Bella shot him an I told you so look after they traveled down the road, past a farmhouse, then another, and another, eventually ending up near a copse of trees and a tumbling down farmhouse that was probably a century old.
“This is good?” There was an ancient dirt road that ran past the house. The road was deserted for miles around, the last farm they’d passed at least ten minutes away. There were no lights in any direction. The night was incredibly still and silent after the noise of the vehicle died away. Dust motes undulated in the headlight’s beams until the auto function finally cut out and they were plunged into darkness.
“I guess it’s as good as anywhere.”
Rhett shifted. He unbuckled his seatbelt and tried to find a comfortable position. It was made harder by the fact that the rental was a pretty tiny sedan and he wasn’t exactly a compact human. “It’s actually pretty romantic.” He paused and nearly blushed at the way his words came out. “I can almost hear the crickets. At least it’s a nice night.” Okay, that was equally as stupid sounding.
Bella’s eyes finally swept to his face. Her incredibly kissable, utterly delicious lips were parted just a fraction. Her eyes were wide and dark and glistening, her skin pale and flawless in the small glow of light the moon provided. The nearby trees sent dappled shadows racing over and across the car. That crazy static energy filled up the car and Rhett nearly groaned as he felt it sweep through his bloodstream. His skin prickled.
He might have been drunk the first time, but he remembered every single detail.
Every single vivid detail.
“So- um…” Bella blinked. “We’re really going to do this, in the backseat of the car, like a pair of horny teenagers who’ve been told by their parents that they have to remain virgins until they get married at the age of thirty, produce two point two kids, have a cat and a dog and a brand new vehicle every other year, and oh, a white picket fence?”
Rhett grinned because Bella smiled to soften her overly sarcastic words. He liked that she was witty and had that dry sense of humor. He freaking liked it a lot.
A whole lot of places that were already throbbing like hell, throbbed a hell of a lot harder. The summer night was warm and sultry and that’s what the inside of the car felt like. Hot. Sticky. Chaffing. In an incredibly undeniable sexual way of course.
“We could do like I said and go explore the house.”
“That house?” Bella’s forehead wrinkled incredulously. “That house looks like it’s going to fall down if a hard wind kicks up. The roof is half caved in.”
“You’re right. It looks pretty bad.”
“And that’s really gross. It’s probably infested with rodents and raccoons or home to a fucking bear or something. We’d likely get eaten.”
“By the hordes of mice?”
“Definitely. One mouse is enough. If they bite you, they’re full of disease. Their poop and pee are really bad to inhale too. They can give you Hantavirus.”
“That sounds made up.”
“It’s not. I swear.”
“Good to know.”
Bella blinked. “You’ve obviously lived in the city your whole life. Didn’t you ever go camping as a kid?”
Rhett swallowed hard. He debated about throwing something sarcastic and witty back at her, but instead, he opted for the truth. Which was surprising given that he never really talked about any of that with anyone. Including Sarah. In hindsight, that really wasn’t all that shocking.
“Actually, I didn’t go camping much as a kid. My mom raised me. She was by herself. We didn’t have a lot of money. She couldn’t afford to send me to camp or take me anywhere really. She did what she could though. We made tents in the living room and forts out of boxes and everything. I didn’t really feel like I was missing out.” A heavy loaded silence settled over the car. Rhett expected Bella to say something soft and sentimental and meaningful, given that her face had changed, but instead she shook off the look that was so close to pity it made his stomach hurt, and offered him another sarcastic beautiful grin.
“And so when you got rich, which you obviously did, given that my sister was with you and all, free riding your ass- er- maybe other things too- okay, maybe that’s inappropriate but you probably bought your mom a huge house with all the fancy trimmings, a brand new car, and took her on a five-star vacation for a month to some exotic locale, which was a hell of a lot cooler than any camping trip and certainly didn’t include things like Hantavirus and mice.”
Rhett couldn’t help it. He laughed. He laughed so hard his shoulders shook and his eyes teared up and his stomach muscles hurt. Other things hurt too, but he pointedly ignored those. “I guess that I did,” he admitted. “Pretty much all of those things. She deserved it. She worked hard, incredibly hard, to support us. Always had to put up with me too.”