Page 102 of Craving Francesca

“I’m sorry, baby.” It was hard to understand that kind of man. My parents would happily let me park the camper in their yard if it meant they’d see me more. Shit, they hoped Harper would move backinwith them when she finally stopped traveling. “We’re not that far from Arizona. You want to stop by and see him?”

Frankie lifted her head from my chest to meet my eyes.

“We could go to the Grand Canyon.” I sweetened the prospect.

“I didn’t know it would be this way with us,” she said finally, her voice low. “I knew that I wanted you, and I knew that I liked you as a person, but I didn’t realize it would be like this.”

“Like what?” I asked gently. What the hell was going on in that head of hers?

“You—” The word choked off, and she cleared her throat and tried again. “You protect my soft bits. I didn’t even know Ihadsoft bits.”

“Of course I do. Of courseyoudo.”

“No, you don’t get it,” she countered. “You don’t get it because you’ve always had it.”

“Had what?”

“Someone to protect your soft bits,” she whispered. “You grew up with it. I didn’t.”

Her lips trembled before she pressed them firmly together.

“Sorry you didn’t have that,” I said, laying my palm on her back. “Not sorry I did. Just meant that when I got you, I knew how to do it.”

“I’m gonna marry your ass,” she said, dropping her forehead to my chest and thumping it three times before she stilled. “I don’t want to go to Arizona. I just want this to be me and you, okay?”

“Okay, baby.”

I reached out and turned out the lamp. We lay there in the dark for a long time, and I knew she wasn’t sleeping, but I didn’t say anything. Her body was relaxed against mine and her breath was steady against my neck.

“I’m going to be sore as fuck tomorrow, aren’t I?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, you are.” I smiled.

“Shit.”

The next morning, Frankie took a shower so long that I went in to check on her. She’d been trying to loosen the muscles in her back, and she said the hot water helped, but not enough. I rubbed her down with the moisturizer she’d brought, which helped a little bit more. We eventually had brunch at a little café in San Francisco and decided to take it easier for the rest of the week. It took us longer to cover the miles, but neither of us cared. We stopped at fruit stands for snacks, wandered around little towns, checked in early to hotels along the highway and swam or lay in the sun. When she walked out in a little sundress one night, frilly socks sticking out of her boots, I pulled her onto the bed and watched her ride me with the skirt pooling around us.

I’d never had a vacation like that. I’d taken my bike out alone plenty of times, but I’d never spent the time to just do whatever the fuck I felt like wherever the hell I stopped. Frankie was game for anything. She was just happy as fuck to be there, and her attitude was infectious. It made the last leg of the trip harder as we passed familiar landmarks on our way home.

The final time we stopped for gas, as soon as she’d taken off her helmet Frankie pulled out her phone.

“Let’s stay at your place tonight, okay?” she said softly, almost nervously.

“All right.”

“I’m just not ready to go back to reality yet.”

“We’ll grab steaks for the smoker.”

She smiled and lifted the phone to her ear.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said into the phone, still holding my eyes. “We’re almost home.”

She paused. “Not long enough. We’re going to stay at Gray’s tonight, but I’ll be home tomorrow.”

Paused again.

“Do not show up there,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll come back in the morning.”

---