Page 59 of Wildest Dreams

I watch as her boyfriend presses a dark bottle to his mouth, draining the last of his drink before purposefully rising to his feet.

“Your boyfriend is, like, way intense,” I giggle, my eyes going extra wide to emphasise my point.

Winter bites into her lower lip as she looks at him over her shoulder, and then turns back to face me, cheeks dimpling in delight.

“He’s perfect,” she sighs, a happy squeal leaving her throat the second that his giant tattooed forearms leash around her neck from behind. In the cutest, most possessive display of ownership that I’ve ever seen he slides his hand up her throat as he gently kisses her forehead, before hunching lower and sinking his teeth into her neck.

Winter’s eyelashes flutter until Caden turns his bite into a nuzzle, burying his face under her soft pink hair, giant shoulders swelling with every inhale.

Smiling at me with a tinge of shyness on her cheeks, Winter drops her eyes for a moment so that she can stroke her fingers up her boyfriend’s forearms. He lifts his head only so that he can murmur a secret into her ear.

She tries to shove him away as she giggles uncontrollably but he keeps her in place with his hands, purposefully scraping her up with his stubble.

“Caden!” she laughs, cheeks pink as he kisses her skin. “We need, like, ten more minutes! Twenty tops.” She slides her sparkly eyes over to mine, grins, and says, “Maybe thirty! We’re doing as much as we can on Aisling’s bucket list.”

Winter says the wordsbucket listreally slowly as if it’s something super important, which makes me place a hand over my heart and do a little “aw!”

She gives my hand a happy squeeze and presses a chaste kiss to Caden’s cheek.

He inhales deeply, one hand lifting so that he can gently stroke the fine chain around her neck, disappearing under her dress, and then he nods his head, wrapping his arm protectively around her shoulders.

“Are you… doing the list too?” he asks her quietly.

“I mean, why not?!” she says, with her trademark sunshine giggle.

He nods again, clutching her tighter. “So, um… what’re y’all gonna do?”

“Well, the first thing was to dance in a dive bar,” Winter says, releasing an exhilarated squeak when Caden grips her hips and spins her around. “And we still need to tick off ‘make out with a hot guy’–”

Caden’s mouth crashes down on Winter’s, kissing every thought out of her head. She makes a happy surprised yelp that’s quickly swallowed up by her boyfriend, and her delicate hands flutter up to hold onto his broad shoulders.

When he pulls back to stare down at her, stars are sparkling in her eyes.

“O-okay,” she whispers, wobbling against him.

He clutches her tighter and rumbles, “Done. Next.”

“Um.” Winter looks over to me, blinking quickly as she tries to remember the other thing on tonight’s agenda, something that we had excitedly texted Fallon about and received fifteen screaming voice-notes as a result of.

I send Winter a girl-to-girl telepathic brainwave and she does a littleooohwhen she finally remembers.

She glances up at her boyfriend’s gruff expression, a little smile on her lips.

“Winter.” His tone is a gentle warning.

“Well,” she laughs, rolling her eyes playfully, “the last thing on Ash’s list tonight is… that.”

Winter gestures behind us and Caden glances over his girlfriend’s shoulder, brow furrowed as he tries to locate what she’s pointing at.

Not seeing it, he looks back down at her, a question in his eyes.

“Pole adventures!” she exclaims, before throwing me an adoring look. “Aisling’s a competitive cheerleader and she’s going to doamazing.”

I give her a teary smile. “Thank you.”

Caden eyes the pole with a murderous expression and then looks back down at his girlfriend, pulling her closer to his chest. His voice is deep and gravelly. “You’re… you’re not gonna… I mean, you’re not–?”

“You have to be twenty-one to get up there, so” – she shrugs and gives him a little shake of her head – “probably no.”

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