Fuck, too forward. Back up, Dallas, back up.
I start to stammer a reply, but she interrupts me with a hearty laugh, slapping my chest as she slips from my hold and sits up in the tray of my ute. She lifts herself up and climbs out in one fluid, and oddly graceful, movement. My knees hurt just watching my girl move – I have never felt so fucking old.
“I’m just messin’ with ya, cowboy,” she taunts. Way to give a man a heart-attack. Her brow cocks, and she sticks her tongue out at mebefore flitting off to sit on the table.Ourtable.
My mouth almost waters at the image that replays in my mind of her spread across that very spot for me last night, whimpering and completely at my mercy.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask.
“Let me see… I slept in the tray of a ute, drunk as a skunk, in someone else’s sweater, wrapped up in the arms of a hot cowboy. I reckon that about sums up a marvelloussleep, don’t you, Dallas Northlane?”
“Ouch, full names. And here I thought you thought my name was cowboy.”
She laughs, leaning down across the side of the bench to grab a fistful of dirt and proceeds to throw it at me.
“Dirt, Firefly? Really? Isn’t this childish behaviour beneath you?” I joke.
She frowns and retorts, “I’ll bloody show you beneath you.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth, her cheeks flush crimson and she begins stammering a redemption. I close the gap between us, pressing my palm to her cheek, the heat radiating through my skin.
“If you want to be beneath me, baby girl, all you’ve gotta do is ask.”
A deeper shade of red burns into her cheeks as she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. I know she’s embarrassed. I know I hit a nerve. But I can’t stop myself. Gently teasing this woman is fast becoming my new favourite pastime, and I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of it – ofher.
“Nothing to add, Annabeth?”
I move closer, placing my hand against her flushed cheek and cupping her jaw in my palm, lifting her chin until our lipsalmosttouch.She reaches her hand to meet mine, her touch sending shivers straight to my dick. Her skin is softer than I can explain, and all I can think about is having her hands wrapped around me again.
“No,” she whimpers.
“No, what?”
“No,cowboy.”
I nod in approval before crashing into her. My tongue slips between her teeth, meeting hers with enough pressure to draw a moan from her lips. She tastes like the whiskey we drank last night and…peppermint?
I pull myself away from her. “You taste like peppermint schnapps.”
“I had a breath mint when I got up,” she confesses.
I stare at her, puzzled. When the hell did that happen? Am I going blind?
“I didn’t want to be stinky,” she continues, stifling a laugh.
“Annabeth, I couldn’t give a single fuck if you have morning breath, or if you’re covered in cow shit. I think you’re beautiful, okay?”
She smiles so big I swear her cheeks are going to burst, and lunges towards me, gripping me in a hug that almost cracks a rib.
“I want to know you, but I don’t want you to ever feel like you need to hide around me, or be anybody but exactly who you are,” I tell her.
“You got it,cowboy,” she taunts.
I hold her in my arms, not wanting to let go, though it does give me time to consider my own morning breath situation. “Do you want to get some breakfast?”
“I’d love to,” she answers.
With her still in my embrace, I pick her up and carry her to my ute, knowing I will be holding onto the memory of our first night together beneath the stars, on our table, forever.
