Page 66 of Love You Truly

“This is your idea?”

He nods and licks his lips. “To make up for the hat.”

“I kinda like the hat,” I say, slouching down and sighing as Dash starts kissing the inside of my thigh. “But I like this more.”

Dash runs his hands up the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, and I stop talking. His breath is hot against my skin. His tongue even hotter.

His hands continue moving until they reach the apex of my thighs. I suck in a breath when he grazes my center with a finger, swiping gently back and forth until I can’t see straight.

“When I saw you in this dress this morning, all I could think about was how much I wanted to kiss you here.” He plants a row of kisses up my inner thigh. I sigh again. “And here.” His lips land where his finger was a moment ago, and I gasp.

“God, Dash. Yes.”

Sliding my panties to the side, he runs his tongue straight up my center in one long stroke, and I’m pretty sure our Ferris wheel has morphed into a roller coaster. I’m dizzy, moaning, feeling…every swirl of his tongue, every inch of his hot mouth, the edges of his teeth when he nips at my clit. Then he sucks hard. And I see stars.

The magic of the Ferris wheel reaching the top, looking out over beautiful vineyard views, feeling the warm air on a sunny afternoon, and then this… Dash with his tongue between my legs, taking me higher than any Ferris wheel ever could.

I want the feeling to last. I want the moment to stretch into minutes and hours. When Dash slides a finger inside me and keeps working circles with his tongue, I can’t hold myself back.

“Fuck, honey, you taste so good,” Dash murmurs.

That does it. Every pleasure center in my body fires at once, and the stars in my eyes turn to comets and whizzing meteors. I’m lost in space, found by Dash, and out of control.

I’m caught between closing my eyes to the best orgasm of my life and peeking to make sure we haven’t reached the bottom. As much as we want engagement cred, I don’t want the Ferris wheel operator to catch us like this. But we’re nowhere near the bottom.

I pull Dash up and press my lips to his. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pull him close and open my mouth to taste myself on his tongue.

We spend the rest of our Ferris wheel time like this, locked in a forever kiss that only stops when we reach the bottom and the attendant asks, “Do y’all want to go around again?”

Dash barely breaks the kiss to answer. He yanks a handful of tickets from his pocket and shoves them in the guy’s hand, along with a twenty-dollar tip.

We ascend once more, the Ferris wheel sweeping us into the sky. “Just one more round,” Dash says. I assume he means once more around the Ferris wheel. But then he drops to his knees again, and I see he has other ideas. Better ideas.

It’s gotten windy, a late summer breeze that does little to disperse the stagnant heat of the day, but I’ll take it. The dog days of summer hit hard around here, and a wind strong enough to flutter the leaves feels great.

I’ll have to consider weather forecasts and the meaning of coastal winds once Autumn Lake is growing grapes, and I momentarily feel overwhelmed by the long lists of tasks I’ll have very soon. I can’t let worries shadow all the new business opportunities for Autumn Lake, but the nerves are real. The wine-growing community is small. People will know if I screw this up, and it can’t happen.

Dash’s reassuring hand on my waist grounds me and settles my thoughts. For now.

Somehow, we’ve spent nearly six hours at the carnival, way longer than I intended when I suggested the activity. It’s been so much fun.

We’ve played most of the games, but we’ve only competed head-to-head in the basketball pop-a-shot…eleven more times. We’re at a dead heat, tied at six each, and I haven’t cheated since that first game.

At one point, Dash wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in for a kiss right in the middle of the game, but that cost both of us valuable seconds, so I couldn’t accuse him of distracting me for an advantage.

We’ve leveled up our prizes—except for the hat, which I will keep until the end of time—so by now, Dash is saddled with a human-sized stuffed bear, which he carries tucked under one arm like the third wheel on our date.

I’ve come to this event every year since it began back when I was in middle school, and I’ve never enjoyed it as much as I have today. The games are pretty much the same. The rides have only improved a bit.

That leaves me with the unescapable conclusion that I’m currently zooming around on a cloud because of the company.

“This way.” Dash taps the brim of my hat and pulls me down a row of games, some of which we’ve already played. We were in a dead heat at Whack-a-Mole until he won, but then I beat him at a game squirting water to inflate small balloons. “Let’s check these out.”

We’ve already checked out everything, but I’m not complaining if he wants to stay at the carnival.

“Competitive, are we? You looking to regain your dignity by beating me at something?” I tease, elbowing him in the ribs.

“We’re not going head-to-head on this one.” He leads me past several game booths and stops at one we skipped the first time around. It’s a simple ring toss, but he cautioned me earlier that it’s harder than it looks.

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