Page 44 of Dahlia Made A List

Not to mention, she’d made a no-sex promise to herself. What kind of friend would I be to derail her?

I cupped her cheek, rubbed my thumb over the corner of her mouth. Her lips parted, a soundless whisper of my name.

Heat, arousal, need, excitement.

A reckless kaleidoscope of desire firing through me.

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to suck her bottom lip between mine, taste the wetness of her mouth. I wanted her to want to kiss me again and for the fuckin’ phone not to ring. I wanted to know what would happen if she pushed her list aside and explored what we could do together.

My pulse turned into a heavy beat, thick and loud in my ears. My breath sounded like a locomotive powering in and out of my body. And still, I kept my gaze on her face.

I bent my head to take the kiss she was offering.

“Dahlia!”

I blinked, knocked out of the moment by the sound of her name being called out of the crowd. My hand closed around her upper arm again as I swung toward the voice. She tugged until her back pressed to my front, unwilling to relinquish any more space.

Then a woman broke from the crowd, a smile wreathing her face, an older woman and dog at her side. I recognized her from Grams’s sex book club.

“Dahlia, be a doll and grab an extra stick of cotton candy for my mother, would you?” The woman pointed to the cart at the front of our line.

“A pink one?” The older woman fumbled in her purse a moment then passed Dahlia a five dollar bill.

“Sure, Vida’s Mom” she said, a little too loudly. “I can do that.”

She glanced back at me, beyond me to the others in line, but no one seemed to be paying us any attention. She seemed confused, as though dazed and I couldn’t say I blamed her. I’d been a breath away from kissing her and the interruption stung.

“Were you ever able to make a reservation at the yurt Mom spied on?”

Dahlia lit up. “Yes, I sure did. I’ll be spending the night there in a couple of weeks, as a matter of fact. He called me just today to confirm my reservation. Told me I was getting the ‘Local’s Preference Package’. Super sweet of him.”

I shifted, my chest rubbing against her back and she shot another look over her shoulder.

Her blue eyes sparked up at me, a question in her cocked brow. “You remember the yurt? From my list?”

Her hints clicked. “Naked guy?”

Vida’s mother gasped while Vida slapped the back of her hand against Dahlia’s forearm, her lips rolled in an effort to tame her laughter. “You’re not supposed to tell outsiders what happens at the Shameless Readers meetings, Dahlia. It breaks girl code.”

“He was there that night, anyway. Eating in the kitchen, remember?” She tilted her head. “And besides, I don’t think we can have a ‘girl code’ with Alex and Cillian there.”

“We try. They try their hardest to resist.”

We’d reached the head of the line and Dahlia ordered the spun sugar, but I pushed her money aside and paid for one for each of us. Once they had their treat, though, Vida and her mom disappeared back into the crowd.

I nudged us into the line for hamburgers while she picked pieces of fluffy purple candy off the cloud on a stick.

“What’s this about spending the night in a yurt?”

“It’s on my list.”

The list I was ready to destroy if it meant getting her naked.

Chapter Fifteen

Wyatt

J.T.Pendletonsatatthe head of the table like some bent over relic from Medieval Times. Any minute now, serving wenches would appear from the kitchens with greasy chicken quarters served on fake wooden trenchers instead of the bone china Uncle J.T. reserved for his special guests.

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