Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 168701 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 844(@200wpm)___ 675(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168701 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 844(@200wpm)___ 675(@250wpm)___ 562(@300wpm)
I passed her the apple.
“I’m okay.”
“Eat the apple, Rikki.”
She took it and examined it. “She’s a beauty.”
I smiled and our eyes met.
“What? It’s the perfect apple. It should be in a food commercial.”
I tilted my head. “Good thing you’re here to eat it, then. It’d otherwise sit in my hot truck in my lunch pail today probably rotting.”
“Good thing you met me then,” she said, eyes twinkling.
“Yeah. Good thing. Eat the apple, Rikki,” I repeated, “I need to know you’re all right. An apple a day…”
“I just stayed up all night. Drank too much wine last night.” She shrugged.
“Stayed up all night? Tell me about that.”
She shyly dropped her eyes.
“Where were you that kept you up all night and brought you to a field of wildflowers this morning without your shoes?”
“A long story. I’ll tell it to you some other time.”
I smiled. “Okay. Mystery girl? I kinda like that. Gonna bite that apple or am I gonna have to get bossy?”
She gave me a sexually charged look as she took a bite. And I couldn’t fuckin’ wait to take a bite out of her. She closed her eyes as she chewed. As if she was savoring the best apple she’d ever eaten.
I watched her chew, then swallow, then take another bite. She moaned. And my cock was harder.
“So, we meet again,” I said. “Under drier circumstances.” Not counting her panties, which I knew were soaked for me.
She smiled. “We meet again. Just like you hoped for.”
“Yeah. Lucky us,” I repeated and leaned back on an elbow.
The sky looked extra blue. The grass looked extra lush. And that apple extra-red, extra juicy. And the girl? She looked and smelled amazing. Perfect.
I looked at our feet. At my big, scuffed work boots. At her dainty, dirty feet with the leather anklet on the left one. A little silver ring on her right second toe.
Fierce emotion rushed through me. Protectiveness. Like I needed to protect her from something. Someone. I didn’t know what or who.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. “Do you need help with something? Someone?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You rushed off yesterday after driving into a fire hydrant and yet I find you early the next morning dancing by yourself with no shoes on in a field of flowers a couple miles from civilization. And you say you don’t have a boyfriend as of yesterday, so…”
“Would you believe me if I said I’ve never been better?”
My eyes roved her pretty face as I took in details about her I knew I’d remember forever. Big eyes. Cute freckles. Spiky, thick eyelashes. A girl-next-door innocence to her that I liked. I licked my lips and said, “For some reason, yeah. Yeah, I do believe that.”
She threw herself back on the grass and smiled at the sky, then at me.
“Want a bite?” she asked, holding up the apple.
I leaned over and bit from it while she held it out. Eyes locked. Heat simmering between us, about to hit a rolling boil.
“Best damn apple I’ve ever tasted in my life,” I declared.
She nodded slowly, like she got me. Like she got the deeper meaning here.
She couldn’t get it, not without my explanation.
She sat up and took another bite. Once she finished the bit in her mouth, she announced, “I was about to redesign my life.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t working. I was a square peg trying to fit into something round and prickly. So I figured I should go back to what I was doing before.”
“Or you could move onto something new,” I offered.
“Yeah,” she whispered, as if she knew exactly what I was talking about.
“Feeling better?” I asked. “More water.”
She nodded. “One more sip. And yeah. Much.” She took a big mouthful.
“Wanna walk some more? Or are your feet sore?”
“Why would my feet be sore?”
“Walking all night with no shoes on,” I said and then I lifted her small foot and inspected the bottom of it.
“I do that all the time,” she waved. “I practically have shoe soles built into the soles of my feet.”
“Nope. These aren’t rough,” I said, running my finger along the arch. Her foot was dusty, blackened from her walk, but soft.
She giggled and pulled her foot back.
“Ticklish?” I asked.
She nodded. “Very. I hate it.”
“Oh yeah. So you wouldn’t like it if I…” I walked my fingertips along her side and she pulled away, laughing, eyes lit up and so fuckin’ pretty I felt it like a kick in the chest.
“No tickling!” She jumped up and took off.
And little did she know, as a predator, when someone or something runs from me, I’ve got no choice but to chase it.
I caught her in no time, lifting her up over my shoulder like a sack of flour.
“Got ‘cha, now I get to keep ya,” I declared triumphantly, giving her behind a playful whack.
She laughed as I swung her around, so she was in my arms bride-style.