Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,67
token argument to pay the bill?" I asked when he scanned the paper tucked discreetly into a black folder.
With a lazy lift of one eyebrow, he acted like he was going to hand it to me, and we both laughed when I hesitated.
"Thank you for dinner," I told him after the server whisked the bill away with his heavy black credit card. "I would've paid but …"
"But you don't have a job," he supplied.
I sighed, leaning into his warmth. "I don't have a job. Too bad the city of Green Valley isn't in the market for a freelance photographer."
"I think you could make a job like that, if you wanted to." His hands swept gently back and forth. "All the sides of this small town would be pretty fascinating, captured from your viewpoint. I saw you snapping Maxine today when she wasn't looking."
“You sound like my Aunt Fran,” I told him. My nose crinkled. "I’m just playing around. Sometimes it feels like I don't see things correctly if I'm not trying to capture them on film."
I said the words flippantly, but deep down, I knew that Aunt Fran’s suggestion had taken root, found a foothold in my imagination, until all I could imagine was a hardcover book with glossy pages, filled with my photographs. Mountains and trees, plastic diner booths filled with lifelong friends, freshly made doughnuts on simple plates, wrinkled hands picking them up. Smiles and laughter, a simplified way of life that I’d never be able to capture outside of a small town.
Black and white, framed against stark pages. Maybe a short title for each one, but that was it.
Images that could speak for themselves, the way all good art did.
If the artist captured something powerful, something tangible, you shouldn’t have to explain it to the viewer. That thing should be able to stand on its own. And I wanted that for my art.
"Did you do anything with those shots you took of me last night?"
I hummed. The look on his face in those shots was more delicious than a single ounce of the chocolate confection I'd just inhaled. "They're locked away for my own personal use, if you want the truth."
My admission ratcheted the heat in his face. "Yeah?" His voice was rough, and his fingers tightened. A reflex.
I shifted closer.
I nodded, lifting my chin so I could speak against his mouth and breathe his air into my lungs. "Can we take more? Just for me. And some just for you."
The server returned just as Tucker sank his lips against mine, and we broke apart.
The drive home was interminably long, his hands roaming my leg and my fingers tightening painfully around his when he tried to move them up my thigh.
By the time he pulled into Aunt Fran and Uncle Robert's driveway, I was practically panting.
He shoved the gear shift into park and tugged me into his lap. My mouth devoured his, tongues licking, teeth hitting against each other, lips bruising in their force, and it wasn't enough. Not even close.
His hands slid up the length of my upper thigh as I rocked over him, and they trembled when he pushed underneath the black lace underwear I wore, filling his palms with the flesh of my backside.
"Tucker," I begged. For something. Anything.
"I know, Pretty Girl, I hurt too." He took my mouth again with a growl, and for a moment, I was afraid my underwear would disintegrate from the force of the way he was grabbing at me. I wanted it to. I wanted it gone. Away. Its existence banished.
No more underwear when in the presence of Tucker Haywood.
I found a rhythm, and so did he, harsh pants of breath mingled as I started the most delicious unraveling of pressure. I felt it uncoiling, something big, bigger than I was ready for.
That's when the porch light flipped on.
"Nooooo," I moaned.
"Damn it," Tucker muttered under his breath, which came out against my shoulder in violent exhalations.
My stupid, stupid, about-to-be-dead brother appeared on the front porch, waving jovially, like he hadn't just interrupted the first non-self-induced orgasm that I was experiencing in the last three years. He was lucky I didn't murder him, honestly.
I slid off Tucker's lap when Grady started ambling over to the truck. Tucker leaned forward and covered his lap with one hand. I stifled a giggle at how uncomfortable he looked when he rolled down the drivers' side window.
"Grady," he said with a tight smile.
My brother grinned, the unrepentant asshole. "Tucker, fancy seeing you here."