Page 81 of Against the Clock

“You promised me a date!” I exclaim, wagging a finger at him. “You promised apples and wine and charcuterie.” I reach for the underwear, but he holds it out of reach, an easy thing to do, considering his size compared to mine.

“I did not promise charcuterie,” he says.

“I looked up the wine place. I’ll buy the charcuterie,” I tell him, doing a little jump for the underwear.

I grab the underwear. “Aha!” I yelp, throwing my hands in the air, victorious.

My towel falls down.

“Kelsey,” Daniel says, and the next minute, he’s kissing me. His hands wander all over my body and I groan as he pinches a nipple.

“Apples,” I manage as he kisses his way down my neck, his mouth settling on one hard nipple, then the other.

“Fuck the apples,” Daniel says.

We don’t leave the house for another hour.

CHAPTER 33

KELSEY

I feel cute in my new clothes. Cute, and comfy. Or maybe it’s the way Daniel keeps stealing glances at me, tickling me when I reach for an apple, making me sit on his lap, possessive, as the tractor pulls us back to the spot where we pay for loaded bags of them.

He helps me off and I jump down, glad the new boots are holding up and not wearing blisters. A hell of a lot better than heels, though. I can’t imagine trying to do this in my outfit from last night.

“Thank you for the clothes,” I tell him for the millionth time, and he silences me with a quick, stolen kiss.

“Gross!” a kid shouts and we pull apart.

“Hey, Harrison, man, good to see you,” a voice booms out.

“Darius,” Daniel turns to me, clearly pleased to see him. “Kelsey, this is one of my oldest friends, Darius. Kelsey, Darius. We are lucky enough to be playing together on the Beavers again.”

I reach a hand out, but Darius shakes his head at me. “Nope. I was just wiping his nose,” he points at a toddler on the ground, pulling up weeds. “Trust me, you do not want to do that. Hey, Shara, look who it is!”

The kid looks up at me, and sure enough, his little button nose is running.

“Don’t worry, he just has allergies. Parenting, am I right? Did y’all already go picking? You could come with us, help us run zone defense.”

Daniel laughs, and I grin in response. “We just got done. We’re headed to the winery over on 322.”

“Damn,” Darius shakes his head.

“Daddy said a bad word,” a second kid appears, as if summoned by it.

I bite my cheeks to keep from laughing.

“I’ll put a quarter in the swear jar, honey.”

“Hi, Daniel,” Darius’ wife makes her way to us, holding another baby on her hip, her fluffy black hair in cute pigtails. “And you must be Kelsey, right?”

“Hi,” I say, holding out my hand again.

“No, trust me, you don’t want to shake her hand either,” Darius says. “She was just on diaper duty.”

“Darius, please,” Shara says, glaring at him and then rolling her eyes. “He might be right, though. This is Darius Jr.” She jerks her head at the baby on her hip, who coos.

“I’m Layla,” says the biggest kid, the one who called him out for swearing. “And that’s little J. Short for Justice.”