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Tess’s beautiful face glowed with the praise. “Thanks, Gran. I’m glad you had a good time.”
“I guess I have to be ninety now.” Gran sounded peeved.
“How exactly will that change anything?” Juliet asked.
“Meh,” Gran said lightly. “I might have to start taking fiber supplements or something. Maybe get one of those buttons in case I fall and I can’t get up.”
Juliet and Tess exchanged a look over Gran’s head as I chuckled.
“I think you’re doing fine,” Juliet said, laying her hand on the old woman’s.
The river beyond the banks was sparkling with moonlight, the cicadas buzzing low and constant around us. Summer here felt alive in a way it never had out west, definitely not in Los Angeles. I loved it.
“Tired?” Tess asked me after a few moments of contented silence.
I faked a yawn. “I am, actually.”
“Oh for God’s sake, you don’t have to pretend,” Gran said. “Go on upstairs, you two.” I should have been embarrassed that everyone here knew exactly why Tess and I were both eager to get upstairs, to be alone. But I wasn’t. My heart, my mind…my soul were too full for any other emotion to weasel its way in. I was happy—maybe for the first time in my life.
“Don’t be loud,” Juliet said, her voice a pleading whine.
I took Tess’s hand in mine and said goodnight quickly to Gran and Juliet before practically pulling Tess up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs I hesitated, not sure which room we should head into, and part of me still suffered some disbelief that she was mine to take anywhere. Instead of manhandling her into a bedroom and then pinning her beneath me against a wall, I pulled her to my chest and looked down into her eyes, shining in the darkness.
“I can’t believe I get to hold you,” I said, wishing my words were more eloquent, more right.
“I can’t believe you said all those things in the tent and I didn’t get to say a word,” she said.
A tiny trickle of panic tried to work its way through me. She was right—I’d done all the talking. I’d said ‘I love you’ and we’d barely gotten to speak after that. I’d gone to talk to the magazine and she’d joined me after a few minutes, but we hadn’t had a moment alone since then. “You can say whatever you want to now,” I said.
I could barely see her in the darkness, but the sliver of reflected light shining off the hardwood floor of the hall reflected onto her face enough for me to know her pretty face transformed into a wicked grin, and she pulled me into her bedroom and shut the door behind us.
“Sit down,” she commanded, turning on a lamp next to the bed that cast the room in a warm pink glow that reminded me of her, of pure femininity, of softness and home. “Take off your shirt.”
My skin tingled, my body began to buzz and my cock jumped to attention immediately. I liked where this was going. But I hoped to hear her repeat my words again, if only because I’d never said them to anyone before and there was a sliver of childish doubt trying to work its way into my newfound happiness.
When my shirt was in a pile next to the bed, Tess knelt between my legs and reached for my belt as I watched her hands, my body flooding with want.
I inhaled sharply as her slim white fingers grazed my abdomen and she worked on my belt buckle. I watched, unable to tear my eyes away from her hands, so close to me. She pulled the belt out, loop by loop and held it in her hands as she stood back up. There was something mischievous in her smile, and for a second I wondered if she planned to smack me with the belt. A tiny jolt of excitement spiked inside me, but then she turned and let the belt slip from her hands.
“Now that you’ve got me here, what do you plan to do with me?”
“You’ll see,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me, her hair falling down her back just above that perfect round ass. My body was thrumming and all I wanted was to pull her down on me, to feel every inch of her with my hands, my mouth … my … everything.
She went around the room, tidying things up as my body screamed for action, or for words at least. “Tess, I—“
“I’m thinking,” she said suddenly, turning back to face me. “It’s just … I … Ryan, this all happened so fast. And I’m trying to work out how much of it I can trust.”
“I had to take my shirt off for that?”
“It helps me think,” she said, grinning as she turned to face me.
“I can take my pants off too,” I offered.
She rolled her eyes.
“You can trust all of it, Tess.” I stood, but something about her posture, her straight back, her crossed arms, made me stand still. “I meant all of it.”
