Page 31 of Hometown Hottie

Jeez. What is wrong with me?

“I’ll order that rim and get back to you about when you can pick up your truck, Ms. Murphy,” Dave said to me.

I bounced my head in a jerky nod to thank him before letting Carson lead me to his truck.

After he opened the door for me and then closed it once I’d gotten in, he jumped in behind the wheel and got us underway. “Where am I going?”

I rattled off the address, still feeling the weight of his palm on my back even though it wasn’t there anymore, and then I reminded myself that I was a full-grown woman who knew how to control myself.

Get your shit together, Nova. This is ridiculous.

I forced myself to inhale and exhale deeply a few times to calm my racing heart. It worked, and the butterflies were replaced by a buzzing sense of relief. “Thank you so much for this. I know it doesn’t seem like the end of the world, but I need those strawberries.”

“Strawberries, huh?” He flashed me a lopsided grin and glanced at me before his eyes went back to the road. “I seem to remember you being a miracle worker with those growing up.”

I thought back to all the hours I’d spent in my mother’s kitchen, watching Carson come and go from our house before and after football practice and always feeling like I needed to have something special ready for him after the serious workout he’d gotten on a daily basis. And okay, Ryan was there too, obviously, but not too much of my efforts were for him.

I probably should’ve been ashamed about that, but I wasn’t. “If you thought I was a miracle worker with those, you should see what I can do with the ones we’re about to pick up. They’re juicy and succulent, and not one of them tastes watered down. They’re the kind of strawberries that are worthy of the name.”

“Does that mean there are strawberries that aren’t worthy of the name?” he asked, brow furrowing. “I mean, I get juicy and succulent. That sounds great, but a strawberry is a strawberry, right?”

“Wrong,” I said in no uncertain terms. “I’ll let you try some of these when we’re on our way back. You’ll be kicking yourself for ever thinking that a strawberry is just a strawberry.”

He laughed, his head dropping back a little but his eyes still focused on the road. As I looked at him, his shoulders still shaking with laughter, my stomach filled with joy. He looked so young and carefree, his dark hair still thick and longish but swept away from his handsome face and rippling a bit as he shook his head.

“I’m going to trust you on that one,” he said easily. “I always imagined you going to culinary school, and now you have a bakery. How did you end up getting a degree in agriculture when all you’ve ever wanted was to be in your own kitchen?”

I shrugged. “There are dreams, and then there is reality. Not all of us are lucky enough to have those two things line up the way they did for you.”

“The ranch?” he asked.

I nodded. “Same as with Ryan. We both want to help, so I pursued agriculture while he learned how to fix things. It might not be my passion or his, but I still get to bake and he still plays football in the park sometimes.”

Carson got a little quiet after that, but we reached the farm in no time, and mercifully, my order was packed and waiting. He helped me load the crates onto the bed of his truck, then snagged some of the berries and popped them into his mouth.

We climbed back into our seats.

“Well, there goes at least one tart,” I scolded him playfully. “I’d tell you I was going to charge you for it, but we used your gas to get here, so consider us even.”

“Hey, you told me I could try some,” he protested. “Those are good, by the way. Amazing, actually. I hate to say it, but you were right. Those really are worthy of the name strawberry.”

“Ha.” I grinned at him, feeling a lightness creeping over me now that I had the produce and the crisis had properly been averted. “Hold on a sec, will you? I’ll get us something to snack on for the road.”

After grabbing a tiny box out of one of the crates, I settled back into my seat and winked at him. “How about this? If you can catch it, you can eat it.”

“Catch it?” he echoed as we got back on the road. “I’m game, but if we crash, we’re sharing a hospital room while we recover.”

“Guess I’ll have to aim well.” I plucked out a strawberry and threw it into his mouth as he drove.

Carson grinned triumphantly after catching it, and he gave a little moan as he swallowed it.

I felt the moan in parts of my body that weren’t supposed to feelsound.

“That was great,” he said. “Let’s try it again.”

I tossed another strawberry into his mouth. Again, he hummed a pleasurable sound as he swallowed it. The deep, low groan filled the cab of his truck, making a shiver race through me. I suddenly remembered hearing noises like that from him while he kissed me.

My cheeks flushed with heat and my breathing sped up a little, but I kept going, throwing strawberries into his mouth. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep my body from reacting to him. To the sounds he made and the beautiful grin on his face every time he succeeded. To the way the muscles in his forearm rippled every time he shifted gears and the amusement in his voice whenever he spoke.

I’d never had chemistry like this with anyone else, and even though I missed every last one of the strawberries he tried throwing into my mouth, it was still there, crackling in the air between us. It grew even while we laughed and chatted, and when he leaned over to wipe some berry juice off my lip while we were stopped at a traffic light, I felt like I was about to combust spontaneously.

Carson’s eyes darkened as they hooked on mine with his thumb still lingering on my mouth. The thought that he still felt that chemistry too was enough to make my panties damp. Back when we’d been kids, he’d also set my body on fire, but even that paled in comparison to how I felt now.

Everything I’d ever felt paled in comparison to the feelings racing through me.

I held his gaze. There was something so real and raw about this moment, and yet, a relationship between us was still taboo. I didn’t know how it was possible that the only guy in the whole world I shouldn’t want was the same one who made me feel like he was the reason none of my other relationships had worked out.

Like he was the one I was meant to be with. Like he was the reason I was about to jeopardize my relationship with my brother.

All to taste those strawberries on Carson’s lips.