Page 31 of Recklessly, Wildly Yours

I gaze out at all the clothes. “I don’t really know what I’m looking for.” I bite my lip. “I’m sorry, this probably wasn’t the best idea when we’re in the middle of a road trip.”

“I don’t know, this feels very much in alignment with this trip.”

“What? Rash and impulsive?”

“I was thinking of liberation. Freedom. Empowerment.”

It’s funny how other people see us compared to how we see ourselves and I’m reminded that I used to think of myself in a whole different way before I met Tucker.

I was fiercely independent back then. I had to be after my mother got sick when I was sixteen. She died the day before I graduated from high school and instead of drowning in my grief, I got on with life like she’d done when my father died.

I met Tucker seven years after that, and it was nice not to have to worry about where my next paycheck would come from because I finally had a steady one. It was nice to have a reprieve from the grief I’d been trying to ignore for years. And it was really nice to have some luxury and fun in my life.

I exchanged my independence for ease, and I now know that was a bad trade.

“You’re right.” I push my shoulders back. “Let’s find some new clothes.”

We spend two hours shopping. We search the mall high and low and if a piece of clothing draws my attention, I buy it. I push doubts and second-guesses from my mind and just go by feel. It’s exhilarating.

Ethan helps by holding up possibilities as he finds them. It turns out he’s a fast learner because he starts spotting things before I do once he knows my style. He wanders off to take a work call while I’m in the lingerie department and when he returns about ten minutes later, he’s holding a pair of oversized black women’s undies.

I contain my smile. “Are those for you?”

He’s amused. “Smart-ass. They’re for you.” He holds them up and shows me the “Take No Shit” scrawled across the front in bright colors. Surrounding the words is a pattern of bright flowers and middle fingers. “They’re so loud they assaulted me while I was walking through the racks, and I knew you had to have them.”

“Oh my god.” I laugh as I take them from him. “You’re so right. I need these in my life.”

“I looked for cloud patterns too since I know how much you love them. Sadly, there were none.”

I roll my eyes at him but I’m still laughing.

We banter and laugh our way to the cashier. This entire shopping expedition has felt more domestic and natural than anything I’ve done in the last three years, and I’ve enjoyed every second of it. The fact it’s stirring feelings for Ethan is something I try to ignore because I really doubt he’s in the market for a woman as messed up as me. But what he’s given me today is something I’ve craved forever with a man.

After we pay, I make him wait while I find a restroom to change my clothes. I put on the pair of tattered denim shorts I selected along with a grungy gray sleeveless top that has a phoenix with its wings spread wide as the focal point. The words “FREE BIRD” are written above the bird while underneath it says, “and this bird you cannot change.”

The heated look Ethan gives me when I emerge from the restrooms unleashes butterflies in my stomach. “I thought hot-quad shorts were banned on this road trip,” he says as we head for the car.

“These are hardly hot-quad shorts, Black.”

He gives me a disbelieving arch of his brows before dropping his gaze to my shorts, and holy heck it’s like my entire body decides to get behind those butterflies in my stomach. I almost lose the thread of our conversation while my body tries to run the show. “They fucking are,” he says when his eyes find mine again.

Oh. Wow.

Ethan’s as affected by my shorts as I was by his.

“Should I change?” I want to show him the same courtesy he showed me.

“Don’t you dare.”

By the time we arrive at his car, I’m all kinds of bothered. Mostly because of his reaction to my shorts but also because I’ve pulled up my memory of the kiss we shared the day we met. The one Ethan took charge of.

I didn’t want that kiss to end. The way he’d taken hold of my face and grazed his thumb over my jaw had been so intimate. And the way he’d kissed me so thoroughly and then ground himself against me? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve thought about that. But the apology he’d given when he’d dragged his mouth from mine? That was everything even though it was so unnecessary.

I barely know this man, but I think he’s shown me exactly who he is. And while good looks, smoldering eyes, and sexy magnetism are all turn-ons, I’m discovering just how much a man’s heart turns me on more.

When Ethan opens my car door for me and takes all my shopping bags, I avoid eye contact and settle myself into my seat while he puts the bags in the trunk. I busy myself on my phone when he starts the car. I need a hot minute to shift my thoughts away from our kiss. Looking at him won’t help me do that.

His deep voice cuts into my thoughts as we drive toward the exit. “Are we taking a photo?”

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