Page 21 of Wildest Dreams

Hunter kicks my boot under the table and rumbles, “Dude, change the tone.”

My eyes flash to his and he gives me thatwatch the attitude with my little womandeath stare.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say to him, before dropping my eyes back to Fallon’s. “What now, Your Highness?”

“Um, we are renovating the lake house,” she admits, eyes on her lilac nail polish. “It’s one of Aisling’s parents’ properties and they wanted to knock it down, but Ash thinks that it has small town charm or something, so she wants to give it a second chance and convince them that it should be kept – for the business, I mean – but then we also have this summer bucket list that she thought would be perfect to do while we’re staying in Larch Peak–”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, taken aback by the amount of information that she’s piling into that long-ass sentence. “Slow down a minute. What do you mean it’s her parents’ lake house?”

My eyes momentarily flash to Hunter’s because my parents also have a lake house here in Larch Peak. It’s the summer house that Hunter is literally buying off of them.

Even though it’s just a coincidence, it feels like another binding of fate, secretly tying me to Aisling.

“Maybe she should be the one to tell you the finer details. But the gist of it is, we’re staying in Larch Peak until we’ve completedthe renovation. And, while we do the house flip we’re going to have our… wild senior year summer.”

I stare down at Fallon, unblinking.

“Wild senior year summer,” I repeat.

Fallon glances up at Hunter and he gives her a reassuring squeeze. When she looks back at me she says, “You know, the bucket list…?”

Damn straight I know about the bucket list. I’ve spent all day imagining exactly what kind of things Aisling O’Malley might have put on there.

I clear my throat hard and stare at my clasped fists on the booth’s table.

“Yeah, what about it?” I ask quietly.

“Well… it involves doing stuff, obviously. Going out… having fun…” Her voice drops to an almost inaudible mumble when she quickly adds on, “Kissing boys.”

One blink and my vision goes red.

“What did you just say?”

“Oh, come on, Tanner.” Fallon rolls her pretty eyes. “She’s single and cute and she deserves an amazing boyfriend–”

I can’t hear the rest of her sentence over the sound of my blood ringing in my ears.

There’s no question in my mind: Aisling O’Malley is drop dead gorgeous. As if her face wasn’t perfect enough she had to have a killer body too.

And now, even worse, she’s actively looking for a dude to hook up with?

I’m suddenly very interested in the idea of helping Aisling and Fallon renovate the lake house. Screw shooting the shit with the guys – I’m going to ensure that Aisling has everything that she could possibly need for this renovation, anything to keep her distracted from her bucket list of sin, which I’m one-billion percent sure the guys would love to help her fulfil.

I flick my gaze over to the dance floor, raking my eyes over Aisling’s outfit.

I brace my forearms on the table and wait for her to look my way, not much caring for how Tristan is whispering in her ear right now, one big hand on her shoulder, the other brushing over her waist.

Aisling’s eyes meet mine and my knee begins pounding dangerously under the table.

She laughs at something that Tristan whispers to her and I shove my body up to my feet.

“I’m going over there,” I rumble, pushing back my hair as I clear the booth.

I begin slowly making my way through the crowd, neither of us able to tear our eyes off each other. She gives the guys a two minutes signal and satisfaction clenches deep in my abdomen.

But she doesn’t start walking my way – she waits until I’m close, and when there’s barely two feet between us, she legs it.

I curse like a trucker, using my biceps to clear the path that she’s slinking through.

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