Page 56 of Hard to Love
“You’re smart to be cautious. He’s a shifty one.” With the stick in his left hand, Alex slid his other hand around hers, intertwined their fingers. The warm spot that had been glowing inside Greer for the past half-hour did a cartwheel, a roundoff, and a back handspring, landing somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.
She squeezed his fingers, and he rubbed his thumb along hers. Probably the least sexual way he’d ever touched her outside their first handshake, but the warmth of his skin, the sheer rightness of his hand in hers, rushed to her heart, making it tender and hopeful.
They made it out of the trees without a coyote sighting, but Alex didn’t toss the branch aside. Instead, he poked at the ground here and there. Probably not a bad idea since rattlesnakes were native to the area. Night wasn’t their prime time, but that was no excuse to be stupid.
As they walked toward the barn, Greer suddenly wasn’t sure she was ready to make love with Alex in that metal-framed bed upstairs, the one that had once been her parents’. She pointed to the open-sided cargo trailer parked under a massive live oak, one of the most beautiful living things on the property. “Perfect night to look at the stars.”
Without protest, Alex changed direction, cutting a diagonal through the grass to the trailer. Greer unhookedthe metal tailgate and lowered it to the ground. Then she hopped up and turned in time to watch Alex step onto the wooden trailer bed.
She took his hand again and drew him down to sit beside her and tugged his fingers. “Best way to see the stars is on your back.”
“Best way to do a lot of things is on your back.”
“Like work on your car, you mean?”
His smile changed him from a hard-ass to a bad boy, one able to charm his way out of a million scrapes. But he let her pull him down until they were both lying on their backs, hands clasped, letting a comfortable silence stretch between them.
Chapter Sixteen
The feel of Greer’s arm against his and the slide of her fingers against his churned through Alex’s blood. How was it this woman could affect him more with a simple touch than other women had by allowing him inside their bodies?
And what kind of control would he lose when he slid inside Greer’s?
“My dad used to haul us around on this thing for hayrides,” she said. “He’d hitch it up to his truck, throw a few small bales in the back. After my mom died—” he squeezed her fingers, “—we didn’t have a chaperone back here anymore.”
“You have a boyfriend in high school?”
“I was a cheerleader.”
Stupid question, dumbass. Better question was how many boyfriends.“Guess that means you and the quarterback enjoyed some quality alone time on this trailer.”
“Michael Alewine was actually a running back.” She raised her arm, pointed to the sky. “Can you see Orion? His belt always stands out to me.”
Alex had rarely paid attention to the stars until he moved to bumfuck Montana. City lights and city fights didn’t encourage stargazing. “I can usually manage the Big Dipper.”
“If you can find that, then you can always get the Little Dipper. The two outer stars on the Big Dipper point to Polaris, which is the end of the Little Dipper’s handle and always stays in same place in the northern sky.”
For the first time in years, Alex had the sudden desire to stay in the same place, right here with this woman.
When her arm came down, she shifted to her side, rested her palm on his chest. Cheesy or not, she was touching his heart. “If you’re not much of a star-watcher, then you’ve probably never made love outside.”
Made love.No, he hadn’t. He’d once had a raunchy bit of sex up against the back wall of a convenience store. “Not sure if you noticed, but we’re laying on wood. Don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of splinters in my ass.”
She pushed up to gaze down at him, her eyes mockingly wide. “Oh, you mean you actually plan to get undressed?”
She’d already seen him in a towel, but the moonlight here made it brighter than he’d like. He’d just have to keep her so damn busy she wouldn’t have time to catalog all the pictures on his body. Normally, the women he slept with were so wrung out by the time he’d given them their share of Os, they didn’t have energy to do much more than stroke a limp hand down his back.
Yeah, that would work.
So he rolled Greer and pinned her against the trailer. “Fine, but that’s the only shot you’re calling tonight.”
She cupped his cheek and looked into him with that way she had. Unmanned him every damn time. “Whatever lets you sleep at night, Villanueva.”
And then she put her lips against his.
Fuck the stars. Just the sweet feel of Greer’s mouth on his was enough to set off twinkling lights in his head. He’dbeen thinking about this woman since the day she pulled up to his broken-down car, but now that he was about to see every inch of her, he wanted to take his time. Learn how she liked to be kissed, where she liked to be touched, how she liked to be loved.
But the slide of her sweet lips against his set off tiny detonations along his nerve endings, urging him to move in and deepen their kiss.
