“Yeah, be there in a sec.”
Ren’s knee bounced up and down the entire drive over, his fingers tapping a constant beat on his thigh. I felt for the guy, and his nervous energy rubbed off on me the closer we got to the cornfields. I pulled into a space, guiding the tires over the gravel, and shifting into park.
Ren made no move to get out of the truck, staring into space and rubbing his palms over his thighs instead. Danny leaned forward from the backseat and gripped his shoulders. “Get your ass out there.”
Ren swallowed, cracked his neck, then shoved the door open. The second we passed through the tree line, he stopped dead and palmed his chest. I followed his sightline, and my gaze found the person who’d stolen his attention.
But it was the girl standing next to her who demanded every bit of mine.
Snow Queen.
Fuck me. I locked my knees in place to the sound of my pulse pounding in my temple, somehow muting the noise of a few dozen rowdy teenagers.
Florida had a lot to fucking answer for. Miles upon miles of sun-kissed skin I couldn’t pull away from. My eyes drank her in, inch by gorgeous goddamn inch, and my mouth went dry, tongue sticking to the roof like a lump of clay.
Lissa looked like fucking summer sex on a stick in her denim short shorts with her white-blonde hair falling to her shoulders like a homing beacon. Gorgeous didn’t cover it. She was a level of hot that bordered on dangerous.
And I would fucking know.
An image of her beneath me—lips parted, cheeks flushed—flashed through my head, and I had to reach down to adjust myself. The shit she pulled might have pissed me off, and yeah, I’d admit it had, but not so much that the memory of sliding into her tight pussy didn’t get me hard.
When I turned to Ren and murmured, “Ready?” I wasn’t sure who the fuck I was asking.
He said nothing for a few seconds. “Give me a minute, yeah?”
I dipped my head. “You got it.”
As the words left my mouth, Riley’s head drifted our way, and a smile broke out over my face. I passed Ren a quick look before breaking into a jog and crossing the field, swooping Ri up in a bear hug.
I wouldn’t say I purposely snubbed the skin covered ice sculpture standing next to her.
Wouldn’t say I didn’t either.
“Missed you, Riley-baby,” I said through a grin, lowering her to her feet as I swept my eyes over her and noted the changes a year had made. She’d always been beautiful, and that hadn’t changed, but there was a quiet strength there now that amplified it and helped quell any lingering worry I’d had that she wouldn’t come out the other side of the heartache.
I grinned down at her upturned face. “How’s life been treating you, Ri? You look good.”
My eyes took another slow dip, knowing it would make her blush. And maybe to delay acknowledging the female glowering in my peripheral. I wasn’t petty on a normal day, but what kind of chick completely fucking blew off a guy after a night of hot sex and then acted like he didn’t fucking exist? Especially when the guy in question thought it might have fucking meant something. I took her fucking virginity that night for christ’s sake. She seemed to give exactly zero fucks about that fact. But every time I fucking thought about it, a rush of something primal blasted through me.
I hadn’t expected her to be a virgin. Lissa radiated the kind of confidence that usually came with experience. But thinking back, I probably should have known. She didn’t date, rarely gave any of the guys at Claremont the time of day. Who would she have fucked? Not that it mattered now, but I felt a strange fucking sense of pride knowing I was the first person inside her.
Lissa cleared her throat loudly beside me.
She was ready to talk. Five fucking months later. And apparently, I held some resentment. Who the fuck knew?
I took a slow step back and rammed my hands in the pockets of my jeans before sliding my gaze to Lissa. She shuffled on her feet, eyes darting around in an obvious show of discomfort.
So, she was capable of some fucking emotion, then.
“Liss,” I muttered, my eyes zoning in on hers.
The intention was to force her to face me after the disappearing act she’d pulled, but I hadn’t anticipated the fuck ton of feeling that dumped on me the second our eyes locked, or the riot of emotion swirling in hers, totally at odds with her stiff posture and defensive stance. The girl was a living contradiction. Her breath hitched, and I swallowed hard as tension thickened the air around us while I battled to find my fucking voice.
“How have you been?” I eventually murmured, voice gruff, then I ground my jaw.
How have you fucking been? You fucking kidding me with that shit? Could you sound anymore like Mary fucking Poppins?
“Good.” She nodded stiffly, redirecting her gaze around the field with another shaky intake of breath. “You?”