The Tourist Attraction (Moose Springs, Alaska #1)(92)

Graham kissed her, this kiss deeper, more passionate. Showing her how much he wanted her.

“We’re at least ninety-four, six.”

Giggling as his warm breath and the stubble from his two-day beard tickled her neck, Zoey wriggled her toes against his ankles, tugging the blanket up higher. “In that case…”

Maybe in another time, in another place, Zoey might have been too shy to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss Graham like her life depended on it, knowing there were people who could walk by. But all eyes were turned to the massive fireworks in the sky. All eyes except for his. The only thing Graham was looking at was her.

When Zoey’s phone buzzed in her jeans side pocket, she ignored it, far too focused on the warm kisses trailing a path from her pulse point to the base of her neck. It rang again, then once more.

“The one time my phone actually works up here…” She reached into her pocket and turned it off without looking at the screen.

Lips curving against her skin, Graham wrapped his hand around her hip, pulling her tighter to his muscled form. In Zoey’s world, the low fifty-degree temperatures were cool, just on the shy side of chilly, but Graham was born and bred Alaskan. She doubted he even noticed anything above thirty. She slipped her hands beneath the hem of his shirt, sliding her palms across his stomach before tugging lightly at the piece of clothing between them.

“It’s like that, is it?”

“Mm-hmm. I’m curious.”

“You and me both.” His voice deepened with desire as his eyes scraped down her form. Reaching behind his neck, he grabbed the back of his shirt and tugged it over his head, tossing it off to the side. The sight of cut abdominal muscles and a broad, muscled chest greeted her. A little sigh of lust escaped her throat.

“I’m so disappointed,” she teased, because there was no way she could be. He made a low noise of masculine approval when her fingernails dug into his hard sides, tugging him back down to her. When his thumb slid along the hem of her shirt, she leaned into his touch.

“We still good?” Graham checked.

“Perfect,” Zoey breathed.

His palm spread across her stomach, eyes meeting hers. “Fair’s fair.”

A massive, sky-covering firework exploded above their heads, casting them both in a flash of brilliant white light, the boom rattling his truck. Jerking at the sudden explosion, Zoey realized she had pressed into him instinctively. Particularly one specific part.

If Graham was startled to find her breast abruptly in his hand, he handled it well.

“I was going to take this slow, but by all means. Lead the way.”

Waggling his eyebrows suggestively, Graham ran a skilled thumb over the side of her breast. Unable to keep from giggling at his antics, Zoey sidled out of her own shirt, hoping that his warmth and the blanket would save her from freezing any of her own dangly bits.

She wasn’t sure what to expect, but when Graham buried his nose between her breasts and began making rooting, animal noises, she dissolved into helpless giggles. Recognizing the pleased expression on his face, Zoey shook her head, heart full.

“I love you,” she said.

The hands on her went still. When she realized her word choice, Zoey bit her lip, wondering if she’d messed things up.

“I mean, I love this. Being around you.”

Graham’s expression was hard to read, and the dim light didn’t help much. But when he ran his palm soothingly down her breastbone, Zoey knew it would take more than a wrong—if true—word to screw up whatever this was between them.

He gazed down at her as if memorizing her features.

“Me too.”

This time, when he bent his head to hers, all jokes between them gave way to even better things.

*

If she’d had any idea how beautiful she looked, wrapped up in his arms and smiling up at him, nose crinkled, Zoey would have grabbed her blanket and found a better man in a better truck bed to spend her evening with.

Somehow, she’d chosen him, and Graham was trying to keep his gut reactions in a choke hold. Then she’d busted out that word.

The word.

And he didn’t blame her one bit, because Graham was pretty sure he loved…this…too.

Messing around in his truck was beyond fun, but fun was quickly being replaced with a series of emotions he did not want to share with anyone who might happen to walk past their secluded parking spot.

Now his damn phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. So far, he’d managed to successfully distract her, but at some point, it was going to be more than a little inconvenient.

“Zo.”

“Hmm?”

Groaning, Graham nipped her lower lip, because not doing so seemed so wrong. “Any chance we can take this back to your place? It’s closer.”

“Depends on if you tossed my keycard in the grass next to my bra.”

Lips curving, he nipped her neck this time, then each of her fingertips. “That wasn’t me.”

“I’m pretty sure it was.”

“Definitely not. L’s at a thing, right? The thing we’re invited to go to that we don’t want to go to?”

Her breath caught, and Graham decided they definitely needed to take this back to her place.

“I can get a new keycard. Grass likes me.”

“Grass hates me.”