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She hummed her approval.
The honest to God truth was that I’d thought she’d be more reserved in bed, but she was just as free, willing, open as she was in the rest of her life. She lived with a sense of abandon, a fearless life so heavy with hope, it was impossible to get her down. She was unstoppable, a necessary force of nature as potent as the sun.
I envied her that.
When she sighed, I could hear her smiling.
“Can you wake me up every day like that? I’d like to retire my alarm in favor of your mouth.”
“I think that can be arranged. Should I make the beep-beep-beep while I do it?”
“Not if you want to keep me,” she said on a laugh.
“Scratch that then. Want to go up to the big house and get breakfast? Let Jolene out?”
Olivia yawned. “She’s probably torn up every pair of shoes in the house.”
“Too bad you wore your boots over.”
“You love my boots.”
“I’d love to burn your boots, but they’d stink the place up for a week.”
Giggling, she rolled over with a look on her face that did something warm and painful to my insides.
“What are you doing today?” I asked, already calculating when I’d be through with my day. When I remembered lunch, I was almost what you’d call giddy.
“Well, I have brunch at Debbie’s, and I need to work on my promo plan for next month. Should definitely take some new pictures. That sort of thing.”
“You going to see Presley at Debbie’s?”
“I am. It’s even more crucial now that I have all this tea to spill.”
“Good thing you told Chase to fuck off, or I’d be worried.”
Her face flattened. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“We’re friends,” she began, but I cut her off.
“You can’t just be friends with Chase Patton.”
Her face screwed up in anger. “You can’t tell me who to be friends with.”
“I can when it comes to him.”
She huffed. “This is part of the problem—you won’t even consider giving him a chance. Don’t you see that I could mend fences? I could be a bridge. This old feud has to end, and this could be the way to do it.”
“He just wants to fuck you.”
“Jake!” she shot, shoving me in the chest. “Jesus!”
“I’ve known him longer than you, and I’ve seen him at work. He wants to fuck you and get a foot in the door here—you have to see that.”
She was downright pissed, pulling the sheets to her chest as she sat up, glaring at me. “That is a horrible thing to say.”
“Liv, I’m sorry if it came off wrong—it was an insult meant for him.” I stroked her arm with my chest all twisted up, encouraged when she relaxed by a small margin. “What I mean to say is that you can’t trust him.”
She gave me a look. “You say that about everybody. You’ve said that about me.”
“I was wrong about you. I’m not wrong about him.”
Leaning in, she cupped my jaw. “Jake,” she started gently, “You trust me, right?”
A single, willful nod.
“After last night, do you think there is any chance of me running off with Chase Patton?”
My eyes narrowed. I shook my head.
She smiled, satisfied. “Right. So I’m going to brunch with Presley, and when I get back, I am coming straight here, taking off my clothes, and getting into your bed where I will stay until you come in for lunch.”
That earned her a smile—she’d been imagining lunch together exactly like I’d been. Naked. “Fine. But just for the record, I don’t like anything that puts you and Chase in the same sentence, never mind building.”
“Duly noted. And you’re going to let me be friendly with Chase.”
I watched her. “The Pattons are capable of more than you know, and Chase is a trained liar. They want the farm. Just remember that for me.”
“I promise. As long as you let me be a diplomat so we can put this whole thing to bed once and for all.”
One of my brows rose. “I’d rather not involve Chase in any discussions involving beds, either.”
“To pasture then.”
“Better.”
She leaned in to give me a tender kiss that turned into a breathless one. When I broke away, she was pinned under me.
“I thought you were hungry,” she said with a smile.
“Oh, I am.”
So I took my fill in the hopes she would ease my fears with the devotion of her body.
And it almost worked.
21
Calendar Boy
OLIVIA
I floated to the diner like a cloud.
Not riding on top of a cloud, as one usually imagined. Not in a cloud, oblivious to the outside world. I was as thoughtless as a fluffy white cloud drifting across the horizon with a smile on my face and not a care in the world.
Jake and I had parted ways only after a very long, borderline disgusting display of affection. When we’d walked into the kitchen for breakfast half dressed, Kit took one look at us, squealed, and burst into happy tears. Jake looked terrified at Kit’s state, seeing as how it was fifty percent directed toward him. His eyes were a couple of ping-pong balls, his cheeks a little flushed, his back straight as a ruler. I wondered if he’d ever brought a girl home like this to meet everyone and decided by the level of Kit’s excitement that the answer was no.
