Bursting out laughing, I hooked an arm around her back and brought her closer to me, tipping my chin down to watch her expression when her stomach pressed against mine. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fucking elated when her eyes flared at the contact.

“Yeah, pretty girl, we get ball sweat. Can you imagine wearing everything I wear for work in the sun? That’s why I try and shower as soon as I get in. Plus, I can never tell what I’ve got on me, so I like to get it off with as much soap as possible.”

“You do go through a lot of soap,” she murmured, looking to the side. “I’ve never known anyone to go through as much as you do.”

“Just shows how clean I am,” I shrugged. “Plus, I’ll bet you washed your boob sweat off as soon as you could.”

Her upper lip curled up at this. “Of course I did. Hell, I’m thinking of buying those deodorizing wipes you can get just to deal with it during the summer. I’ll bet the companies that make them could be kept rich just by people in Texas alone.”

“Nothing beats a shower, though.”

“Amen,” she nodded. “What time’s our reservation?”

Looking at my watch, I held my arm out for her. “In twenty minutes, so we should probably leave. I’ve locked up and fed Clyde, so he’ll be good while we’re out. All we have to do is set the alarm, and then we’re good to go.”

We were both quiet on the way to the restaurant, giving me time to think through some more stuff.

I wanted to keep the shit with Gjorka off her plate unless she needed to know or until I had something substantial to tell her. DB and Alex had agreed with this plan, so I wasn’t just me being an overprotective asshole, which made me feel easier about it. If someone came at you with a thousand what-ifs—which was what we had right now—it would make you panic and be anxious. However, if someone came to you with solid proof and information, you can make informed decisions. She knew to be vigilant, and she knew to be careful, she knew all of the things we’d told her to do for her own good, and that’s all there was to know right now.

I also was thinking about what she’d said before we’d left. She’d said she was thinking about buying deodorizing wipes to deal with boob sweat during the summer. We were almost at the end of summer now, which meant she intended to still be here for another summer, right? That meant she might want to settle down here. If that was the case, I wonder how she’d feel about a plan I’d been looking into since I left the military.

We were five minutes away from Klein’s when I brought it up.

“You know, I was thinking about what to do house wise here. I’ve been living in Raoul’s place since I moved here, but I kind of want to own my own.”

“Sounds like a solid plan, honey. You want a place to call your own, so have a look and see if you can find one.”

It wasn’t quite as simple as she was making out.

“Okay, you can call me an asshole, but I don’t like any of the properties here. I’m not huge on the ranch-style or anything like that, and while I was in the Air Force, one of the guys I was with was looking at those prefabricated kit houses you can get. There’s a company that supplies them, and then they build it all up, and you can add stuff onto it. I kind of fell in love with the idea of doing it so that I had a house that was exactly what I wanted.” Reaching across the center console, I picked her hand up and brought it onto my thigh. “Have you ever seen them?”

Her thumb was rubbing small circles on the fabric of my slacks, but I swear it felt like there wasn’t any material blocking her from my skin.

“I think I saw something about them on one of those home build programs. I remember thinking how cool the end result looked.”

As I turned to park in front of the restaurant, I took a moment to grow some nuts and just say what I wanted to.

So, when I cut the engine, I picked her hand up and held it against my chest as I turned to face her. “There’s a plot of land about ten minutes away from where your house is now. It’s beautiful and has a small stream at the end of it. How would you feel about looking at it and some designs of houses with me?”

Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and in the light from the dash, I saw her struggling not to smile. “Is that where you see us at this moment?”

Tags: Mary B. Moore Cheap Thrills Romance
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