“Oh my God, no.” She touched my arm. “I’m so sorry.”
I shook her off. “She’ll make all sorts of insinuations if I bring you up to my room.”
“Insinuations she’s already made?”
“Well, yes.”
“That are actually true.” She moved closer to me and lifted her hand to my cheek. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you I like the thicker scruff.”
I covered her hand with my own. “I didn’t get to shave.”
“Don’t.” She inched up on her tiptoes and rubbed her nose against mine. That move should not have been hot, but it definitely worked for me. Especially when she followed it up with, “I want to feel it between my thighs.”
“Christ. I’m never shaving again.”
She grinned up at me. “One little victory. I liked our room at the bed and breakfast.”
The word our made me itchy between the shoulder blades. And surprisingly happy.
I shouldn’t encourage her to think of us that way.
Shouldn’t encourage myself.
It was just an accident of timing that I was back in this town with her.
That you asked Kellan to meet you at the diner, because she was your first thought.
“We’ll go back under the cover of darkness.” Then again, Sage had been manning the desk at midnight last time. “Super darkness,” I added when Ivy tipped up her head to stare at the star-speckled night sky.
“Whatever you say, LC.” She slipped her arm through mine and I led her over to my rental car. She grinned and patted the roof as if she’d missed it. “Got her back again, huh?”
“Why are all vehicles female?”
“Because they purr when they accelerate.”
“This one d
oes not purr. More like rumbles.”
“Same difference.” The vehicle unlocked and she slid inside the passenger side before I had a chance to grab her door. Then she stuck her tongue out at me.
Shaking my head, I came around to the driver’s side and slipped inside. “Where are we headed? Since you won’t go home.”
“And since Sage is so super scary.”
I arched a brow and waited.
“I know a place. Do a U-turn here and make a left at the blinking light.”
“Uh-uh, you’re not directing me back to the bed and breakfast, ginger fairy. Also, seatbelt.”
She sighed heavily and put it on. “So suspicious. Just trust me.”
I waited for a break in traffic and did as she asked, sliding a look at her when I came to the blinking light. I turned left, cruising past the bed and breakfast.
“Keep going.”
After about five minutes, during which I followed the curving road past increasingly larger and larger homes—some damn near mansions—and a golf course, I finally reached over and pinched her thigh. “Are you leading me into the woods?”