Page 41 of Puck Block

“Why did you steal me away? I thought you weren’t going to interfere.”

A rough swallow works itself down my throat as I try to come up with a good excuse. “You don’t seem mad about it.”

She scoffs lightly to conceal the truth, but it doesn’t work. All I can think about is how cute she looks in my cowboy hat.

“Were youjealous, Ford?” She’s teasing me, and typically, I’d tease her back, but her flirty smile and glittering blue eyes do something wild to me.

“I wouldn’t say I feel jealous when I see you with another guy,” I answer truthfully because I know how it feels to bejealous, but I’ve moved past jealousy when it comes to her. I feel something much more dangerous.

My arm tightens against her lower back as I creep my other hand up her body and cup her warm cheek. There’s fire in my veins with our close proximity. There’s no one around that can bring me back to reality and remind me that she’s Emory’s little sister and the daughter of two people that I owe most of my life to. Taytum is gasoline to me, and I've never burned the way I burn with her.

“Then what would you say you feel? Because that was totally something an ex-boyfriend would do. Not my brother’s best friend who swore he would help me get laid.”

I grip her face a little tighter, and her blonde hair gets trapped beneath my fingers. The word flows out of my mouth without restraint. “Possessive.”

The air shifts around us. Taytum jolts in my grip from my truth, and the little grin that she was wearing a few seconds ago disappears when she registers what I just said.

“I feelsofucking possessive when it comes to you.”

Fuck. Shut up.

I’m not drunk, but I’m speaking the truth like I am.

“Possessive…” She toys around with the word a few times, and I hate myself for letting it slip.

“It’s hard to let someone kiss these lips.” I lift my thumb and rub the soft skin. My hand has a mind of its own, and I’m trying to lock my muscles so I stop giving away all my dirty little secrets, but Taytum is pulling them out of me one by one with the unexpected surprise I can see swimming behind her baby blues.

Shit. I have to fix this.

“Stop looking at me like that,Belle.”I wink and hope, for both of our sakes, that she buys my act of pretending I’m in character and that this is all a little game.

Taytum blinks a couple times, and I see the realization click.

“Are you still playing the game?” I ask.

She looks away, and I wait with a breath trapped in my chest. There is a part of me that wants to take back everything I just said if she, even for a second, thinks that it’s true, but the other part of me wants her to keep playing the game just so we can take it a step further.

“Walker.”

I pause. “What?”

“You said you’ll be anyone I want you to be, so your name is Walker.” Taytum’s warm fingers snap onto my wrist, and she pulls my arm snug around her slim waist. She pushes us back together like that’s where we belong. “I’m Belle. And you’re Walker.”

Relief settles onto my shoulders, and although the plan was in the back of my head the entire night, the moment I saw her in those boots, I knew I was going to regret this night come tomorrow morning.

But still, I run with it.

“Okay, Belle.” My voice is strained, and my hands itch to touch parts of her body that I refuse to let myself fantasize about. “Then, what’s next? You have me. What are you going to do with me?”

Taytum parts her lips. I zero in on her bow-shaped mouth and nearly buckle at the knees when she smiles.

“A friend once told me to take what I want, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

[ 19 ]

TAYTUM

I’ll never admitit out loud, but for a split second, I forgot the real reason Ford brought me to a bar several towns over from Bexley U. We’re here to hone my dating skills, because if I were to be graded on it, I’d get an F.

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