Roots and Wings (City Limits #1)(52)

“Then I guess it’s going to be a long night.” He placed a kiss on my forehead. “Need anything from town?”

I didn’t, but I didn’t want his offer to be empty.

“5-hour Energy,” I said, then silently prayed to the gods of sexy dentists who said all of the right things that I would blissfully need two.





I needed a shower.

I needed clean clothes.

I needed the gas station to have condoms.

I wasn’t being forward, and if she still wasn’t ready, she’d never know that I had them. But if—IF—she was ready, I had to be ready, too.

All day she’d been looking at me in a different way. I loved that she never shied away when I caught her. She’d just smile and then go back to what she was doing. Almost like she hadn’t the faintest idea she’d been staring at me.

After I said what I had, I would never want to slow her down. I’d seem like a liar. Like I’d been all talk and I wasn’t all talk. Even as I pulled away from the cabin, my all-action dick was still hard.

5-hour Energy.

Yeah, you’ll need a few of those if you start something entirely too fun to finish before I’m done with you.

The f*cking gas station better have some damn condoms.




I showered and didn’t skip the shave, glad I’d waited until then. Her poor lips were red and I didn’t want kissing me to feel like sandpaper, because there would be a lot more kissing that night than there had been that day.

Sure, I’d told her I’d follow her cues, but there’s only so much a guy can take. Especially, when I’d been watching her all day working and laughing and closing her eyes, face up to the sun, enjoying the moment.

She was becoming irresistible to me.

I wanted to tackle her there in that boat, and I’d decided on the next trip, we’d have to carve some time out for the occasion. Now that I knew how good she felt in my arms, tasted on my lips, I only wanted more.

I’d had so many fantasies of taking her clothes off in the middle of that river and kissing every square inch of her. Seeing all of her.

The view when she bent over nearly drove me insane. The way her skin looked warm and inviting. The way her mouth would part when I spoke to her. Her body sent all of the right signals to mine, even when she didn’t know she was doing it.

There were almost two different Hannahs. There was the girl the town knew, the capable, hands-on, do-it-herself character who had a wall up so high nobody ever bothered to climb it.

And, oddly enough, it’s like with me she was this other person. Someone who was confident in their skin, yet still breaking out of it a little more each time we were together. Someone who never let anyone get close to her, but was brave enough to try. Someone who never let herself get close to someone else, but was tiptoeing her way inside me.

She was a woman who knew more duty than desire, more perseverance than passion, and more acquaintance than affection.

I wanted to show her what she was missing. I wanted to be the man that could handle her strong will and headstrong ways. I wanted to be what she needed, what she desired. Someone she could rely on for anything.

I wondered if I was changing a little myself.




It would be cooler when the sun went down, so I wore jeans and a T-shirt, grabbing a zip-up hoodie on the way out the door.

I ran by the damn gas station and the stupid condom machine was f*cking broken.

As I drove back to Johnson’s Chute, I was disappointed, and then again I wasn’t.

There were plenty of places to take the night that still ended with her being satisfied, even without sex. I’d let her steer me there.

I stopped where I was on her road and pulled out my phone. Finding I had three glorious bars of service in the middle of nowhere, I opened up my Amazon app and ordered two more boxes of condoms.

At least, I’d never not have them again.

Good thing I was a silver lining kind of guy. There were many worse ways to spend a Saturday night than finding all of the ways I could bring Hannah to orgasm without selfishly seeking my own.

That was going to happen. I couldn’t wait any longer to witness it. Imagining what that would look like … I was surely going to arrive the same way I’d left the cabin earlier.

Hard.

When I finally reached the spot in the road, which ended at her place, I put the SUV in park and watched as she flapped a white tablecloth over a small table she’d set up on the deck overlooking the water. She had on a pair of jeans and a tank top; her brown hair was wavy and moved with the breeze as she finished straightening the fabric.

She’d looked so good the night before, and then again that day, but—and I knew it sounded crazy—she was even more beautiful that evening. I was more and more attracted to her the more I got to know her.

“Well, are you getting out or staying in there all night? Hurry up,” she shouted from the wooden rail that ran around the cabin.

So I got out and climbed the stairs as she waited for me at the top.

“Took you long enough,” she teased when I stood on the last step, which made her my height.

“Trust me, I went as fast as I could.”

She ran a hand over my smoother face. Touching me like I’d invited her to do. It was a mystery to me why a woman, who was so damn stubborn, would do whatever I wanted, and all I had to do was ask. It was a manly feeling and, oh, so rewarding.