Page 81 of Live for Me

“Alright then,” I said and pulled out my phone. “I guess I’ll decide what we’re doing today.”

I texted Indy to tell him that we were taking the day off, but that if anything worth knowing happened to let me know rather than Memphis. Then I started looking for things that we could do that would put her out of control of the situation, so she’d have to just be in the moment with me.

The intense hangover she was experiencing probably wouldn’t pair well with a rollercoaster, so she lucked out of an amusement park being the winner. This chunk of Indiana definitely didn’t have much to offer to thrill seekers though. Making her jump out of an airplane with me seemed like an even worse idea than the rollercoaster.

The Internet suggested that Fall in Indiana had a grand total of two things to offer. Orchards for pumpkins and apples, and corn mazes. The mazes weren’t open until the evenings, and most were haunted. I didn’t bother to ask Memphis if she enjoyed being scared. That was most definitely something we’d have to work up to later to continue dragging her out of her little bubble of comfort. Surely, the hangover queen could survive a wagon ride behind a tractor, though. If not, there would at least be plenty of open space for her to throw up.

She laid her head back against the seat of my truck and rolled her eyes at me when I parked in the field of a big ass pumpkin patch.

“Don’t look at me like that. Girls are supposed to love this fall shit,” I said. “Pumpkin spice, and weird boots that don’t actually function as boots, and flannels, oh my.”

She looked down at the flannel of mine that she was still wearing and then glared at me.

“I’ve got some actual boots in the back if you want to complete the look,” I said and nodded toward the backseat.

“I think I’m more of acurses, poison, and witches, oh mykind of fall girl.”

“And vampires,” I added before I leapt out of that truck for the sake of my own safety. I went right around to where she was busy slamming the truck door. As soon as the little rageball turned to face me, I put both hands on the sides of her face to kiss her. I moved with her when she stumbled backward a little so I could walk her back against my truck and use it to my advantage another time. I’d only done this a handful of times, but I already knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I very much wanted to spend the rest of my life continuing to do exactly this. Her hands were locked in their death grip on my hips, and she still had her eyes closed when I stood upright again. She giggled and shook her head before she moved her hands to my wrists.

“That’s not good,” she whispered.

“Really?” I asked and moved a hand from her face to cup it between her legs. “I bet I’d be calling you a liar right now if I could feel beneath these jeans.”

The tiny little gasp that came out of her right along with my name had me reconsidering this pumpkin patch trip. If I’d had a way to teleport us back to my bed just then, I’d have done it without so much as a second thought.

“I meant—” she started to say and giggled before she forced herself to look up to my face again. “I meantthat’s not goodthat I was fucking pissed at you a minute ago, and now—I’m just not. You’re probably not supposed to be able to wipe out anger completely with a kiss.”

She exhaledhardwhen I dragged my hand from where it rested between her legs all the way back up to her neck without ever leaving her body.

“Yeah, attractive men who know how to make you feel things you’ve never felt before are the fucking worst, aren’t they?” I whispered and kissed her forehead. I stepped back and grabbed her hand to pull her away from the truck until she was walking beside me.

“Is this actually happening right now?” Memphis asked and laughed after a quiet few seconds. “Did that just happen? And now we’re just going to go play fall games with other people like itdidn’thappen? Which part of this did my brain just imagine entirely?”

“I’ll take you back home right now if that’s what you’d rather do to know that not a single bit of that was onlyimagined,” I said, and probably scared her right into a near-death experience.

She squeezed my hand. “Utah, I?—”

“Then we’ll stay here, and you’ll just have to take my word for it, angel,” I interrupted. She smiled and leaned her head against my shoulder before she added her other hand to hold onto my arm while we got in line to pay to go play with some pumpkins for the day like two perfectly ordinary Indiana people.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

memphis

Iwas almost annoyed that I really did feel better by that point in the afternoon, but I was even more surprised that Utah hadn’t made me own up to the fact his greasy food solution was behind it. I felt good enough for apple cider slushies, cinnamon donuts, and apple crisp. I felt good enough to sit on a weird cube of a hay in the back of a wagon while a tractor pulled us through miles and miles of apple trees. I didn’t even mind that it was the least comfortable thing I’d ever had to sit on in my life, because I spent most of that ride staring at the giant hand that was wrapped around mine for almost the entire thing. His fingers were rough and his palm was calloused, but he really did radiate pure heat, and that was somehow enough to make everything about his touch feel softer. He only took his hand away from mine once to put that whole arm around my shoulders to drag me the rest of the way against his side.

“We still shouldn’t be doing this,” I said quietly. “Someone might recognize one of us.”

He chuckled and kissed the side of my head.

“That’s the third time you’ve said that, angel. And that’s the third time that I’ll be ignoring it.”

“All it would take for everything we’ve worked for to unravel would be one person realizing who I am. Or who you are.”

“The longer you stress out about it, the longer I’m going to make you stay out here. We’ve only been through the apple side of this place. We haven’t even made it to the pumpkins yet.”

“You make some of the weirdest threats,” I said and laughed. “You’re threatening me with relaxation.With pumpkins.”

“I’d love to be able to threaten you with other things, but I think you’d probably decide I was deranged and ask me to just stay away from you.”

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