Page 38 of Bump and Run
“We should take one of us with the sunrise.”
He chuckled softly and helped me climb to my feet, then spun me around to tuck me against him.
“You’re going to outshine the sunrise, Bashful,” he whispered into my ear.
Warmth grew inside my belly and goosebumps broke out over my skin. I barely managed to take the picture and not drop my phone in the sand.
“You’re more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen before.” His lips brushed the back of my neck.
I twisted my body around to face him. “You can’t say things like that.” I gripped the front of Charlie’s shirt with my free hand.
“You mean the truth? Take another picture of us.” He brushed his lips over mine.
I swallowed nervously as I raised my arm. “Like this?”
“Yeah, Bashful, just like this.”
When I did, Charlie made sure to kiss me, his tongue meeting mine in a hot, wet slide, and I didn’t care aboutanything else. It was just him, us, and the sounds of the beach as the world began to wake up around us.
I beamed up at him as he pulled away, his blue eyes shiny and full of lust as Charlie dragged his thumb across my jaw. “Make sure to tag me in it when you post it.”
“Are we friends now?”
“Jonesy, I think we talked about this already.”
I stepped up onto my toes. “No, I mean on Insta or Facebook or whatever.” I hadn’t accepted any requests from Charlie or gotten any new followers.
“Did I not...” He untangled himself from me to grab his phone from inside his sneaker on the blanket. He unlocked it and then my phone dinged as requests came through.
I met his heated gaze. “What about your daddy?”
“What about him?” Charlie asked as he began to scroll through his socials. “Jones, look at you. How old were you here?” He was looking at a picture of me with Ollie and Travis after my first race win.
I blushed at how young and awkward I was. “Twelve, I think.” I nudged his arm. “Are you friends with your family on here? Won’t they question things?”
“I don’t care.” Charlie shoved his phone into his back pocket. “What about you? Your mother, any family members you might be worried about?” He grabbed my hips to yank me against him.
“Mama doesn’t like social media,” I told him as I slid my hands up his chest and hooked them behind his neck. “I don’t have any other family. After she got pregnant, they all disowned her, so she moved to North Carolina.”
Charlie’s eyes grew soft. “I’m sorry. People are assholes.”
“They are, but Mama raised me good. I never wanted anything, and I like my life here. If things had been different, if she had stayed or married my daddy, I wouldn’t have met you.” I leaned my head against his chest and listened to the sound of his beating heart.
Charlie traced patterns into my skin through my shirt. “Thank fuck for that.”
We stayed like that for what felt like forever. Just holding one another on the beach until Ollie and Travis came racing down to find us, both complaining about being hungover and needing coffee and food. I pretended not to notice the hickeys on Ollie’s neck, and Charlie promised to take everyone out to breakfast once we straightened up the house.
I felt happier than I had ever been in my entire life.
Chapter Seventeen
Charlie
A couple of days later, I let Jones borrow my Jeep so he could drive it down to Charlotte for his meeting with Henry Richardson. I had offered to drive him there, but he thought it wouldn’t look professional enough, and he was probably right. The night before, I took him out to buy a suit, which he was hesitant about letting me do, but after assuring him he could pay me back one day, Jones relaxed and let me spoil him a bit. With the suit, a fresh haircut, and my Jeep, he looked sexy as fucking hell. Not to mention like a million bucks. My Jones was going to come back to me this afternoon with a contract to drive for Henry Richardson. I could feel it in my bones.
Jones had started sleeping at my house every night. He got away with it by telling his mother he was with Ollie and Travis, who were also hanging out with us. It was a good cover, and my insecurities over Ollie had subsided now that I thought he was seeing someone. Besides, if they were Jones’s best friends, I needed to make sure we all got along. That they trusted me.
“So...” Ollie tapped his fingers on the table as we sat around the kitchen. “What should we do while we wait?”
