Page 31 of Wildest Dreams

I swallow my mouthful and place the fork back in the tray, letting him know that the moment is over.

Tanner stares down at me.

“Keep eating.”

Heat floods through my chest as I flash him a dangerous glare.

He watches me in silence.

I pick back up the fork.

He grunts when I shovel in a giant forkful of cobbler, eyes gleaming black when they momentarily capture mine.

“Like it?” he asks.

I frown up at him, not saying anything.

He smirks back down at me. “You love it, huh?”

I practically growl as I shove the dish back into his hands, dissipating the intimacy of Tanner feeding me his cobbler. He smirks, dipping his thumb into the juice, and sucking off the flavour with a molten gleam in his eyes.

“Mm,” he murmurs. “Been a while since I tasted anything that sweet.”

“Oh myGod,” I explode, humourless and exasperated.“You are so freaking smug, Tanner! How the hell did I miss those signs?”

I roll my eyes at myself as I head back to where everyone else is, on the other less intense side of Tanner’s giant car.

“Wait.” Tanner drops the cobbler into the backseat, blocking my path as I go to walk around the hood. My eyes momentarily flick to the veins in his biceps and I remember just how capable his body can be. “It wasn’t like that, Aisling. You and me? It was never like that.”

I shove my way past him, hating how much I love hearing the way he rumbles my name. That deep country drawl. I’ll never get over it.

I plonk down beside Fallon, turning my head in the opposite direction when I hear him trudging into the clearing.

He genuinely has the balls to sit down right next to me, his giant shoulder pressing into mine and radiating more heat than a mountain bear.

“You. Are. So. Annoying!” I stamp down on his boot with every word that I grind out.

He snickers and hunches forward, taking a huge bite out of a burger.

I blink down at it in confusion as he manages to swallow a whole half in one go.

He takes another abnormally large bite as he silently shoves a brown paper bag onto my lap, inconspicuously, so that no-one around us will see.

Begrudgingly I look inside. He’s offering me his fries.

I scrunch the bag shut, my heart a volcano of conflicting feelings.

Tanner finishes off his burger on bite number three, and then, to my amazement, gets to work on a second one.

“No wonder you’re so big,” I whisper, reaching into the brown bag and cautiously nibbling on a fry.

He grunts and continues eating. Zero ceremony.

As I passively listen to the hockey talk happening between Austin, Hunter and Tristan, Tanner crumples up his second burger wrapper and slides his eyes over to my legs.

“What happened there?” he asks, his gaze burning onto my scuffed kneecaps.

I swish my hair around. “I told you. I’m working.”

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