AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I try to focus on this moment, on Harold, and talk of Rosie’s mother, but my mind keeps returning to last night and all the crazy heat that passed between us.
Rosie knows how I truly feel now. There’s no going back.
She said she felt the same.
But she also said she needed time to think.
Think about what?
I’m dead certain she’s the one for me. My stomach twists at the thought she might not feel the same.
“It seems to help her,” Harold says, with a shrug.
“Are you two getting on?” I ask.
“Yeah, very well,” he says. “She says I have a kind voice, which I’ve never been told before, but which means a great deal to me.”
“My old man thought the same,” I tell him.
Harold smiles, shaking his head. “With all due respect, Ryland, I can’t imagine Bucky Radley saying something like that.”
“He didn’t say it. I could just tell. He was one-tenth less a dickhead when you were around.”
Harold chuckles. He’s about to say something else, but then footsteps approach from behind us.
I turn when I sense that they’re Rosie’s. I’d be able to pick her footsteps out of a hundred, I’m sure. She has a particular sound, as though part of her is nervous about where she’s going, but the rest of her won’t let those nerves hold her back.
She appears at the door. Her auburn hair in loose waves around her shoulders. She’s wearing no makeup, making her face look flushed and fresh in the morning sun.
Her voluptuous body is a prisoner within her summer dress, settling lightly against her curves.
“Sorry, Harold,” she murmurs. “Mom is asking for you.”
Harold rises with a short bow. “No apologies needed, ma’am,” he says. “It is my duty, and I do it willingly.”
She giggles as he leaves us, head held high.
“Is he always so official?” she asks.
I smirk over at her. She’s talking to me, but she’s studying the grounds, the sky… looking anywhere, it seems, except for directly at me.
I stand up and move over to her.
She flinches when I bring my hands up to her face, hungry to clasp the warmth of her cheeks.
“Why so skittish, Rosie?” I ask, leaning down to kiss her forehead.
My body stirs at the taste of her. All night, I’ve been waiting to feel her fire-hot skin against me again, dreaming of it.
“I thought I might wake up and discover I’d dreamed last night,” she whispers, her smile quirking as she gazes up at me.
“Disappointed?” I ask, taking her hand and leading her to the table and chairs.
“No,” she says firmly.
“Did you talk to your mom about us?” I ask.
She bites her lip as she drops into the seat, shaking her head. “No, not yet. I don’t really… maybe we should try an actual date or something before I tell her.”
I smirk, chuckling as I pour myself a mug of fresh coffee. I gesture with the pot, and she nods thankfully.
“That sounds like a delaying tactic to me,” I say. “But I’m not going to turn down an offer like that. I’ve never been asked on a date before. What a modern little minx you are, Rosie.”
She mock-glares at me, pouting her lips adorably. “I did not ask you on a date.”
I smirk teasingly. “No? That’s what it sounded like to me.”
“You need to listen better, then,” she says. “I was suggesting the idea of a date one day.”
“Fine,” I growl.
I reach across the table and take her hand, squeezing it possessively, letting her feel all the hunger rioting through me, all my need to own her.
“We’re having a date this evening,” I snarl. “I’ll leave a dress in your bedroom for you. Wear it, and don’t wear any makeup. I like your face how it is, fresh and naïve and young and beautiful. Clear enough for you?”
She whimpers, the sound traveling through my body and making the base of my cock ache.
“Yeah, I think so,” she says. “But why do we have to wait until the evening?”
I sigh, leaning back.
The effort of breaking contact with her is more than any workout, any job, anything I’ve ever done before I met her.
“I have to go into the city,” I tell her.
“Why?” she asks.
I chuckle, shooting her a bantering look. “You’re a little question machine this morning, Rosie, you know that?”
She folds her arms, causing her breasts to push together and up, her cleavage tantalizing and captivating in the summer dress. My insides twist with a hunger for her, roaring out at me to reach across and palm her.
She’s mine. I can touch her any damn time I please.
But if I start, I won’t be able to stop.
It’s clear she doesn’t want to go all the way before the date.
“Why, Ryland?” she persists.
“I don’t want to lie to you,” I say.
“Okay…”
“But I don’t want to worry you, either.”
