.”
He turns on the water as I untie my bikini top and climb out of my bottoms, all the while hopping on one foot and balancing my weight on the countertop. He opens the shower door and wraps his arm around my waist to help me into the shower. I pretend not to notice him staring at my breasts as I step inside and close the door behind me. The bottom of the shower turns a murky brown as the mud rinses away under the warm water.
Once the muck is gone, I can see that half my toenail is missing, but I don’t think the toe is broken as it’s only slightly swollen and pink.
“You okay in there?”
“I think I’m going to make it.”
He opens the shower door and makes no attempt to disguise the way his eyes roam over every inch of my body. “Hey, beautiful. I’m going upstairs to use the shower up there. You sure you’re okay? You don’t need a hand in here?”
I throw him a thumbs-up and he smiles as he closes the door.
When I get upstairs, he’s already showered and lying in the pink bed with a roll of gauze and medical tape next to him and his feet hanging off the end.
“Jamie’s bed is not the most comfortable bed in the universe,” he says as I set my soggy bathing suit down on top of the suitcase on the floor and climb into bed. “But it just got much cozier.”
I hand him the gauze and the medical tape and he wraps up my toe. He kisses it softly before I tuck myself in under the covers. I switch off the lamp on the bedside table and turn onto my side. He slides in behind me to spoon me.
“You’re my hero.”
“I know what I’m getting you for your twenty-first birthday,” he whispers in my ear as his fingertips slip under my shirt and glide over my ribcage. “Besides Life Alert.”
“What are you getting me?” I ask as I try to ignore the growing gift prodding my backside.
“You’ll see.” He plants a soft kiss on the back of my neck then pulls my shirt down over my belly. “Goodnight, babydoll.”
“Goodnight.”
Breakfast with the Parker family is a huge event and I finally get to meet his mother, Margaret Parker. She has Adam’s green eyes and graceful stature combined with a gracious Southern charm. As soon as Adam and I come down for breakfast, she greets me with a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Aren’t you just the prettiest thing? Look at her, Kimmy,” she says to Uncle Harvey’s wife, Aunt Kim, who’s scooping scrambled eggs onto a long row of breakfast plates lined up on the kitchen island. “Doesn’t she remind you of Winona?”
“Good morning, Mrs. Parker,” I mutter, not certain if I should be flattered that I look like Winona.
Adam grabs two plates of scrambled eggs and thick-cut bacon as he squints at me. “She does kind of look like Winona with lighter hair. I never noticed it until now.”
“Who’s Winona?” I finally ask, taking the plate Adam hands me as we make our way to a long breakfast table stocked with a basket of blueberry muffins and a heaping plate of homemade waffles.
I grab a muffin as Margaret sits next to me. “Winona is my little sister. Or, she was. She died ‘bout twenty years ago. You would have loved her. She was such a free spirit, like you. That must have taken a lot of courage to move all the way from Raleigh to Wrightsville all on your own.”
I turn to Adam and he smiles as he keeps his eyes on his plate. “I don’t know. I’m pretty used to moving around a lot. My mother died when I was seven so I moved from one foster home to another for a very long time.”
Her eyebrows knit together as she rubs my back. “I’m so sorry to hear that, but happy to see that you’ve turned into such an independent and beautiful young woman. Some of us have more fight in us than others. Just like my Adam. You two make a fine pair.”
This woman was not subtle. Between her and her husband, I was beginning to understand why Adam was so persistent when we first met. I ate my breakfast in silence and was glad to help when it was time to start making potato salad, deviled eggs, and various other dishes while the men took their racks of ribs and slabs of meat out to the barbecue.
“Are you gonna be okay in here?” Adam asks as I chop celery for Aunt Kim.
“I’m fine. You go ahead and do your man stuff.”
“She’s fine,” Margaret says as she wraps her arm around my shoulder and gives my arm a squeeze. “You go check on your father. Make sure he’s not burning off what little hair he’s got left.”
Adam looks visibly tense at the mention of his father, but he manages to give me a quick kiss on the cheek before he scurries outside to join the men.
“A bit smaller than that, honey,” Aunt Kim says while passing me on the way to the refrigerator.
Margaret watches the door for a moment after Adam leaves then turns to me. “I know this may not be any of my business, but I want you to know that Adam is crazy about you.”
I smile as I grab another stalk of celery and set about chopping this one a bit smaller.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed the tension between him and his father.”
I look
sideways at her and her face is kind and inquisitive. She’s not fishing for information; she’s hoping to impart some wisdom.
