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There’s an edge to his voice as if he’s trying to find my limit. As if somehow looking for the suffocating and dutiful innocence I carried for so long like a protective cloak.
But all I crave now is to lay naked at his feet.
“Liberating,” I profess before wrapping my lips around his cock.
* * *
A little oversix hours later, we arrive at a motel twenty minutes away from Adrian, Texas. The small town is known for being the midpoint between Los Angeles and Chicago, the café with the same namesake the only real attraction the town has to offer, and I am beyond excited to visit.
Bastian shot me one of his classic unimpressed looks when I told him the destination. My heart squeezed at the sight having somehow missed his grumpy attitude toward practically everything about this road trip.
When we check in, I don’t bother asking for two separate beds, suddenly very uninterested in that deal. Bastian doesn’t mention it either while grabbing the keys for the one-bed motel room. Nothing feels awkward about us anymore, as if sharing a bed is now natural and expected.
Maybe I shouldn’t be getting used to any of this.
Maybe the last thing I should do is to allow my mind to sketch a blurry future with Bastian at my side. But for now, I settle into the quietude and ease between us, hoping to stay in this moment just a little while longer.
Bastian is reading beside me in bed, when I suddenly sit up, phone in hand.
“Oh my goodness!” I nearly shout, still staring at the screen.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his tone laced with worry. His eyebrows soften when I turn to face him and he sees the excited look I’m sporting.
I lower my voice, and mouth the words slowly as if I’m telling him the most sensational news ever. “There’s a tri-state fair and rodeo fifty minutes from here.”
Bastian gives me a blank and unblinking stare, clearly not matching my excitement. Unfazed, I readjust myself under the covers to face him directly.
“We have to go,” I press, feeling giddy like a child, my fingers finding his arm, the skin warm under my touch. “Imagine if there’s a Ferris wheel? I’ve always wanted to go on one of those,” I say a little breathlessly.
He quirks a smile, his haughty mask cracking. “Always?”
“Well, maybe not always, but ever since I watched a movie with one in it last year with Lenix,” I say with a laugh, looking up to the ceiling and then back down at him. “Imagine the view,” I add willfully.
He studies me for a beat, a faraway look in his eyes.
“Fine,” he says flatly, but I still spot the gleam in his gaze.
Shaking my arms in front of me, hands in fists, I make a small squeak of celebration and fight back the instinct to kiss him on the cheek as a thank you. I fall back into the pillows instead with a happy sigh, suddenly excited for the future—even if it’s only one day ahead.
33
Lucy has barely finished parking the car before she scampers out, her energy humming with excitement. It’s nighttime, and the multicolored lights emanating from the fair replace the glimmer of the stars as they dance atop her irises like iridescent fire, while her cowboy hat sits snugly on her head.
She fits right in.
“Look at this place,” she utters, her mouth opened in awe, head swiveling this way and that, trying to take everything in. Her enthusiasm is so pure, I can’t help but take in our surroundings from her perspective. The rows and rows of booths filled with games or sugary foods, and all sizes of stuffed animals promised as prizes for the crowd’s hearty efforts. Live country music fills the air, the stage on the far left. I hear Lucy gasp and I know she’s just spotted the Ferris wheel towering like heaven’s gate over the carnival.
I give her a furtive glance, her face still so gleeful, and a feeling akin to happiness blooms in my chest. Her gaze slides to mine and for a split second I find myself wanting to pretend her energy isn’t contagious. Instead, I indulge and smile. Lucy’s eyes widen, her fingers finding my hand, interlacing them together. My eyes fall to our joined hands. And the same throb ofknowing, the one telling me that I’ve somehow experienced this with her before, makes me squeeze her hand a little harder, her face smoothing into something a little bit more serious when I look back up.
“Show me where we start, Baby Blue,” I say with a smirk.
And her golden green eyes light up with the same thrill as before.
“I don’t even know,” she says with a giggle, tugging on my arm to follow her inside the fair.
“Thought you would have said the Ferris wheel,” I respond in jest.
“I want to save that for last,” she says a little breathlessly as if stuck in a dream. She lets go of my hold as I pull out my wallet to pay for two entrance tickets, and as soon as we’ve paid I find her hand again, her warm palm pressed against mine starting to feel like the highlight of my fucking life.
