Charming as Puck(44)

“How is that even possible?”

“I…I’ve more just hooked up. Not dated. I never wanted to. I always had…”

“Any girl you could ever want?” I supply for him.

He goes pink around his ears and glances down. “It’s just been you. This year. I don’t want—nobody else makes me—please, Kami? Dinner. Tuesday. And if I’m good, maybe you’ll let me take you out again after that?”

Now it’s not just my heart fluttering. There’s a delicious tingle sparking to life between my thighs too. “When you say good…”

And there’s that cocky, smoldery smile I love so much. “More good than I’ve ever been.”

“More good?” Am I stroking his hair? Oh. Look at that. I think I am. “You mean better?”

He angles his head, and his nose brushes my cheek while his beard tickles the corner of my jaw. “You make me forget my right words.”

I laugh, because nothing makes Nick lose his head. “You are such a flatterer.”

“I mean it, Kami. I’m falling apart without you.”

He brushes his lips over mine, a whisper of a touch, slow, like he wants to take his time memorizing the imprint of every bit of me.

“You got along fine without me for years,” I whisper against those full, soft lips. My breasts are getting heavy, and that tingle between my thighs is turning into a full-on demand for attention after two weeks of neglect.

“Say yes to Tuesday.”

His fingers dance up my thigh, and if he dipped his fingers anywhere near my clit, I’d probably combust.

“Yes,” I whisper.

He makes a noise that’s somewhere between desperation and relief, and the gentle, hesitant kiss becomes insistent and hard and demanding.

I wrap both arms around him and part my lips, and he doesn’t wait for a second invitation to devour me. Tiger yelps, but it’s a distant, tinny sound, behind the rough growls coming from Nick’s throat. He fists my hair in his hands and angles deeper, his cock springing thick and hard against my leg.

If all he wanted was sex, there were plenty of options for him.

But he wants me.

Which makes this kiss ten times as heady as all of our previous kisses combined.

“Fuck, Kami, I missed this,” he breathes. He trails kisses from the corner of my mouth to my jaw and down my neck, his hands releasing my hair to go exploring. “I missed you.”

I can’t answer, because I’m too busy gasping as he palms my breast and squeezes. My head drops back and I close my eyes, because ohmygod, no one has ever lit my body and soul the way Nick does.

“I want you so bad,” he breathes against my collarbone.

“Yes,” I gasp.

Pancake nudges my arm, but I push her away while Tiger growls and tries to climb between me and Nick.

I start to laugh—a breathy, heady laugh that makes my clit throb harder—when Pancake nudges me again.

And I remember I don’t have Pancake with me.

“Wha—” I start, but I’m interrupted by a giant sneeze.

A giant cow sneeze.

A giant, productive cow sneeze that slimes Nick, Tiger, and me together, and not with plain old slimy cow snot, but with thick, wet cow snot full of bits of grain and grass that’s now dripping down the side of Nick’s face and into his beard.

I start to wipe it off him, realize my face has much of the same, and Tiger’s so coated that she looks like a Christmas jelly dog tree.

Or something.

Tiger howls indignantly.

Sugarbear sneezes again.

And all of us scatter.

Me flying off Nick’s lap and grabbing Tiger. Nick darting around the cow’s other side.

Sugarbear looks at all of us and sneezes again.

Then she licks her snout, moos, and harrumphs as she kicks the yoga ball.

Nick and I lock round eyes over the calf.

He starts to grin.

I crack up so hard Tiger yelps again.

And Mrs. Murphy sticks her head out the back door, which we can barely see through the fog. “Nick! What on earth are you doing to that poor girl?”

We both jump, me because I wonder if she saw us kissing, and Nick because—hell, who knows? His mom pretty much thinks he hung the moon, and he’s always taken advantage of her adoration.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Murphy,” I call. “Sugarbear told him quite clearly that he needs to quit hitting on her.”

His eyes go comically wide and his lips part like he didn’t see that coming.

Like he didn’t know I was capable of throwing him under the bus.

But Mrs. Murphy laughs, and the shock on Nick’s face is making me giggle too. I don’t have to stroke his ego. He has enough of it without my assistance.

But I’m not going to hold back the other parts of my personality around him anymore.

Not if this is going to be real.

A slow grin creeps over his features as though he’s catching on.

And I realize I might be in trouble.

Because he does have a little more experience in one-upmanship than I do.

“Come in here and get a cup of coffee,” she says. “Felicity and the crew will be here any minute.”

“The crew?”

“Oh, yes. Thrusty’s interviewing Nick and Sugarbear. After that video I took of the two of them playing fetch last night went viral on Snap-whatchamacallit, the Thrusters decided to move up the promo. And you can use my bathroom to wash up.”