Page 70 of Texas Kissing
He shoved his hips forward, burying himself, and I felt the long, hot streams of him.
And then I was collapsing back onto the grass, panting and sticky with sweat. And I wondered what the hell would come next.
56
Lily
He rolled off of me, but caught me around the waist as he did it so that we were lying on our sides, facing each other. “Thatwas unexpected,” he said, when he got his breath back.
“What do you mean?” I said hopefully.Maybe he didn’t hear it.
He looked me in the eye.Yes he did.
I jumped to my feet, my face scarlet, and started walking around the lake towards our clothes. I heard the rustle of grass as he got up and, after only a few steps, he grabbed my arm. “Hey!”
I turned to him.
“Talk to me, Lily!”
“What? It was just some stupid—” I sighed. He was doing his stern expression. “I had this dream, okay?”
He wrinkled his forehead. “Mary?That’swhere that came from?”
My jaw dropped. He remembered the fair! I dropped my eyes to the ground, cheeks flaring evenhotter. Now he’dreallymock me.
Strong hands cupped my cheeks, lifting my head so that I was looking at him.
“I’d marry you,” he said.
I forgot how to breathe. I just stood there staring into his eyes for a second. But however hard I tried, however much I wanted to see it, I couldn’t see even a trace of his usual teasing.
“People like us don’t get married,” I said hollowly. “Remember?”
My hand was swallowed up in his warm grip, the heat radiating up my arm. “But if we did,” he said, “I’d marry you. And kids, someday. The whole damn shooting match.”
I opened my mouth to speak once, twice—but couldn’t find any words. Eventually, I just nodded quickly and pulled my hand away, then hurried off towards our clothes.
Before we were even halfway there, the Texas sun had blasted the remaining water from our bodies. But my cheeks still hadn’t cooled to their usual color. I stumbled along, trying to process it all.
All that time out there on my own in the bus...I’d never needed anyone. Neverbeen ableto have anyone. Of course some vision of idyllic family life would gradually become a fantasy, bubbling away under the surface. That’s what I told myself. That’s all it was.
But I knew it was more than that. This hadn’t started until I’d met Bull.
It wasn’t about some need to get married. It wasn’t that literal.
It was about sharing my life with someone. Finding someone I could finally open up to about everything:what I did for a living, my deepest insecurities...even, one day, the horrors of my past.
I looked over my shoulder at Bull and he smiled at me. I whipped my head back to the front, wide-eyed and almost panting with fear and excitement.
For the first time in a very long time, I dared to hope.
When we’d dressed, Bull showed me how to build a campfire. Which involved an axe.
“Aren’t I meant to just sit here?” I asked. “While you go off and be a lumberjack?”
He rested the hand axe on his shoulder. “I could,” he said. “I can if you want. But then you’d never learn how to do it yourself.”
It took me by surprise. I’d got it into my head that cowboys were, in some quaint and sort of understandable way, sexist.Especiallyones like Bull, with his rodeo riding and arrogant attitude.