“Again?” He chuckled. “You know that red light isn’t a challenge, right? I’m coming over.”
“I’m not at the apartment.”
He groaned. “Where are you?” His muffled voice sounded like he was talking from behind his hand.
She told him where she was and he told her it would take him twenty-five minutes to get himself organized and out to her.
She had twenty-five minutes to figure out how to hide the fact she’d heard him say he loved her from her easy-to-read face.
***
“My hero!” Molly pasted a fake smile on her face. While she hated the damsel in distress bit, she genuinely could have kissed his beautiful mouth. But that would have led to misdemeanors – like being naked in public. Somehow his admission of feelings for her had dialed her lust up to an eleven.
He had parked behind her, gotten out of the car, and pulled a gas can from the trunk. When he’d emptied the fuel into her tank, he snapped the cover closed and pointed a finger at her. “We’re going to gas up your car.”
“You don’t have to do that. I got it from here. Thanks though.”
He wagged the still outstretched finger. “Ah! Ah! Not so fast. You owe me.”
He had her there. She did owe him. He’d rescued her when she had no one else to turn to. “What’s it going to cost me?” She’d happily sink to her knees at the side of the road and blow him, but that might have been a little strong for their first more-than-friends encounter. Her vagina didn’t seem to think so, however, as a strong pulsing sensation in her pants had her clenching her thighs.
“Llama hugging.”
“What the…? You’ve got to be kidding, right? That’s totally not a thing.”
With a satisfied grin he pulled his phone out from his back pocket and pulled up a website. Carlson’s Loveable Llamas. Was it really a thing? Surely people didn’t just go visit a farm and hug llamas.
Her eyes bugged out of her head as she read that was exactly what people did. It was totally a thing. She pointed at his screen. “You want to go hug a llama?”
He nodded, still grinning. “It’s about twenty minutes from here and I haven’t been out there in a while.”
“You’ve been before?” Was she being punked? She looked over her shoulder half expecting someone to be filming the exchange.
“I adopted a llama a few months ago. Freakin’ love them. They’re cute and fluffy and they give great hugs.”
She covered her face and shook her head. “You… adopted a llama?”
He shrugged. “We went out to Carlson’s when we were kids.” He kicked at an invisible pebble at his feet. “Liam…” His voice broke over the word. “He loved the llamas and cried when we had to leave. Every time. He begged Santa for a pet llama, but he never got one. I went a few times since. Decided to adopt one a while back.”
Her arms ached to hold him. “You just go… visit your llama?”
He nodded, jamming his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “You can walk them, train them, groom and feed them. You in?”
Hell yeah she was in. Her veins thrummed with adventure. “I could take a llama for a walk.”
“Let’s get gas for your car and move it somewhere safer than at the side of a busy road. Then I’ll take you to meet Liam the llama.”
Her heart squeezed. The man would be the death of her. With trembling hands she climbed into Finn’s car and waited for him to return. He’d insisted on taking her car across the freeway to gas it up, and bring it back. While she waited, she opened Venmo and sent him the cash. His car smelled of him. She wanted to wrap herself in his scent and never leave.
The door swung open and she squawked.
“Jumpy today?”
She nodded, mute.
“Ready?”
Another nod.
