Page 45 of Where We Go From Here

I bite back a smile. I love how hot she is for my pecs.

“I’m scared that if I let you near me you’re going to knock me up,” she admits in a whisper.

“I’ll bag it, every time,” I whisper back, moving my hand around her ribcage a little higher, just enough so that I can get my hands on those–

“We should head back to the bungalows,” she says quietly, her intentions crystal clear in the pretty facets of her eyes.

I give her ass a little squeeze and she makes a sound that has my abs clenching tight. “Not tonight,” I tell her. “I need to wine and dine you first. We need at least, I don’t know, five dates under the belt before we get to that point.”

She throws her head back and lets out a little howl. I laugh and dip my mouth to her throat, pressing a kiss right on the curve.

She tastes milkshake-sweet. I kiss her a little harder.

Her hands find my hair, her body arches into mine, and suddenly I’m not laughing anymore.

Yeah, she’s right. We should head back to the bungalows.

Chapter 13

Harper

We didn’t kiss in the bar. Well, technically Mitch kissed me, but I didn’t get to kiss him back. I lift my hand so that I can delicately press my fingertips over the area where his mouth met my skin, and a deep tingling sensation sparkles in my belly.

He’s staring intently out of the windshield, jaw tight, and his hands gripped around the steering wheel like he’s about to rip it clean from the dashboard. I’m curled up in his passenger seat, watching him like he’s my favourite movie.

The sound of my voice breaking the silence makes him suck in a quick breath, like he’s on the verge of losing his composure.

“Did you shave your stubble for me?” I ask, when my eyes suddenly note the fact that his usual sharp coating of scruff has disappeared, his laugh lines and deeply tanned jaw now stealing the show.

He scratches at the back of his head, eyes still on the road, then he wraps his fist back around the wheel.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice low and deep. “Thought you might–” He bites his lip and shakes his head, as if he’s embarrassed by whatever he’s thinking.

“You thought I might…?” I prompt him, my brow arching curiously.

He swallows and stretches his neck. “Thought you might prefer it,” he says, his face turning hard, as if he doesn’t like what’s coming out of his own mouth. He clicks the indicator with a little extra vehemence as he makes the turn off the main road. “Thought it might be more like what you’re used to.”

My eyebrows rise involuntarily. Wow. And I thought thatIwas the over-thinker.

I lean closer towards him, resting a palm on his thigh, and I watch his jaw clench. Then I move my hand slightly higher and a gruff sound reverberates in his chest.

“I like you exactly as you are,” I tell him. “I’m not into pretty boys anymore, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

When he still doesn’t look down at me I rub my thumb into him harder, making his chest swell and heave.

“Mitch, I’m serious. Even when you’re covered in dirt you’re more clean-cut than any of those shallow-ass motherfuckers could ever pretend to be.”

The truck comes to a smooth, abrupt stop and I realise that we’re already in front of the gate at the top of the forest’s Nature Trail. I was so distracted by the sharp angles of his jaw, the thick cords in his neck, that I hadn’t noticed how quickly we’d made it up bank towards the bungalows.

Mitch uses one hand to un-strap his seatbelt and the other to clasp his fingers around mine, his eyes moving from the opening up ahead to stare deeply into my own. In the shadow of the cab roof with only the moonlight and his car beams to illuminate the gloom, his eyes have never looked so striking.

It’s the blue shirt. That soft dusty blue against his unbelievably deep tan, drawing my eyes straight up to the only other source of brightness: those candy-crystal irises.

“You say the sweetest stuff,” he murmurs, his thumb stroking firmly up the back of my hand. We instinctively both lean closer, me lifting up and him ducking down, but then his gaze sweeps back through the front window and he lets out a low curse. “Let me just… the gate… once I’ve opened the gate–”

I nod adamantly – anything to get us through the gate and over to those bungalows as quickly as possible. Anything to speed up the process of getting his mouth on mine.

He heaves himself out of his door and storms over to the gate, the truck headlights giving me a clear view of his large bulk striding to the latch, and his hands practically ripping the chain from around the wooden pole keeping our metal obstruction in place. He tosses the chain and shoves the gate wide, wiping his hands on his jeans as he makes his way back over to me.

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