Page 8 of Misadventures of a Curvy Girl
Especially after she arched against me.
Had it been some other woman, I might have. Because I wouldn’t have cared what happened next. But I did care what happened next because I want more than a cheap grope with Ireland. I want to make her mine—make her ours.
Besides, Ben and I don’t start things apart. Or finish them apart, for that matter. So yes, I was irritated when Ben’s name came up, but I was grateful too, precisely because we don’t do things separately. I needed that reminder, and it was as good a time as any for Ireland to learn there is a man named Ben who I live with.
I do wish I knew what Mrs. Parry said to Ireland before she climbed into the truck, though. She’s very quiet now, and I don’t know her well enough to interpret her silence.
I’m going to do everything I can to change that. Starting now.
“Your car,” I say, giving a final wave to Mrs. Parry as we circle through the short gravel-speckled grass to go back down her driveway. “I can probably get it free now with my truck, but my concern is that it will get stuck in a different part of the road and you’ll be in the same mess. It might be easier if we plan on coming back tomorrow or even the day after.”
I steal a glance over at her, not missing the way her knee jogs slightly in agitation.
“I thought that might be the case,” she says. God, her voice is irresistible. I can’t wait for Ben to hear it, to hear how smoky and breathless it is. “I noticed there was a hotel off the interstate—I could take a cab there—unless there’s a place in Holm I could stay.”
She sounds doubtful about the last thing, and she should, because Holm consists of four hundred people, a bar, a volunteer library, and more churches than you’d think a town of its size could sustain. But no hotel. There used to be rooms for rent over the bar, but Ben stopped that when he bought the place, because the effort of keeping up the rooms wasn’t worth the one or two customers a month.
“There’s not a place in Holm,” I say, turning onto the road to head back to my farm. “And I’ll take you back to the hotel if you’d like, but you’re more than welcome to stay at the farm. I could talk to your boss and explain about the car and the storm if you’re worried about the extra time away from the office?” I know Drew would understand—he’s one of the most laid-back guys I’ve ever met. The kind of guy who offers to help you move a couch and doesn’t even notice if you don’t offer free pizza in exchange.
“I can handle my own boss,” Ireland says dryly, and I get the feeling my offer might have been overstepping a little.
Well, tough. She better get used to being pampered and taken care of, because I want to make it my life’s work.
And that’s after only an hour together. Christ, I have it bad.
The road is straight and easy, despite the mud, and I risk another look over at her. She has this look on her face—a twist of her lips that looks self-knowing and rueful, a slightly determined furrow of concentration on her forehead—and it’s the look of an impulsive person who’s trained themselves not to be impulsive. It’s the look of someone spontaneous and brave who’s forced themselves into a box of stiff reserve.
I should know. I’ve spent the last five years unboxing Ben after his last deployment.
“I promise I’ll keep you safe from the storm. And that you’re safe in every way in my house.”
She lets out a long breath, and it’s hard to read her tense posture. Is she tense because she wants to say yes? Because she doesn’t know how to say no?
“It’s not that,” she replies. “I just don’t want to intrude on you and Ben is all.”
I’m back to irritated with Mrs. Parry.
“It’s no intrusion, I promise. We’ve got a guest bedroom—shame not to use it when it’s called for.” It would be a shame to have her sleeping in the guest room instead of mine, but I keep that thought to myself.
Come out of that box, I want to coax her. Be brave for me, little peach.
“You know, it would make the assignment easier,” she rationalizes aloud, her knee still bouncing. “Drew really wants to put together something magical for this client, and the more pictures I can gather, the better.”
I nod. Drew mentioned the client on the phone to me—the Kansas Tourism Board—and how he hoped it would be a stepping stone to even bigger accounts.
“And it will be more convenient this way, certainly…” She smooths that tight, tempting skirt over her soft thighs, and I can’t help but track the movement with my eyes, wishing it were my own hands moving over her body. “Okay. I’ll stay with you, as long as it’s really no imposition?”
I can still feel the warm heft of her peach-shaped bottom in my hand.
“No imposition,” I murmur, shifting in my seat to relieve the pressure on my cock. “None at all.”
My folks died when I was in college—my dad of a heart attack and my mom just a couple of years later from cancer—so the farmhouse has been officially mine for thirteen years…but hardly anything has changed since I took over the place.
Some of the equipment is newer, sure, and I have Greta-dog instead of my old collie Connor, but the house is still the same w
hite, gabled affair—two stories of modest turn-of-the-century architecture, with a nice porch, big glinting windows, and a windmill right outside. I keep the land around it real trim and nice, and the same with the outbuildings and barns. All of it is freshly painted, and the grass is cut into a low green carpet nearly as far as the eye can see.
But it’s humble for sure. It’s practical. And I have to wonder what Ireland is thinking as we rattle down the gravel driveway to the house. Girl like her, with the slinky clothes and hair like silk, she’s probably used to something more hip. Exposed brick and city views and all that. Here, the only view is of fields and the pond shining like a mirage behind the house—and the top of the water tower down in Holm.
