Bad Things (Tristan & Danika #1)(42)

I looked down at my sopping wet, muddy white tank top. He had a point…but he hadn’t faired any better.

I pointed at him. “So do you! You look worse, in fact. I’m not the one on their back in the mud!”

I shouldn’t have said it. It was too much like a challenge, and I should have known better than to offer Tristan a challenge.

His hands snaked behind my knees, pulling me down with him, until my bare knees sank heavily into the mud on either side of his hips.

“You son of a bitch!” I said, but I was laughing.

“I’m pretty sure saying that is a faux pas, now that you’ve actually met my mother.”

“My bad. I take it back. Here, accept my sincere apology.” As I spoke, I reached down, gripping a heavy handful of mud. I was giving him my sweetest smile as I smeared it on top of his head.

He gasped, and then gave me the most evil grin. “You’re gonna pay for that,” he said through his teeth.

I tried to get up, but one hand on my hip kept me straddling him. He had the advantage, with much bigger hands, and the huge gob of mud that he smeared over my chest far outweighed the bit I’d put on his head.

I gasped in outrage. “That was so much worse than what I did to you! So rude!”

He laughed, muddy hand going to my other hip. “Really? A handful of mud on your chest is worse than what you just did to my head?”

“Well, let’s see,” I said, diving for more mud. My target was no secret. I went for his face.

He caught both of my wrists, pulling them far apart, which brought our chests flush.

I rubbed against him, smearing as much mud as I could from my thin white shirt onto his. The motion of our chests rubbing together had our playful mood changing in a hurry.

He brought my wrists behind my back, pushing me down until my hips were crushed to his. As though they had a mind of their own, my hips moved, bearing down. My entire body seemed to shudder as I made contact with his obvious erection.

Our faces were close, and I couldn’t have said whether it was him or me that moved first, but our lips met in a furious clash. He lay back, and I followed him down, moaning into his mouth as his tongue swept into mine, invading like he owned the place.

His kiss was insidious, seeping into every part of me. He took me over in a way I couldn’t believe I allowed. A few seconds into the kiss, and I was ready to relinquish all control, which I’d have sworn was the antithesis of everything I was before I’d met Tristan.

He let go of my hands, his fingers sinking into my ass as he pushed his straining c**k right into the center of me.

I’d never considered myself to be a particularly sexual person, but I was mindless in that moment, every part of me sexual, focused only on the heavy beat of desire in my blood—on having him inside of me.

I gripped one hand into his short hair, the other reaching down his chest, over his hard abdomen, and finally over his thick length, rubbing.

He panted against me, and I bit his bottom lip. He growled, delving back into my mouth.

God only knows how far we would have let things go but for a shrill scream that echoed to us from the stables.

I yanked back, looking around, totally confused for a moment as to where I even was.

Finally, the sight of my hand, my empty hand, where the leash should have been held, jarred me back into the problem at hand.

“Coffeecup!” I yelled, stumbling to my feet.

Tristan used his hands on my hips to help leverage me up, and I was off, sprinting towards the stables, hoping that I wasn’t too late to save at least some of those damned prize chickens.

It was a massacre.

Feathers and blood made a trail that led me to right to the chicken murdering dog, who would still have been happily murdering away, if one parka-covered crazy chicken lady didn’t already have his leash in hand. She was literally shaking with rage as I took the leash out of her hand. She pointed at me accusingly, as though I had been the one to behead—I counted one, two, three of her chickens. Damn, but he was efficient at murdering chickens. This had to be a record.

“I’m so so sorry—” I began.

“The home owners association will hear about this!” she cut in.

I nodded, my eyes wide, not sure how to handle her. We only ever saw each other when stuff like this happened, so I’d only ever seen her crazy side. As far as I knew, she was straight crazy chicken lady all the time.

“That dog is a menace!” she shouted.

I nodded again. I couldn’t argue with that. I didn’t point out that if she didn’t let her chickens run loose around the stables all the time, they wouldn’t make such easy targets for blood-thirsty Coffeecup. I knew from experience that trying to form any kind of defense only made her crazier.

Tristan approached right as she was storming off, still muttering curses at an ironically contrite looking Coffeecup.

“Well…” he said, running a hand over his muddy head. “That could have gone better.”

“You broke your promise, you know,” I told him as soon as crazy chicken lady was out of earshot.

He raised a brow in question, trying ineffectually to dry himself off with his hands.

“You promised that if Coffeecup got out while you were around, you’d catch him before he murdered any chickens.”

“Um, I did catch him. If you’ll recall, I caught him back in that muddy ditch over there. You’re the one that let him go again.”