Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,73

about that with each person that looked through me with a blank expression, not a single flicker of recognition.

I liked the ebb and flow of Green Valley, but whether it liked me was a different matter entirely.

One person, a little old man wearing a green plaid shirt and a John Deere hat, hunched over on a bench in front of the MMA studio, lifted a crunched-up, arthritic hand in my direction, and I gave him a sunny smile. See? He liked me.

Then his hand moved up to his hat so that he could shuffle it on his head, and I slumped dejectedly in my seat.

Tucker flipped on his right turn signal, for my benefit, no doubt, and I followed as he left the downtown area. The houses got a little farther apart, and the trees filled in along the streets. I caught a glimpse of the Smokies as the road curved, and the tree-tipped mountains made me smile.

His truck slowed, then he pulled it into a dirt driveway that ended at a small white house connected to a two-stall garage by a breezeway, something that had gone by the wayside somewhere around the eighties.

It was clean and simple, no frilly landscaping, with shiny black shutters and a red front door. The lawn was short and lush and well-tended, and the backyard was all trees. He waved me into the empty garage stall, and I sighed as I pulled my car in. Maybe next time I'd dress as a ninja and paint my face, sneak in under the cover of darkness.

He was stretching next to his truck when I got out. On the drive over, he'd unbuttoned his dress shirt and yanked off his dark blue tie, and my brief frustration at the necessity of hiding my vehicle fled at the sight of the sliver of skin on his chest.

It was slightly tan and the crisp hair stretching over his skin was the same shade of brown on his head. I wanted to press my nose in it and inhale. Everything about him always smelled so good, clean and masculine, and I could only imagine that that one patch of skin would be the same.

"I like your house," I told him, doing exactly what I imagined, dropping a kiss right in that opening of the unbuttoned shirt.

He slid a hand over my hair and wrapped me in a hug. "The inside is a mess, so enjoy it while you can."

I snorted. "I don't think you could be messy if you tried, Tucker."

"You're probably right about that." His knuckles brushed along the skin on my shoulders.

Burrowing my face into him, I couldn't stop the sigh that escaped my lips. I'd never been around a man that was this unafraid of affection. He sought it out, if anything. I wondered, as he held me so close, if he felt as starved for it as I did. It made me sad for him, because at least I'd been single and missing this kind of closeness with someone.

Tucker hadn't been alone, and I couldn't imagine anything worse than feeling lonely when you were in a relationship.

"Are you going to show me in the inside, or are we going to hug it out in your front yard all night?"

His chest vibrated with laughter, and I loved the way it felt under my skin. He held my hand, our fingers woven together, as we walked through the garage and into the breezeway. He hit a button on the wall and the garage door slowly unfolded with a squeak and the grind of metal wheels, effectively hiding my presence from the world. I didn’t want to be hidden, and as the sight of my car disappeared, I fought against a brief moment of sadness that we didn’t have much of a choice.

The garage door shut and closed to the light of day flipped a different switch entirely. We were alone, really, truly alone for the very first time.

A burst of bright nerves erupted, wings beating furiously against my insides.

Was it like this for everyone? It had to be.

My heart was inextricably tied with his now, and we'd barely done more than kiss, a little dry humping, some over the clothes fondling. How much bigger could my feelings for him get, once I knew was it like to be with him?

Tucker started telling me things about the house, something about windows and renovations and I could barely hear his voice over the unrelenting buzz of my thoughts. Sex had