Page 83 of Live for Me

“You’re not going anywhere now, sugar. I’ve tasted this,” he whispered while his thumb pulled my bottom lip down. “And I still want to taste the rest of you.”

My ability to breathe vanished right into the nonexistent oxygen around us.

“You’re even prettier when you turn pink,” he said.

“It’s cold out.”

“If you say so, angel.”

The soft kiss that followed left me with even less oxygen.

Until some child sitting across from us on the wagon started an entire chorus of “Ew” with the other toddlers sitting around us on their hay cube benches.

I’d nearly forgotten we were in public.

I pulled away from him in an instant while he chuckled at how easy it was to embarrass me. His arm tightened around my shoulders, and I turned my entire face into his body so I could hide from him and everyone else.

“You still don’t know these people. And what they think still doesn’t matter,” he whispered and kissed the top of my head.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

utah

She looked at me like there was a decent chance I’d been born without a brain when I parked the truck in the middle of one of the fields that surrounded New Jersey’s house. The sun was already setting by the time we were leaving that orchard. I’d told her we needed to stop at the house, but she wasn’t allowed to get out of the truck because we were still going somewhere else. It was Memphis, so I hadn’t really expected her to listen. It surprised me that she didn’t even attempt to get out of the truck while I ran in, ignored Indy completely to gather what I needed, and sprinted right back out to throw everything in the backseat.

“You said we were goingsomewhere?”

So much attitude for such a little person.

“And we’re here,” I said.

“We didn’t actuallygoanywhere, Utah,” she laughed. “We didn’t even leave Jersey’s property.”

“I’m sorry, Princess Memphis. I didn’t realize you needed a five-star resort to look at the stars.”

“What?”

“You said you’d never even been stargazing. You don’t need much more than an open field and a truck bed.”

I could almost see the attitude melt right out of her; that teeny, tiny glimmer of the softer side of her nearly broke through for a whole millisecond before she opened the door and escaped the cab of my truck. I couldn’t imagine where she thought she might escape to without the use of my truck and her hilarious inability to simply exist comfortably outside. I got out of the truck, too, and grabbed the pile of blankets from the backseat. She waited in silence while I climbed into the bed and threw them all open, and then she stared at me in pure confusion when I turned to look at her after I was done. She was so small that she wasn’t even sure how to climb up here with me. Stifling that laugh was the hardest thing I’d done in a while as I jumped back down beside her. This girl actually took a whole step backward when I raised two fingers to motion for her to come to me. All it took to change her mind was cocking my head at her. She came to stand directly in front of me like she still didn’t know what to do.

Every fucking thing she did was adorable.

“Turn around,” I said.

“Umm.”

“Don’t start with me, Memphis. YouknowI’m not going to hurt you. Turn around.”

She was sure to glare at me before she turned away from me. I tried to ignore the reaction that wanted to come out of me when I grabbed her by the hips, lifting her right off the ground until she could raise her feet up and plant them on the tailgate. I froze right where I was after I tried to release her only to have her hand lock in a death grip on mine.

“You’re coming up here, too?” she asked.

“Nah, I figured I’d toss you up there and just get back in the cab with the heat.”

I couldn’t help but cackle at the way that she whirled back around to look at me.

“Yes, angel,” I said and squeezed the hand that she still had wrapped around mine. “I’m right behind you.”

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