Page 32 of Out of Place

His mouth is so close to mine that I could easily turn my head and our lips would touch. I can’t think straight. Not with his closeness and not with everything he just said, because wow.

“What if. . . what if I don’t like you like that,” I say, although it’s not very convincing. At this point, I’m just trying to argue to keep myself from falling to my knees.

He chuckles, sending a tingle down my body straight to my core. “You’re gonna tell me you don’t want me, Olivia?” His hand slides up from my hip to rest against my chest. “Your heart is racing.” He slowly drags his hand up to my cheek, lightly brushing over it. “Your cheeks are flushed.” His thumb trails along my bottom lip. “Your breathing is erratic. You want me, Olivia. Whether or not you want to admit it.”

When his thumb gets to the middle of my mouth, I use my teeth to gently pull his thumb into my mouth and bite.

“I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we,” I tell him after I release his thumb.

He smirks. “I guess we will.”

CHAPTER 12

Landon

All eyes are on us when we clear the tree line, but I ignore them. My focus is on Olivia.

She doesn’t fully trust me yet because Camden is still acting like a fucking fool. I get it. He doesn’t want the farm falling into the wrong hands after we’ve worked so hard to get it to where it is today. We’ve all put our blood, sweat, and tears into that farm. We’ve learned everything, from how to grow crops to dealing with certain livestock. Benny even set up riding lessons and put a lot of work into marketing them in town, something he hates to do. We work long-ass days, but we do it because we love it and are good at it.

But at the end of the day, it’s not our farm. It’s Dottie’s, and she can do whatever she wants with it. If that means giving it to Olivia, then so be it. I’d stand right beside her and help her through it if she needed it or leave if she told me to kick rocks.

Honestly, at this point, I’d probably do anything Olivia asked me to do. She’s got me wound so tightly and doesn’t even know it. Well, she might know it after that little stunt I pulled back by the truck, but I needed her to know my intentions.

I put the case of beer over by the coolers, grabbing a cold one for myself. Olivia asks for water.

“You don’t drink?” I remember what the girls talked about at the diner a few weeks ago. I haven’t asked Olivia about it and don’t plan on it. If she wants to tell me, she will.

“I. . . used to. Just trying something new,” she explains.

I grab her a bottle of water, and we walk hand in hand over to where my friends are sitting.

It’s a big deal to show any kind of PDA with someone around here. It gives everyone the idea that you’re serious about someone.

But that’s exactly what I want.

My friends don’t get it. Sure, Olivia is beautiful. That’s obvious to anyone who looks at her. Her attitude is her defensive mechanism. I can see that, but I don’t think others do yet.

Something is going on in her pretty little head, and I want to break through it. I want to know the real Olivia, not just the one who can throw out a sarcastic comment. Even if I love those.

So, yeah, I want things with Olivia to be serious. I want my friends to realize I’m serious when I tell them to stop talking shit. And I want Ellie to know once and for all that I can’t be with her how she wants.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Olivia tugs on my arm to stop. “Your friends don’t like me that much.”

I turn to her and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Since when do you care what anyone thinks about you?”

She smiles at me, and that look alone makes me want to drag her out of here and back to my place where I can have my way with her.

“I don’t really. . .”

“That’s what I thought. Just be yourself. And if they don’t like that, then fuck ’em.”

She laughs, and I walk us through the crowd to my friends. Several people call my name and shoot me a wave, and I tip my beer to them. No way am I letting go of Olivia’s hand.

There’s got to be at least fifty people here tonight, mostly people we went to school with. The only one not here is Benny, and that’s because it’s his night with his daughter. My group sits in big chairs on the dock by the lake. There’s one chair intentionally left open for me.

I didn’t tell anyone I was bringing Olivia. One, because it’s none of their business, and two, I didn’t want to hear any shit from anyone.

I sit in the empty chair and tug Olivia’s hand, motioning her to sit on my lap. Her eyes widen as she looks from my lap to my face. She slowly sits down, a little stiff at first, but I wrap my arm around her and pull her into my chest. Her shoulders finally relax.